Hate was such a vague word that couldn’t describe how I felt towards the place I was in or my captors holding me hostage. Hatred and anger weren’t strong enough to completely desrcibe how I felt, and I don’t think I could have been able to find that word. By this point. I’d been there for at least a month yet prayer after prayer there was no sign of a possibility of me leaving. There was no possibility of any of us leaving, no matter how much we all prayed. In the past, I had never been the kind of person to go to church or pray, but knowing that we could do nothing else but hope that there was a God out there who could hear our cries, I found myself kneeling by my bedside every evening, praying for release, to return home to my family.

I had began to learn how harsh the real world beyond China was. It was in no way the freedom I had forever yearned for. I was treated as though I was some form of animal, not the human being with rights that I really was. Soldiers were monsters, demons in the bodies of men. Had they been sent from Satan, treating me, treating us this way because we had sinned? If only I could take back every one of my wrong doings and replace it with something good then I wouldn’t have arrived here in the first place.


General Nichkhun was a different situation entirely.

 
 In the few weeks I’d been there, I learned that not only the prisoners lived in fear of him but the soldiers under him also. He shot everyone who had disobeyed him - soldier or prisoner - dead. I could only wonder why I was still alive when I had disobeyed him so much so far and though the fact that I was still living was something I should have been grateful for, part of me hoped that he would just kill me so I wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.

I supposed that an army needed a ruthless and strong Generals to lead them to victory. But then again, there must have been better choices – ones with more experience, older and understanding. Nichkhun didn’t fit into that description at all. All that he had was youth, his strength and his handsome features. He wasn’t a leader of men - no, far from it.


My thoughts would wander back to my parents in North Korea sometimes, as I lay in the bunks at night. I wondered if they were conscious of my whereabouts or if they had given up hope of my return? I guess I should have felt some hatred towards my father also. As I said to the General, my father was to blame for dragging us out to North Korea in the first place. How my life would have been different if we’d just stayed. Fei and Jia would have been by my side, servants attending to my every need and hot food to warm my stomach. Yes, I sounded conceited, but I was living in complete contrast to my previous life, I as living like I was no longer even human. That life would only remain a distant memory and I knowing when I would ever return to it. If I managed to survive that long.

 

*****


I was hit by a storm of cold wind as I stepped out of the Resting building. It looked as though winter had finally arrived, snowflakes slowly descending from the dark overcast skies above. Inhaling the icy cold freshness, I shivered from the freezing temperatures of my surroundings. The temperature had dropped drastically overnight and in my meagre thin clothing, I did not feel the slightest hint of warmth. If only I had my winter coat.
 

I stood alongside familiar prisoners as they reacted in the same state that I did to our changing weather while the solders walked back and forth restlessly across the gravel. Their actions seemed different to me, too strange to have been normal. I expected them to be shouting orders to us like usual or being given orders from someone of a higher rank, but they looked frantic, too busy to have the time to deal with us - something was finally going in our favour. It looked as if they were expecting something.

I turned my head back to the door of the building, thinking I heard someone calling out to me. There was no one there though - it must have been just a figment of my imagination. Mei should have been fast asleep in the bunk, only awaking if there was some sort of disturbance. Despite only being four years old, I thought of Mei as a friend, a much younger girl, but still a friend. At times, I was in need of someone to converse with; otherwise I would go crazy, talking to myself. She stayed by my side and I was there for her.


“Open the gates!” One soldier roared loudly and I covered my ears at the sound as crowds of them rushed at the order.

I unconsciously raised my head , watching as large trucks drove in through the newly opened gate before the wheels crunched on the soft, newly-set snow that blanketed the cold gravel. That was the first time they had opened the gates since we had first arrived, giving us the smallest glimpse back to the outside world, and it only reminded me of how trapped we were. I could tell from the looks of the people that were standing around me that they were imaging themselves quickly escaping through the gates in that time of the soldiers busyness - the soldiers would never have noticed that anyone was gone. But escape was nothing but a dream. If anyone did manage to get through the gate, the men who walked across the tops of those large walls could see them and they would be shot dead before they could even take another step,

 
The trucks halted to an abrupt stop, soldiers running forward at the sight. I exchanged questioning glances with the man by my side before turning back to watch what was occurring, wondering what was in there that was making them act like that. Their behaviour was strange. I didn’t understand what was happening. That was until I saw the trucks contains as they flooded out from the open doors.

 

There were many foreign faces, faces that were pale with anxiety and confusion, stained with blood, as the soldiers dragged the men out from the back of the truck like they were worthless and threw them out into the snow. I could see them shivering just like myself, their filthy uniforms coated in layers of mud and dirt. I almost pitied them until I realised that we were all in the same situation now and in a world like ours, it seemed like it was only every man for himself.

