Chapter 2: Narrow Escape (1)
Months later, I fell into a fever so severe it nearly killed me.
In the lightless dog pen where they kept me, hallucinations took hold. Swarms of black shadows pressed against the narrow wooden door, reaching clawed fingers toward me. I heard voices—malicious curses, resentful lamentations, endless screaming. Closing my eyes and covering my ears did nothing; these things danced behind my eyelids and howled in the depths of my ear canals.
I must have screamed—though I couldn't hear my own voice, swallowed as it was by the phantasmagoria.
People outside shouted and cursed. Someone brought water and food, but I kicked it over, weeping. Someone kicked the wooden door hard. Someone else gathered to gawk, chattering in a language I couldn't understand.
Darkness, then light. Darkness, then light again.
I was consumed by hatred, fear, grief, and bitterness. But hatred of whom? Fear of what? Why the grief? Why the bitterness? I couldn't remember any of it.
At certain moments, perhaps I truly stepped through death's gate—because no matter how hard I tried, my eyelids pressed down like mountains over my eyes, yet I saw a tunnel of swirling white light.
...
Someone was singing softly.
As if shoved hard from behind, I crashed back into the world—and snapped awake.
Consciousness returned in fragments. My lips were cracked and crusted with dried blood, my throat so parched I couldn't form a sound. But the auditory hallucinations had receded like a tide, their fading wails dragged away by some unseen force.
What was illusion? What was real?
I was still alive—that much was real—and my mind, impossibly, had never been clearer.
The singing was real, too.
"The moon, the moon climbs the mountain, little girl, little girl, sits alone in the water's center, water's center, water's center... there's a moon so bright..."
A girl's tender, halting voice.
Cry's voice.
Grandmother's lullaby.
I dragged myself out of the dog shelter. A crescent moon hung bright above the treetops. Cry's song drifted intermittently from beyond the compound wall. I picked up a small stone and tapped it against the masonry. The singing stopped instantly. Then, from outside, two soft taps answered.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Two tears rolled down my cheeks and fell into the damp earth.
The fever had broken.
The next day, Sylvie came to see me. Her seaweed hair was pulled back in a low knot, and she wore a floral wrap dress, leaning against the secretary's chest, arms crossed, clicking her tongue in amazement.
"Well, well—this madwoman burned for three days and three nights without food or water. I was sure she'd die this time."
"Didn't expect... such a stubborn life after all."
The secretary's white shirt was only loosely buttoned, his raffish chin resting on top of Sylvie's head, swaying like a boneless creature—"So smelly, let's go back..."
Sylvie staggered under his weight, giggling, and the two of them wandered off in their cloying way.
Perhaps on Sylvie's orders, in the days that followed, I received medicine and proper food. This time, she seemed inclined to spare me—not even re-fastening the iron chain around my neck to its anchor in the ground.
My wounds and illness slowly healed. But I continued to play the part of someone devastated and terrorized, cowering day and night in the dark corner of the foul-smelling dog pen, appearing crazier, filthier, and more untouchable than ever.
Over these days, I gradually pieced together the situation.
Sylvie, using my name, had exposed Shane's betrayal of the group to upper management, uprooting Ahab's influence entirely. The secretary had moved directly into her quarters, living in decadent indulgence and clearly backing her to the hilt.
Once, I overheard Sylvie on the phone from her window—Shane, it seemed, had fled. His whereabouts were unknown.
Truly as slippery as ever.
Ahab had been demoted, placed directly under Sylvie's command. I spotted him from a distance a few times—no more cigars, thinner by a whole size, his face sagging.
Little Golden Port had gradually become Sylvie's domain. she dominated the place; business increased, revenue flowed, and traffic grew more complex. Meanwhile, I was forgotten by everyone.
My dog shelter was built in a dark corner, and no one knew that I crouched there day after day—sleeping, eating, healing during daylight hours; at night, quietly prying loose the internal screws, until I finally lifted the entire wooden floorboard.
