My world was pitch dark. I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face. It was incredibly cramped. Someone kept bumping into me, pushing and shoving at me. I tried to move away, but the other person and I were too tightly packed together. I wanted to stretch my arms and legs, but the space limited my movement from doing anything other than staying still. The room reeked of urine and feces. The hot, stuffy air made the smell even worse. I tried to squeeze my face into the weak stream of air coming from a small air hole in the far right corner, but my efforts were fruitless because people were already packed into the corner. I tried to make out the faces that surrounded me, but it was too dark. I called out to Tan, only to be told to hush.
A baby cried out and was quickly silenced, though I could still hear it whimpering through someone’s hand. I tried to find a spot to lie down. The floor jerked me forward. I stepped on someone else’s foot and I quickly apologized, but no one seemed to care. We were too miserable and too afraid of discovery to care about something as small as a stepped-on foot.
The floor moved like a pendulum, and the motion of rocking back and forth pushed me to the brink of illness. I couldn’t handle it any more. I called out to Tan, “I am going to throw up.” A plastic bag was quickly shoved into my face and Tan’s voice quietly told me to take some medication. I did, and a rush of sleepiness quickly engulfed me. I wondered if I should fight to stay awake? But what for? Why fight the inevitable?
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