I couldn’t hide my surprise at their conditions, however. The men were falling into the snow and were unable to lift themselves back up, so weak and tired, even when the South  Korean soldiers yelled instructios at them. Some had missing limbs, some barely hanging onto life anymore. Fresh wound were gushing with blood which streamed down their faces, others were encrusted by dirt, infected by bacteria. These were all men who had devoted their life to protecting their country, who had once worn their uniforms and adorned their country’s symbol proudly. Now, they were nothing but prisoners, who had failed to complete their task.

This was the result of a war, a war that had no end until so many people were hurt.
 

“I think they are soldiers from Kumo and North Korea,” One man who stood by my side whispered to another, the tan skin of the Kumo soldiers starkly contrasting against the white of the snow. “They must have brought them in as prisoners of war.”

“With those injuries, most of them will be dead by tomorrow,” The other man claimed, shaking his head disapprovingly, “That is unless the South  Korean soldiers shoot them first.”

The South  Korean soldiers, dressed in their fitted black uniforms with the red trim, the country’s symbol hanging proudly on there sleeves, had pulled out their guns and were waving them tauntingly as if they wanted to flaunt their power to the new prisoners and force them to obey orders. It was painful to have to watch something like that, to watch helpless men become herded like cattle and become as worthless as the insects we try to swat away from our homes. No one deserved to be treated in such a way and knowing that the Grim Reaper would make an appearance some time in the close future, I wanted to escape before any blood was shed.

“Our empires are all falling and we can’t do a single thing to stop it. China is next.”

That was a fact that no one wanted to admit was true though we all knew that it was. No one wanted to admit that the countries that we were all proud of weren’t strong enough against Otogakure. We all wanted to believe that we were going to be victorious in the end despite the downward spirals and the deaths and the prisoners. Wishes and dreams were all that I had - they were the only things that everyone in our growing crowd had as fallen soldiers tried to lift themselves back up to face their captors, to face the rest of us as if they could sense our worry and tried to smile like it could give us some sense of hope that everything was going to be okay.
 

The South  Korean soldiers watched them and laughed as they would stumble in their steps and fall back into the snow, mocking them, taunting them, while the rest of us could do nothing but gasp and whisper amongst each other with pity and resentment. Dark clouds floated above our heads, blocking the light rays of the sun, and I couldn’t help but feel everything growing darker, and as our crowd seemed to grow larger with each passing moment, it seemed that we had garnered the attention of the Lieutenants that were monitoring their ‘delivery’.

“Move away! Nothing to see here!” the Lieutenant shouted, pacing towards us with his eyebrows furrowed and eyes dark with anger. With each step he took forward, we moved backwards, turning away from the scene before us and going back to where we should have been. Watching the fallen soldiers any longer would only have hurt our pride for our country even more anyway.

“Wait!”

Everyone came to an almost perfect synchronised halt, and we turned back at the sound of another voice. The other lieutenant, his glasses positioned perfectly on his nose, silver hair flopping onto his forehead, called out to us, his lips pressed together in a straight line. He held his hand upwards but dropped it down to his side as he walked towards the crowd of us with no flicker of emotion in his eyes.

“I think they should be allowed to see this,” One corner of his lips was tugged upwards. “These are their country’s soldiers. They should be able to see them in action.”

Two of the privates dragged one soldier forward, his uniform tattered and dirty, the symbol of the country’s flag torn from the fabric, but the hint of green that peeked beneath the layers of dirt made it obvious to us all that he was from China. He was forced to kneel on the expanse of snow in front of us as they pulled onto his hair and forced him to face us. His eyes met mine briefly, his shame and his fear evident within them before he dropped his gaze and stared at the frozen pathway that he was sat upon.

The Lieutenant walked carefully behind him, his shoes thudding against the ice. “Look at your country’s men now!”  He yelled mockingly.

He pulled out a katana from beneath his jacket and before our minds could even register what was happening, he sliced it through the soldier’s back. The victim’s cry resounded in the air, the pain overcoming everything else as he dropped to the ice, the blood dripping from his wound while all of us could do nothing but watch him suffer as the snow cascaded from the skies above us. Such pain for men who had tried to protect their country.

I couldn’t watch him suffer any longer while the life slowly drained out of him and the light escaped out of his eyes. No one could. It pained us all.

 

*****

 

In contrast to the freezing temperatures of the outside, the kitchen was soaring in heat. The stoves and pots, the other girls bustling around the room frantically, the lack of ventilation, was all building up this boiling reaction within the room, the sweat dripping from our faces as we tried to cook for the bastards who sat around lazily when they were not taking lives from innocent people. It was all so uncomfortable. The girls were unfriendly, isolating me as they gossiped amongst themselves, glancing at me occasionally before breaking into a giggle. I couldn’t help but feel self conscious as they jeered and spoke about me as I stood alongside them.