As the days passed, using the iron spoon I'd stolen from a banquet, I essentially hollowed out the earth beneath the dog shelter's wooden floor. The backing wall was about two feet wide, and I'd dug an arc-shaped tunnel outward, secreting all the excavated soil into the roots of nearby plants and flowers.
No trace of disturbance. A few more inches, and I'd have a passage large enough to crawl through.
Ordinarily, the spoon was hidden inside the earthen tunnel, the floorboard carefully replaced, covered with straw and a towel—flawless camouflage.
I counted the days, waiting for the moon to grow full night by night.
2.
Finally, the fifteenth of the seventh month on the Burmese calendar—the Festival of Lights—arrived.
Tonight was the night I would escape from Northern Myanmar.
Little Golden Port was bustling beyond measure. Chanting and prayers echoed through the streets in sweeping circuits, celebrating late into the night. The compound was lit with candles and colored lanterns, festive and bright. After the gatherings dispersed, only Sylvie's villa still rang with laughter and light; most other buildings in the compound were dark.
It was Myanmar's biggest festival—everyone had gone home to celebrate. Including the guards, the militiamen, and the domestic help.
This was the most relaxed day of the year for the compound.
Deep into the night, the heavens aided me—a rainstorm broke out.
Soon, the lights in the villa went dark for good.
I crouched in the dog pen, waiting silently.
I counted thousands of heartbeats—probably more than half an hour—until the outside world gradually quieted, leaving only the sound of rain pouring down.
I cautiously surveyed my surroundings one more time. Confirming no movement or sounds, I silently lifted the wooden floorboard.
I squeezed into the dirt tunnel and dug frantically. The spoon snapped almost immediately—I switched to using my bare fingers.
I was through!
Gritting my teeth, I twisted my body through the earth-scented hole. Hands first, pushing off, straining with everything I had—I was out!
To prevent the iron chain from clanking, I'd wound it around my neck in advance, wrapping it with the long towel and tying it tight. Heavy, but manageable.
Now, pressed flat against the wall in the shadows, rain hitting my face, I kept my eyes wide open, watching both ends of the street beyond for any movement.
If even one person walked by, I was finished.
My heart hammered. Trembling, I swept my gaze left and right.
No one.
Good... now, ease toward the west.
A corner in the wall—I stopped here, peering around into the next street.
No one.
Continue...
The back door of a gambling den—usually where thugs gathered to smoke and shoot the breeze—tonight... also empty.
I edged along the blind spot under the eaves, making no sound.
The gambling den had dogs.
Passed!
A row of shops, all with shutters down. Be careful not to touch the rolling doors—they'd rattle.
Several hair-washing parlors, their signs casting pink light.
The girls inside had gone home for the festival, too.
Safe through...
Beyond, the streetlights ended. After a few scattered residential buildings, the mountain road began.
I quickened my pace.
Fast—just a little further. Into the darkness, and no one would see me—
Suddenly, a figure emerged from the end of the road, stepping out of the dim glow—
My stomach dropped. I flinched so hard I nearly cried out.
The rain was coming down harder than ever, but this person didn't even have an umbrella—soaked through.
A thin, silent girl.
Cry.
I hesitated, caught between fight and flight, my hand flying to the iron chain around my neck, eyes scanning for options. Calculating the odds of knocking her out before she could scream.
But she surged toward me—and grabbed my hand, pulling me into a dark alley.
"You can't go that way—militia at the mountain pass!"
Cry...
Wasn't she here to catch me?
But... turning me in would be worth a lot of money, Cry.
My eyes stung.
We threaded through alleys for a long time, turning this way and that. At a secluded spot—a narrow gap between the rear walls of two houses, windowless—Cry stopped to catch her breath, then reached up to feel along my neck.
Her nimble fingers unwound the towel and iron chain, revealing the lock.
A tiny key appeared in her hand, and she fit it into the keyhole. Click—the chain that had bound me for nearly half a year fell open.