Apparently, that struck a nerve. The officer grew impatient. She thrust the documents in front of me again and said, this time with much more fury, “I tried to be polite, but you’re really getting in my hair! Don’t play tricks on me, you smartass! If you want to die, just tell me. I don’t mind sending you to hell!”
With that said, she grabbed my hair and slammed me heavily against the wall.
I could not fight back in time because of the immense pain. I could only curl up into a ball and protect my head with my hands.
But she had clearly been trained to deal with prisoners like me. She managed to throw me onto the ground in a matter of seconds and proceeded to kick me directly in the ribs without sparing any mercy.
Her patience was probably running thin. Ignoring me, she wrestled my fingers apart, stuck a pen in between them, and forced me to sign my name on the document as she held my arm. When that was done, she grabbed my thumb and pressed it on the wound on my forehead.
A moment later, she lifted my blood-stained thumb and stamped it on the dotted line of the document where the signature was supposed to go. That woman completed this series of actions in one shot. It was clear that she did this all the time.
Bang! The door slammed shut on her way out.
I lay on the ground, still shaking. I only felt the pain after the ordeal, as it came gradually and spread to different parts of my body.
I could not imagine how miserable I must have looked.
I lay on the ground, having completely lost the ability to move.
Three days later, I was forcefully dragged into a car by two women. I was blindfolded throughout the journey and could only feel that I was in the car for a long time.
When the blindfold was finally removed, I found myself locked away in an unfamiliar and filthy environment.
Above me was the roof of what seemed to be a really old house, supported by empty wooden shelves. The roof was covered with triangular asbestos tiles, some of which had already darkened in color, probably a result of stagnant water over the years.
Sounds of women crying travelled to my ear. I withdrew my thoughts and saw my surrounding for what it was.
At that moment, I was lying on a messy pile of straw. My hands and feet had been tied up. The clothes on my back were the worse for wear. After everything that had happened these past few days, they no longer looked the same.
Next to me were several pitiful-looking women, most of whom were weeping and quivering in fright.
“Hey, stop crying. Let’s find a way out of here!” said someone. I looked towards the source. The voice belonged to a young woman, supposedly in her twenties. Even though her clothes were soiled, her facial features remained bright and cheerful. I could tell she came from a wealthy family.
The other women heard her too. They stopped crying and turned to face her.
“Do you think there’s one?” they uttered nervously.
“It’s obvious we’re at the countryside. We need to figure out where exactly this place is, and then think about how to escape!” said the young woman. Her pair of bright eyes darted around, taking in our enclosure.
One woman said, “This is the countryside, but which part? We don’t even know our exact location; how can we possibly escape? If we’re in the mountains, we will be hunted and eaten by feral beasts if we go out there.”
“I think we’re somewhere in the southwest. They must be planning to take us across the borders,” I said.
The other girls stared at me, apparently stunned. “The southwestern border?” they blurted.
The young woman added, “Why would they take us here?”
I pursed my lips. This, I did not have an answer to. I initially thought these people were going to sell me off, but the conversation that other day still puzzled me.
If they aren’t doing this kind of heinous crime for money, then what are they after?
Upon seeing my silence, the young woman took over the conversation. “Let’s not talk about that. Can you guys scoot closer to me? We need to find a way to untie these ropes on our hands.”
And so, the women moved their bodies and got together, one back against the other, as they tried to untie their partners’ ropes.
“It’s no use. It’s a dead knot!” Some women began to grumble, while others have started to fret because their attempts had been futile.
It had become apparent that some of these women came from well-to-do families. So how did they get here?
At that thought, I raised a question, “How did you all end up here?”
“How else? My parents don’t care about me at all. They’d rather I be dead!” someone in the group spoke up.
Her answer stumped me. “Your parents sent you here?”
The young woman was next to speak, her expression an icy one. “How should I put it? There’s a special brand of parents in the world who believes that everything they do is right. They don’t allow their children to argue with them. Once their children are found to be disobedient, they will push them into the abyss in the name of love.”
I was stunned and, for a while, I was not sure how to react. I turned to the young woman and voiced my doubts. “So, all of you are sent here by your parents?”
The woman shrugged. “You can say that! My parents got wind that the Legion Institute in K City is the perfect place for educating children with behavioral problems, so they decided to send me there. But the people at the school… all they do is scold me and beat me, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I ran away. But I got captured and they took me back. That was when they broke my legs. Long story short, they did not dare to report my condition to my parents, so they chose to put on a show. They started a fire, and I was rumored to have died there. But, as you can see, I woke up here. Alive and breathing.”
I suddenly understood why, despite being the furthest away, she called everyone to gather around her. My eyes fell on her legs. There was nothing quite unusual about it, but at closer inspection, it was obvious that both of her legs were somewhat different from ours.