Not knowing what I had done to garner such hatred from the others made everything much worse. They had treated me this way since we had all first arrived, since we had first started working together and I couldn’t help but resent the fact that I couldn’t just live in peace. General Nichkhun and the other soldiers obviously hated me, they hated us all, but other prisoners too? What had I done in a past life to deserve all of this? I wasn’t going to be accepted by anyone here.
 

“Well, well it looks like you’re all slacking off.” I was caught off guard, almost slicing my finger with the knife as I chopped vegetables.

A smirk played the soldier’s lips as he leaned his back against the doorway, arms crossed, shaking his head in disapproval as another came up by his side. His hair was matted against his forehead as drops of snow hung between the brown strands, instantly melting in the heat that was suffocating us.

“You do know what happens when we’re not pleased with your actions, right?”
 

None of us said anything. We knew not to - any word we said had to be spoken carefully or there would be trouble. A lot of trouble. We stood frozen as our eyes darted back and forth, trying to make ourselves aware of every movement these soldiers made to save ourselves from anything that they would try against us. With the number of stories going around camp about people being killed during work going around in the camp, you could never be too careful. They were all monsters.
 

“You’ll get in trouble!” he shouted, slamming his fist down on the table. Two rushed forward to pick up the contents which had fallen to the floor, their bodies shaking vigorously in fear.

He paced himself around the room, the floor below us sounding with every shift in his step as if he knew how much he frightened us all. His eyes scanned over the crowd of us and of what we had done in the kitchen, boring holes through our backs as he ran a hand through his dishevelled locks. It seemed like he was deliberately trying to find some fault in us so that we could be punished accordingly, and I couldn’t help but worry that I would be his victim. The thought only sent shivers down my spine.

“I want all of this work done and if it’s not complete to standard, may god save you all!” He yanked the door open and rushed out, slamming the door shut in his wake.

We were still numb in fright as the door swung back and forth until it came to a complete stop, his words hanging fresh in our minds. None of us wanted to die, nobody ever did. No matter how badly they treated us, we didn’t want to die by their hands, still believing that there was a world out there, beyond those walls, that we could go back to. And if they only way we could do that was to comply with their orders then it was what we were going to do, no matter how much it pained us and how uncomfortable it made us feel.

The slamming of a heavy object resounded in the air, echoing as each girl’s eyes followed the trail of notes for the source. One of the other girls, Tayuya, I believe she was called, held the chopping board in her hands as she forced it against the counter top and stared at the rest of us, her lips pressed together in a thin line, brows knitted together.

She cleared , her lips parting as the words escaped from between them, voice raised, “You heard what he said. Get back to work! I’d rather not die today.” She stepped forward as if she was in charge, the sternness of her features unwavering while her fiery, red locks fanned out from behind her.

The silence continued to hang in the air, save for the few whispers uttered between the lips of those who weren’t fond of this girl’s pompous attitude. No one dared to speak against her, however, knowing that they would only be subjected to more of her tough and hard-hitting words, and so, all we returned to what we were doing before he had disturbed us, as if there wasn’t a chance that at least one of us could be dead in the hours that would follow.

Not a word was spoken. Not a sound heard but the gentle bubbling of the boiling water and knives hitting against the chopping boards. In a way I was kind of glad that we were in silence. The girls didn’t have the opportunity to laugh or make fun of me. I didn’t have to feel isolated from the crowd. But, my dark locks were always going to make me stick out like a sore thumb

“Victoria.”

My head lifted immediately at the sound of the call. It was the first time any of these girls had spoken to me directly and so I set down the knife in my hands and turned to face the one who had called out to me.

“I need some more vegetables for this soup. Go fetch some,” Tayuya said as she forced a bucket into my hands as our eyes met.

An eyebrow raised unconsciously as I scanned over the other girls in the room, questioning why I was the one who had been chosen. Fetching vegetables meant I would have to go to the warehouse at the other side of the camp, in the freezing, sub zero climate beyond the door. I needed an escape from the heat, but not like this. Raising an eyebrow, I scanned the other girls questioning why I was the one chosen. Could it have just been her favouritism towards the other girls? Or the fact that she just wanted me to suffer?

 

“But I can’t, I-”

“What are you waiting for? I told you to go,” she growled, her face reddening in anger as I watched her, not making the slightest move. She inched towards me and grabbed my arm, trying to drag me across the vinyl floors as the others watched and sneered, the smirks hanging upon their lips as the door was pulled open and I was shoved out, the cold air hitting my skin immediately.

 

*****

 
Struggling under the weight of the bucket in my hands, I slowly dragged my feet back to the kitchen. I’d grown weak and from lack of food and overwork. The natural curves of my body, the healthy fat that had once hung against the muscle had been replaced with a cadaverous, bony structure. I was a skeleton, unhealthy and underweight, yet there was nothing I could do to improve my health. If I didn’t die at the soldiers hands, I would merely just starve.

