Young Writers Society

I had to write this for school. By the way it's about me.

A 12 year old boy named Ender got up from a rock, stretching his arms and his legs, and slowly opened his eyes. His clothes were ripped and dirty because he had passed out in the dirt and rocks and fallen asleep. Ender blinked a few times, looking around. “W-what the? Where am I?”

Ender stared at the immense Great Wall. He was in China, in 1206 A.D. How had that number popped into his head? He looked at the wall again. Chinese soldiers wearing armor fashioned from steel, a rather new Chinese technology, patrolled up and down the Wall, walking the length of the enormously long fortress-wall that stretched , thousands of miles. Ender hopped up from a rock onto the wall. The soldiers barely noticed him, rather used to peasant boys exploring along the wall. He strolled up to the edge of the wall, staring as far as he could into the miles of rolling green.. He squinted. What was that in the distance?

He squinted as hard as he could, practically squeezing his dark brown eyes shut. He saw it clearly again, tiny brown figures running in his direction, some riding horses. What was he to do? Who were they? He turned to a Chinese guard walking past him. “Look!” he said in Chinese.

Remembering the Chinese lessons that his mother had forced him to take, he said “Look!” again and pointed towards the approaching figures.

The guard stared over the wall at the nearing figures. He said in perfect Chinese, “You. Boy. Stay here. I will inform the other guards of the attack. Tell me if something happenns.” then quickly walked away, his steel armor clanking.

Ender started after him, then backed away, remembering his orders. But what did the guard mean by an attack? He quietly thought to himself, occasionally staring out at the approaching army. He now saw there were much more of them then he had originally thought, and they were closing on the wall fast. He ran after the soldier as fast as he could, shouting in broken Chinese, “Quick! Quick! They are attacking! Soldiers attacking the wall!”

The Chinese guards patrolling the wall followed him, looking in the direction of Ender’s frantic pointing. Chinese soldiers poured out of the wall, some carrying crossbows, and some wielding steel swords, shouting things to each other in Chinese. He heard the word “Mongols” several times. The archers loaded their crossbows and pointed them down at the attacking Mongol forces rushing towards the wall. Someone shouted “DUCK!” in Chinese just as enemy arrows flew over them.

Ender ducked at the last second, seeing moaning, bloody men getting hit by arrows and falling to the ground. Ender stared in awe, looking at the men frantically. He slowly got up, checking himself for bruises. The crossbowmen on the wall returned fire, their arrows slamming into the enemy flank. Then Ender noticed something he hadn’t noticed before. The enemy had wooden catapults, and they were loaded with heavy stones! One by one he saw each of their catapults release, slamming into the Great Wall. The section of the wall tumbled around him, sending bricks and soldiers flying into the air all around his own flying form.

He tumbled to the ground, bruised and battered, watching as bricks and screaming guards fell around him, until he finally became unconscious.

He woke up in someone’s bed, slowly opening his eyes. A smiling Mongolian man dressed in flowing silk clothes stood before him. “Ah. He is awake.” the smiling man exclaimed.

Ender groaned. “Where am I?” he mumbled in Chinese.

“You are in the house of the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan. I am his grandson Kublai Khan. We have conquered your Great Wall, peasant boy. One of Genghis’ wives took pity on you and ordered Genghis to bring you here.”

Ender stared at him, thinking hard. Then the memories rushed back to him, soldiers shooting crossbows, people dying everywhere, the attack of the Mongols flying over the Great Wall, slamming onto the grass.

He looked down at his clothes, realizing he was wearing expensive Chinese silk instead of the nondescript jacket he had been wearing before. The house he was resting inside of seemed to be made of very ornately painted wood and stone with Chinese characters flowing over it.

He sat up in bed, looking around. Kublai Khan helped him up. “Let us visit the emperor Genghis. He is about to eat some Dezhou braised chicken, a delicious boneless chicken delicacy.”

Kublai led him into a room where a large man was putting a silver plate on a dish filled with steaming chicken. Then he gave a piece of the food to a man sitting next to him. “Poison testing,” Kublai explained, “If the silver changes color, it is poison. If the eunuch who tried the food first dies, then it is poison.”

He looked up at the emperor again. Kublai yelled, “Wait! Looking at the emperor is illegal!”

Ender backed away, looking at his feet. “Bow to him.” Kublai commanded.

He bowed down to his feet. Genghis grunted at him and turned back to his food, munching on it with zeal.

Kublai led him back to his bed, and left the room. Ender, seeing his chance to slip out of the palace, tiptoed out the door, looking behind him. He saw the ornate door in the front of the palace, slipping out without anyone noticing. He exchanged his expensive, luxuriant silk clothes for a peasant’s dirty gray hemp rags, to fit right in. Ender slowly walked down the wide avenue, looking at the Emperor’s wide gardens. Suddenly a Mongolian guard grabbed him by the shoulder and screamed at him in Chinese, “What are you doing in the Emperor Khan’s gardens, peasant boy?”

Ender shook the guard off and ran towards the gates of the garden, swiftly hopping over them. He passed Taoist monasteries, statues of the Buddha, and boarded up civil service exam stations, remembering that the Mongols did not use the civil service system. He saw piles of dead Chinese soldiers lumped in piles, their expensive steel armor and weapons stolen off their bodies. Ender was running down alleys and side streets, easily outpacing the pursuing guard. Suddenly he realised the alley he was running down awas a dead end! The guard had him cornered. Realizing his only chance, he climbed in through the tiny window of a peasant’s dirt house on the side of the alley. The guard couldn’t fit through the small window of the house. Ender, looking around the tiny, dilapidated house, noticed a shining door. How could a peasant afford a shiny golden door like this? He opened the door. He glimpsed a monk reading the Tao Te Ching, a Taoist religious book, with statues of Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism, surrounding the hidden golden palace. The monk nimbly turned around and threw something at Ender. It hit him on the head, hard. The world swirled around him and he fell unconscious.

He woke up in his bed. His bed! In his actual house, not in some place in Mongolian-ruled China in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty. He was wearing his real clothes, too! Had it all been a dream? He looked at his clock. It was 7:21 PM, Saturday February 21st, 2015. It must have been a dream. It had seemed so realistic, though! He probably spent much longer sleeping than he had thought. He sighed, crawling out of bed. His mom shouted at him from downstairs, “Is that room cleaned up yet, young man?”

Ender groaned, starting to pick up some of the random stuff scattered across the floor.