The Dragon Warrior
Rebekka Pirttilahti, Group 3: Fiction, British International School Puxi, Shanghai
he world has existed for a long time, but no one has ever seen something like the Great Wall of China
and no one knows the secrets of it… Except me. So I am here to tell you my story and how the Great
Wall of China became part of the world.
People might have told you this and that about it, however they are not correct. The Great Wall
of China was built many years ago to keep a horrible beast out of the village. The most terrible beast of
all the land, the Dragula. It breathed fire, killed everything it saw: - the trees, the plants, the houses, the people,
nothing could beat it. It’s enormous, killing voice, would make everything fly around and smash against the
hard core of the earth. My people used to call him ‘the unbeatable’. The wall was meant to be for our enemies,
but as they were on their way here, Dragula killed every last one of them. Pleased, we started celebrating which
led to misery for us.
There was danger in the air. Our emperor could smell it, like a dog sniffing the ground.
“
Order!” he shouted. His men lined up very quickly. “I want you to do something for me. You have to
build a wall. Oh, but this, this is a special wall,” the Emperor hesitated before saying more. “I have been
planning this for years now!” he continued his speech about the ‘special wall’. However, there was one bit that
caught all of our attention. “This wall will be as high as the sky can reach and as wide as the ground can run. So
be prepared. You will start at midday!” he declared out loud.
While the soldiers went back into their cottages, the Emperor wanted to talk to me. He said that if something
went wrong, he would blame it on me and that if it was not long and tall enough before the danger got here, I
wouldn’t be able to see another sunrise. Terrified, I walked slowly to the garden. The touch of the fresh, sweet
air on my skin, as I stepped into this earthy paradise almost paralyzed me. The birds’ beautiful songs travelled
through my ears. All of this was making me so dizzy that I just had to sit down.
The great Emperor’s shouts were getting louder all the time, though the Dragon was still years away
from us. As I went outside, his fat bouncy belly was moving in the rhythm of the wind while he was hiking up
and down the temple. I could sense the fear in the air, it was just too clear that the soldiers were afraid of the
danger. The clock struck midday. Everything fell into silence.
Calmly, the soldiers walked out of their houses.
“
Order! You know what you have to do don’t you all?” The emperor yelled. The soldiers nodded.
“
Excellent…” he laughed hysterically because his plan was going to work, after that he disappeared.
I was now the leader of the whole process.
“
Okay, listen everyone! We are going to start building it right here!” I said in an unconfident whisper. The
soldiers ran around getting the material needed to build the Great Wall of China. All the shouts were driving me
mad and I knew that if I didn’t get out of here, sooner or later, I would die. The soldiers were staring at me like I
was the leader of them. I didn’t even know how to speak properly in a confident voice and now I had all the
soldiers’ sweaty faces looking down at me like I was the only answer? Well, they want me to speak? I’ll speak.’
“
Start…” I started in a very confident voice. “Building, I suppose?” After I showed them how to build the
wall, it went better than I imagined. Then I heard someone shouting which distracted my thinking. But the voice
was so small that I didn’t know whose it was. It was… the Emperor.
“
Stop, Stop!” he cried in a weak and shaky voice as he walked down the steep stone stairs. “Danger is
coming!” everyone now listened to the Great One. The danger was a dragon. It had killed our worst enemy, the
barbarians, which meant that now it was our new enemy. “This danger is not forgiving. If you hurt it, it will
destroy all of us.” His talk finished dramatically as he fell to the ground, unable to breathe. I got hold of his head
before it hit anything but it was already too late. He was gone, for his own good. What was I supposed to do
now? Did the soldiers expect me to give them a speech about how good the emperor was? I couldn’t.
I ran inside the temple garden where the fresh air I needed finally got into my skull and flushed all the
frightful thoughts away. Finally I could just sit down and relax, get some peace for a minute, if even that. After a
while everything made sense again and I marched outside making looking very serious. “Keep building you
fools! Get to work.” I yelled. It felt good to be in power.
Every day the wind grew stronger and the dragon got closer. I knew it would still take years to finish
the wall so I had to do something before Dragula arrived. I had no idea it was going to be this hard to build the
wall.
After years of preparation, the dragon could be seen now from far away.
“
Dragula is almost here and we need to finish building this wall or we will not see another sunrise!” I
said cried in a small and weak voice. It wouldn’t be long until I died. I had been running around a lot and my
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