When you have a chance please read them it really is a harrowing experience, if you could please ask your friends to verify the following excerpt:

They sat back down and kind of sulked for a moment. I sat next to them, asking if they were hurt at all, and they mentioned they showed my partner the piece of paper that the son of the mother we visited with the text “黄雪” written in red ink. This definitely meant that the family was being interrogated in this same facility. My worst fears were true; we had some part in pushing this family back into the trouble they had just escaped.

“I don’t think it’s our fault,” my partner said, and wiped some tears off my cheek. I didn’t even feel the tears, as I was numb from the shock.

“They told me what 黄雪 translates to. It means Yellow Snow.”

“They told me how Yellow Snow is a folk legend in the prison.” I looked up at my partner, asking why they told them this. “I don’t know, maybe to scare me, or just to educate me on what the paper meant. 黄雪 was a man who was out doing manual labor on a cold morning and asked the guards for the toilet. The guards ignored his request and told him to get back to work. Half an hour passed, the man struggling to continue. He was shaking, not just from the cold but from bladder contractions. Eventually he stopped working and decided to urinate in front of everyone. After relieving himself, the guards took him. He was never heard from or seen again.”

I was still confused as to why they told my partner this. It still didn’t sit well with me. I laid my head on my partner's lap and tried to sleep.

Awoken by an alarm and rhythmic banging on walls, my partner stood up. “The gate, it’s open!” Was this our opportunity to leave?

As soon as the cacophony began, a silence filled the prison. There were no guards within the area. I was hesitant to leave but my partner wasn’t. They slowly crept out of the cell as I repeatedly whispered to get back in. Realizing they were leaving, I began to follow. Upon hearing a thud and a yelp, I rushed back inside, but then I heard it again. The exact same sequence of thuds and yelps. At this point I remembered the “Morse code” that the mother had told us about; the “secret language” used by the prisoners to pay respects to the dead, stomp yelping their obituaries at midnight.

The stomps and yelps were distinctly clear and using my memory from my limited knowledge of the Chinese Morse code I decoded the message.

6663 5887…

Run.

Run? Was this a sign telling us to leave?

I told my partner. They looked at me and asked how I knew, and I told them to remember the “secret language.” We sprinted down every hallway, seeing no guards throughout the entirety of the cell block. When we left the detention area, we encountered several uniformed guards in a lobby area by the door to the main yard where people in jumpsuits were idly standing. I assumed this was the yard area of the prison. We decided to make a break for it, the guards yelling after us, “Wait! Stop!”

We refused to heed their commands. On the other side of the fence was freedom. I refused to be kept prisoner in this death camp. I was not going to let myself or my partner be kept hostage, to become a shell of a person. We were not going to become martyrs like Yellow Snow. I screamed at my partner to begin climbing and took my shirt off to throw over the barbed wire so we could get around it. I began my ascent, the guards following.

“Stop right there! You forgot your wallet!”

My wallet? What did they mean?

“Stop! You don't have to do this! You're free to go!”

I looked down at them, then to my partner. We remained on the fence for a while, weighing our options. My shirt was already on the barbed wire; if we didn't believe them, our way out was right there. We stayed on the fence for a few minutes as everyone in the yard stared at us.

“Shu, let's just see what happens.”

My partner began to climb down and I followed. The guards came up to us, handing us our belongings and unlocking the innermost gate. “You should go,” they said.

Before I did, I looked back at the people in jumpsuits. Full families grouped together, wearing matching jumpsuits. I couldn't help but feel bad for them as they stared back at us with sullen eyes. I was free to go, but they had to stay. It tore me up inside. I had to give them some kind of hope. Before I left, I turned to them and peed my pants in full view of everyone. Their discomfort became my own. Their looks turned from disgust to acceptance as I did my best to stomp and yelp out the Chinese Commercial Code for “Stay strong.”

I hoped they would.