Chinese story

The Escape

My eyes open to hear my mom screaming and crying. I get up fast and run to her room, there I see my 7 year old little brother Sung Antian sobbing, tied up on the floor. Everything is going so fast in my mind and I feel like I can barely breath. I rush to my living room to find my mom is being held on the floor by a mysterious man.

The man holds her until she can't breath and falls asleep. He gets up and starts to walk towards me. The man puts his big hand over my mouth and throws me over his shoulder, I try to scream but it's muffled. He runs toward the docks while I'm on his shoulder bouncing up down. It's dark so I can't see very well but I can hear the waves crashing against a ship.

I feel a sharp pain in my back as I hear a bang, I look up and see sails. I can hear a rat squealing and sniffing around my head. I try to get up but my back hurts. I lay there in pain until I fall asleep.

When I wake up all I see are the dark blue waves crashing against each other all around. Every direction I look I see blue, and it smells like fish. A barrel gets set down in front of me and a big man with a gold tooth sits on it. He looks like a walking brick of gold because of all the bright yellow jewelry he has. His beard and face are thick and dirty, he has a scar across his eye, and his smell makes me want to vomit.

He squints at me for a while then says, “ I'm captain Jack and this is my ship, my boys took you because of your fathers little gambling problem. Now let's see how he reacts when we take his son for not paying up! We will have to see when we get back because now we are off to trade you and the other slaves in Africa. We'll I'm hungry so go to the kitchen with the other slaves and cook me and the crew some food.”

Another man comes up behind me and grabs my arm. He leads me down some stairs and into a room, “ Cook!” He says pushing me into the room.

I look up and see a girl putting her arm out to help me. I grab her hand and get up, “ My name is Hua Shang, that means “flower” she says. A boy across the room says “And my name is Hai Dung, that's means “sea”. “Hua and I are both 13, how about you?” I look around and eventually say “ I'm 13 too and my name is Li Antian.” “ Where am I?!” I say about to cry. “ We are slaves now and our job is to clean and cook while they sail to Africa to trade us.”

Before I can say anything else another man come down stairs and asks if dinner is ready. Hai says yes and gives him a huge plate full of different fish and rice. He leaves the room and shuts the door. Hua comes closer to me and whispers “ Here's our plan.” She pulls out a piece of folded up paper, I grab it and read it. The top of it says the escape plan and then there's steps. 1. Wait until we get to Africa 2. Go to the hiding spot 3. Wait until we go back to China 4. Sneak out of the ship and go home.

“ What is the hiding spot?” I ask. “ Follow us,” Hua whispers and starts walking down some more steps. We walk into a small room with two big beds against each other. The sheets are a faded green and they’re torn. She climbs onto the bed and opens some cabinets, she get in it and crawls away inside it. They had stored enough food, water, blankets, and even little games.

Time goes by really fast and I get to know them really well. For months we cleaned and cooked all day until we slept. 5 months have passed and we finally hit land.

We rushed down to the set of stairs and climbed on the bed. Hua opens the cabinets and we all start crawling in one by one and then I shut the cabinets and locked them.

After a while when we get inside I start hearing yelling and it’s our names getting that are screamed. “ We’ll be fine, that's why Hai built the lock and plus they're too big to fit in here to get us.” I pray to Buddha and hope they don't find us. Then I see Hua wonder what Confucius would do if he was in this position until she calms down.

It’s like I've spent years in this box after a few days.

It's dark out now and I feel hungry. I'm the only one awake so I reach for a rice ball. I hesitate because I see that there's only two left. I wake the others up and say, “ We need to get more food.”

We agree to go out to the storage room. When we get outside a cold breeze slaps my face and I shiver.

“ IT'S YOU GUYS!” a man says pointing at us. On the back of his clothes he had strange calligraphic styles that I think means death. “ Where have you been?” He says. The man grabs a sword out of his side and point it at us. “ Let's go tell Captain Jack you're here!” He yells. Hai runs toward him and stomps on his foot and the man squints and gets furious. He lets go of his sword and pushes Hai overboard.

I feel like my heart stopped pounding for a moment. I feel fear and anger all over me. I rush towards him and tackle him. I fall to the ground and hit my nose on the sharp Chinese architectural design, but he goes overboard and I hear a slap in the water. When I look over I see them struggling to swim in the freezing water, then they stop moving and float away. I see his Giant panda drawing wrinkle up in the water and dissolve slowly. He was going to give it to his mom because it only lives in China and rare to see.

I sit down and start to cry with Hua. We cried for very little then we get to the storage. We grab all the food we could carry and snuck to the hiding spot.

The next day the crew noticed that the man was gone. After 3 months and 2 weeks, we hit land. We wait until the men have gotten off the ship and then we sneak out. We walked hours in my town until we get to my home. I knock and my 7 year old brother opens the door along with my mom. They look shocked to see me. We run and hug each other then start to cry. After a while of hugging and sobbing I introduce them to Hua.

Hua stays at my house because she has no family. My father passed while I was gone. I talked to guards and family about what happened while I was gone. The men that kidnapped us were caught and sentenced to death.