After Being Tricked into Northern Myanmar, I Led All the Female Prisoners to Escape

They said it paid 30,000 a month, with food and lodging included. I believed them. It wasn't until they shoved me into a van with no windows, and I saw the hollow-eyed women behind the barbed wire, that I understood. This wasn't a high-paying job. It was hell. Northern Myanmar. A telecom fraud compound. A living hell. The men were forced to make calls and scam people out of their money. The women were locked up in another building, where cries echoed through the corridors every day. And I, a top engineer, became the only variable among these desperate people. In thirty days, I mapped every guard post. In forty days, I memorized the shift changes. At three in the morning on the forty-fifth day, rain poured down in torrents. I pried open the rust-covered iron gate. Behind me were 137 women in tattered clothes. Behind me were armed pursuers and barking dogs. Ahead lay dense forest, landmines, and the only way out. This time, the question isn't whether I can escape. It's whether they can live to see tomorrow's sun.