Fiction: Group 3
Xian Zhong tucked the note into her hassled pocket, and continued to work. Several hours later, she had
reached her breaking point of tiredness, and dropped the needle without realizing. When she had got her
bearings again, she realized with sudden horror that the needle had caught on a thread in the teddy bear, and
couldn’t be pulled out. She pulled, and pulled, and pulled but to no avail. Xian Zhong gave one final tug,
when RIIIPP, the stomach of the teddy bear split open. Her voice got stuck in her throat, her blood ran
cold, her feet rooted to the ground.
Xian Zhong cautiously looked around and nearly sighed with relief that no one had noticed her little
blunder. The girl could see a little corner of plastic sticking out of all that fluff, and tilted her head with
confusion. Xian Zhong picked apart the fluff and glimpsed with horror, at a small, white, air-tight brick
hidden in the mound of fluff.
Xian Zhong started to panic, as she remembered what had “supposedly’ once happened to a worker who
had discovered such a thing. Her first thought was to patch the teddy bear up, and continue on as she had,
without ever knowing there were little bricks of cocaine smuggled in the teddy bears, but her mind got the
better of her.
“I should go to the police, hand in the evidence, and get the reward in a fair way!”, thought Xian Zhong.
The gears in her head started to turn, and with dawning realization, she knew that she had to do the right
thing, and hand in the evidence to the police.
“How on earth am I going to get out?”, contemplated Xian Zhong. 4 guard dogs in the north, west, south,
and east side of the compound guarded the whole area/ factory. There were always guards patrolling the
compound, with AK47’s, and top of the line electric wiring/ fence system. The workers had always
wondered why such a low profile factory would need to be guarded that heavily, when it was only a factory
that produced teddy bears.
It would be near impossible to escape un-scathed. Some people might ponder to just normally walk out
when Xian Zhong’s shift ended, but little did they know, that not ONLY was the factory guarded, the
workers were searched extremely thoroughly after the end of each shift. They were prodded, probed, and
poked. There was no way Xian Zhong could’ve smuggled out the teddy bear.
And, all of a sudden, Xian Zhong had a flash of inspiration, she could crawl under the fence and jump into
the river! She would need some fence cutters, but she could just steal them from the shed. Xian Zhong
whipped her head back at a sudden lash of noise. Several workers were crowded around a workstation,
guards were suspiciously creeping forward, now was her chance, she didn’t care what had happened, this
was her chance.
She hurriedly tip toed to the exit, then burst into fresh air, well, at least fresh compared to the damp, stinky
air of the factory, In fact, the air was thick with pollution and smoke, mingling with a smell of decay and
fish. The river rushed white and green in the current, rapidly lapping up against the shore, slowly eroding
away the dirt and rock.
Xian Zhong wasn’t safe yet, she was still trapped by electrical wiring and the guards patrolling the front of
the factory, the shed was to her left when, all of the sudden, she felt her feet get damp with something
sticky. She chanced a glance and looked down, and to her dismay and disgust, there was slimy, white, drool
dripping down her shoe, well, what was left of her shoe. Xian Zhong’s family couldn’t afford enough to buy
her new shoes, and her brother had gotten sick, so of course her shoes would go to the bottom of her
family’s priorities, perhaps forgotten.
Xian Zhong felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, goose bumps started to prickle on her arms, her
back stood ram-rod straight. There was a low growling sound emitting from the corner to her right. She
turned and came face to face with a Doberman, foam gushing out of the side of its mouth. The fur on the
back of its body prickled up, its body transformed into a crouching position, ready to attack.
