Fiction: Group 3
Escape
Harrow International School Hong Kong, Ying, Amberly - 13, Fiction: Group 3
he roof shook as thunder and lightning collided with each other. The rain pitter-pattered against
the corrugated roof of the dismal factory on the outskirts of Guang Dong, over-looking the Pearl
River Delta. Xian Zhong wiped the sweat off her brow, even though the weather conditions that
day were described as chilly. The factory manager that day, had barked out orders for an extra shipment of
toys in time for the holiday rush, or else Xian Zhong and the other workers would be punished severely for
“lack of work done”.
Xian Zhong yelped at the sudden stab of pain in her left thumb. She looked down and witnessed droplets of
blood slowly dripping to the floor, staining it red. She looked for the cause of pain and saw, a sewing needle
lying on the floor covered in blood. Xian Zhong had been working for 6 hours that day, sewing the eyes of
the teddy bear to its body. It was tiring work and only paid minimum wage, but it supported her family
enough to barely afford food, let alone drink.
The air was damp with sweat, the floor mussed with pee and blood from those who were new to the factory
and just couldn’t hold it in, and handle the immense pressure of manufacturing the teddy bears in time for
the holiday rush. The factory was said to be owned by a mysterious man, who visited every weekend, at
least what they thought was a weekend, it was hard to keep track of time in that factory.
He was rumoured to be a powerful drug lord in that part of the province, however, it was never proved
since he never showed his face to the workers or anyone in the factory, not even the factory manager. It was
once rumoured that a worker had accidently cut open one teddy bear and found, hidden in the white fluff
of the teddy bear, a small air tight white brick inside. The last they remembered of that man was him being
dragged, kicking and screaming from the worker’s hall, into the manager’s office.
He never emerged again, except for a big black duffel bag 2 men were clutching several hours later. Xian
Zhong was a curious girl for her age,(14) she always liked to discover things along the river next to her
school, until she was pulled out because expenses were too high and her family just couldn’t support her, so
instead, she chose to work in the factory, barely getting to go home and spend time with her family, who
was the main reason she had worked in the factory anyways.
Even though she was a curious girl under certain circumstances, she knew not, to snoop around in that
particular factory, for fear of getting caught, or even worse, punished.
As she crouched down to retrieve the cause of her pain, the bloody needle, she saw 3 men with guns, march
out of the office, carrying a duffel bag full of teddy bears. “That’s odd!”, thought Xian Zhong, the teddy
bears (shipments) were normally transported from the loading docks, in big trucks to who knows where?
They never usually moved such a small amount of teddy bears from the factory. And then, something red
and paper-like fluttered to the ground from an open crack in the bag, Xian Zhong’s heart skipped a beat. It
was a 20 dollar note.
Xian Zhong would’ve had to work 8 hours for a full week to earn that kind of money! Her consciousness
told her not to take it, but her heart told her otherwise. She needed that money to buy medicine for her
little brother who had had a high fever the other day, but her consciousness told her that it was wrong to
steal money, even from such abusive and evil people.
As she contemplated her dilemma, the rain continued to pound hard against the roof, little drops of water
dripping on the floor. Finally, after what felt like hours but could’ve been seconds, her mind had made a
final decision. She stealthily crawled her way to the spot that the note lay, and picked it up, clutching it to
her chest, and crawled back to her work station. She breathed a sigh of relief when she apparently got there
without being caught.
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