 
My legs struggled to shift my body across the ice, my teeth biting down on my lower lip due to the straining muscles. I scanned my eyes over the crowds around me though I knew no one could help me even if they wanted to, soldiers pushing them around as they nudged them forward with the tips of their guns. I could feel eyes upon my back as a few sniggers escaped into the air around us and I knew that the General’s hairstyling had drawn their attention, the dark tufts sticking around my head awkwardly, no matter how much I tried to smooth them down. Holding my gaze downwards, I shuffled past them and tried to get away before their words got to me.

In due time, I managed to shove the door to the kitchen open, holding the bucket in my numbing hands while hoping that I could find somewhere to put it down before my fingers snapped off from their joints. I lifted my head as my shoes, soaked by melted snow and ice, squished against the vinyl floors, as heads turned and sets of eyes gradually rested on me.

There were two soldiers standing amongst the other girls, as if they had been inspecting them carefully in my absence, their eyes following every move the others made like something was bound to go wrong. The door leading outside swung back slowly until it locked in place and the heat was constricted in the room, the cool air locked away, and I had never wanted to feel the coolness on my skin more in my life than in that moment, even if I had already been stuck out in that frozen climate. It felt like I was suffocating. I could barely breathe.

Noticing the looks on the other girls faces, one soldier, the one from earlier in the day, turned his head and noticed me as I stood by the door, pail in hand, frozen in my steps. “Look what we have here, another slacker,” He said, his dark eyes focusing in on me as the other also turned. I didn’t know what to do, whether I should have said something to him, whether I should have stayed where I was or hand over the bucket.

 
“Where have you been? You’ve been gone for an hour,” A girl whispered sternly as she stormed past me, pinching my arm. She sent me a deadly glare as I winced in pain, my arms continue to struggle under the weight pulling it down.


I felt everyone’s eyes burn holes in my back as they turned to look at me, their ears picking up her exact words, dark eyes glaring, and eyebrows raised in confusion. Even I was confused. Had I really been gone for an hour? It felt as though time had dragged on when I was out there in the cold – but I didn’t want anything at that point but to go back there and avoid the confrontation that was bound to come. At the center of everyone’s attention, I just wished that I could sink into the ground and get away from there before I cause any trouble.

 
“An hour?” I could sense the anger within his voice, harsh and unforgiving. “That’s not acceptable. If this food isn’t finish to standard on time, you will be the one to blame,” One of the soldiers sneered, pointing his dirty finger at me.

 

 I nodded my head – any words that I would have said were frozen between my numb lips, but even I knew that these men were ones that wouldn’t stand for anything but agreement. I didn’t want my blood to spill out onto the floors beneath us, to mix in with the dirt and gravel. I may have been young, but I was not stupid – I was no longer stupid, like that girl who tried to stand up for herself on that first day.

The other girls continued with their work, rushing around frantically like wild chickens with the chance that the soldiers could go back on their word and punish us all. I pulled the bucket up higher as the soldier turned and walked away, though I knew he was keeping a constant eye on me as I paced myself forward carefully, trying to watch my steps as to not spill any water, especially with soldiers watching. One bad move start a whole chain reaction and like he said, I would be the one to blame for everything. It was like that girl knew that this would happen so that she could get rid of me, the most unpopular person there.

 
My stomach churned with every step I took, my heart beating loudly in my chest as the blood rushed through me. The feeling of discomfort continued to grow, and I couldn’t rid my mind of the thought that something bad was going to happen. The entire situation just seemed so strange, but then maybe I was just over thinking things.

I shook the thought away, but I should have trusted myself. I should have just remained careful.

Everything happened so quickly, my mind couldn’t process it all.

 
As I went to make my next step, I tripped, the bucket slipping from my hands and onto the floor. Water spilled across the vinyl flooring before I had time to scoop the bucket back into my hands. The girls moving the pots slipped, their contents spilling out on the ground. All it took was for me to spill the water to ruin dinner completely. I was the one to blame. I would be in trouble. Only God could save me from my punishment.
 

The soldiers burst into a fit of laughter, guffaws echoing around the room. I dropped my head in humiliation, my cheeks reddening, throat hurting as my clothes soaked in the filthy water sprayed all over the floor.. I didn’t want to look at anyone else at that moment. I didn’t want to see the anger and anguish on their faces.

Trying to keep my mind off the thought of death, I couldn’t believe that this all happened to me. I wanted to scream. What had I done wrong in my life for all of these events to happen to me? Was it the fact that I had lived a rich lifestyle my whole life? Or because people were out to harm me?

 

Tears fell from my eyes, dropping into the pools that surrounded me. Though I didn’t want people to see me that way, to pity me, I couldn’t restrain my tears any longer. I wasn’t a strong person. I was no General. I was a little girl who needed her mother, a shoulder to cry on.