⚠️ CONTENT WARNING: GRAPHIC MATERIAL AHEAD ⚠️
Dodge
Southwestern frontier.
A tropical rainforest.
Boots squeak on wooden attic floors, light bulbs flicker overhead, insects tirelessly crash into them.
“Go, Go, e here.” Someone with broken English is pushing a group of girls through the jungle.
The branches shake, and the short girl at the back tugs at the clothes of a girl of similar age in front.
“Weren’t we supposed to go to Southeast Asia to strike it rich? How did we end up—”
Before she could finish, the whole line stopped; the leader loudly silenced their whispering, and then the group was led into a room.
“From today, you live here. Work starts tomorrow arranged by Kuba. Do well, make the guests happy, and earning over ten thousand a month is no problem.”
The room is small with a wooden structure, with a few simple bunk beds. Kuba, the man mentioned by the leader, enters, tall and burly with a typically Southeast Asian look, holding a dark leather whip in his hand, his greedy eyes scanning over the panicked girls.
He nods in satisfaction, muttering something in Burmese to the leader.
The leader showed a relieved smile and walked out with the other.
The wooden door closed.
Two burly men appeared to guard the door.
It was the same girl who spoke earlier who put her luggage on the bed: “Fangfang, which bed are you sleeping in?”
“The top bunk.”
“Okay.”
The girl’s bed was near the door, she was pulling things out of her worn cloth bag while peeping through the crack of the door.
Kuba handed a stack of money to the person who had brought them.
The leader wet his fingers with saliva counting the money, muttered something in Burmese with a faint dissatisfaction on his face.
Kuba’s face changed, he took out the whip and barked an order, the leader jumped in fright, promptly silencing his protests.
In the end, he was taken away by several men in black.
The anxiety in the girl’s heart grew.
Fumbling for the small cell phone in her bag, she hesitated, intending to call home to check in when Kuba and several others entered, she subconsciously stuffed the mobile phone into the bedding.
With a wave of Kuba’s hand, the men in black started rummaging through their bags.
The girl tried to grab it but was pushed onto the bed.
The burly men looked at her like hungry wolves.
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She didn’t dare move, going limp and silently enduring their violence.
They searched through all the backpacks and threw everyone’s passports and IDs into a sack. Only then did Kuba stop and said in his broken Chinese: “Work doesn’t need these, earning money doesn’t need these, stay put honestly, and you’ll be paid.”
With that, he closed the door again, leaving a room full of girls exchanging glances, still shaken.
The top bunk was occupied by her companion, a sister from the same village.
“Forget it, let’s sleep, sleep. As long as I can make money, I’m willing to do anything.”
The girl lay down restlessly, the bedding moist, with a scent unique to the rainforest or perhaps left by the previous occupant, a smell of fishiness.
She couldn’t fall asleep.
Neither could the others, tossing and turning.
In the silent night, only the creaking of the bed boards could be heard.
Finally, someone couldn’t help but speak up.
“How old are y’all?”
After a pause, she heard someone from the opposite bed say, “Eighteen, and you?”
The one who asked replied, “Twenty-one, so you should call me Sister Sheng.”
A muffled laugh spread in the room, and gradually, the girls began to chat.
“I’m twenty. Ran out after a fight with the family.”
“Just turned nineteen, want to earn some money for my younger brother’s education.”
“I’m twenty-five, probably the oldest among us here.”
“And you?” The question turned to her.
The girl stammered, “Ten… fifteen…”
“You don’t look it.”
The girl had a pretty face, with two braids, bright and lively big eyes, and a good figure, not skinny like a typical fifteen-year-old girl.
She was married off as a child bride and is already the mother of a one-year-old child.
This was a common occurrence in their village.
It was only after she could no longer bear her husband’s beatings that she begged a sister from the same village, who was preparing to go out to work, to take her along.
The continuous rushing around these past few days has made the girls somewhat tired; gradually, no one spoke anymore.
Someone started to snore.
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The girl lifted her blanket and climbed out of bed. Her bunkmate popped her head out, “Where you headed?”
“Can’t sleep, off to the bathroom.”
The girl nodded towards the copper basin in the middle of the room, “There’s a basin right there.”
“Forget it, feels kind of embarrassing.”
The girl was visibly restless, pulling out her phone from under her pillow and holding it as she walked out.
Even though she had left home on an impulse, her heart was still hanging onto her child.
She wanted to call her child’s father and hear her child’s voice.
Her bunkmate lay back down.
The girl gently pushed open the door; the guard who had been at the door was nowhere to be seen.
The moon shone bright and the stars were sparse, with the flickering of campfires in the jungle, and lights were on in several cabins not far away.
She walked down the stairs, looking for a secluded spot with a good signal to call home.
Every wooden house here seemed exactly the same; as she passed by and peered through the cracks of the doors, she saw many rooms housing girls just like them.
Just as lifeless, no one speaking.
The girl swallowed hard; the hallway had come to an end, with a wooden house in front of her lit up.
She had to pass by here to go down the stairs into the jungle.
She treaded lightly in her embroidered cloth shoes.
Excited shouts came from the men inside the house; that Kuba was there too, she dared not look, her scalp tingling, until a woman’s shrill scream pierced the night sky.
She glanced over sharply, the woman’s eye staring fixedly at her through the crack of the door, bloodied and battered, clothes disheveled.
“Save… save me!”
Startled, she stumbled and collided with the railing, the wooden house making a grating noise that set one’s teeth on edge.
Torches lit up in the jungle.
Someone was running this way.
The wooden door creaked open.
The girl took off running, only to be yanked back and thrown to the ground with force.
Her phone flew out, landing beside a cane.
The man bent down to pick it up.
“What’s your name?” he asked with a kind face, perhaps aged, which seemed particularly gentle.
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Trembling, the girl answered, “Li… Lili.”
“Not bad,” the man said, eyeing her phone. He lifted her face with his cane and said, “Take her home to meet her family.”
The girl’s heart leaped with joy, and her smile froze on her face. Kuba, baring his muscular arms, raised a wooden stick high and ruthlessly struck her at the back of her head.
Blood splattered.
The girl instantly fell silent.
He had to be ruthless. He led the people to search the room. If the girl didn’t die, he would be the one who died.
Blood splattered on the light bulb.
The shadow of Kuba’s sturdy figure was cast on the wall. He left a trail of chilling bloodstains where he dragged the person, extending all the way to the stairs.
After a while, a seven or eight-year-old child came with a bucket of water to clean the floor.
The branches in the jungle trembled, and with a splash of water, all the sins vanished into thin air.