The Great Wall of China
Alan Yeung, Group 4: Fiction, Korean International School
t was a dark, cold night. The sky was covered by thick clouds. Rain dropped down like a waterfall.
Branches and leaves from trees fell and flew everywhere because of the freezing, strong and violent wind.
The dragon, however, still lay on the mountains, unmoved.
The small flame, so weak that it looked like it would go out in any second, plus the clothes that
wasn’t designed for winter, were the only things that kept us from freezing to death in the long winter in
Northern China. Standing in my post, I was shivering in the chilling wind. The weather had not been so bad for
decades.
I stared out at the sheer mountains that were just like giant waves in the middle of the Pacific. There was
nothing out in the mountains, except trees and the dragon, protecting China using its hard scale made of tough
yellow bricks. It was a really calm day, with nothing special happening, but it was too calm, just like the quiet
before the storm.
Time passed really slowly as I had nothing to do. Seconds were like minutes, minutes were like hours and
hours were like days. I was so bored that I started to jog along the wall from one watchtower to the next and
back. It was only a few kilometers between the watchtowers, but the exercise was enough to keep me warm and
awake. After I was warm enough and awake, I went back to the watchtower. I took a deep breathe of the fresh
air, and when I breathed out, the water vapor condensed and formed a white trail that looked just like the smoke
and steam coming out from a volcano that erupted. I felt a lot more relaxed and fresh after taking the deep
breathe. I looked out from the watchtower. The night sky was still dark and covered by grey clouds, the freezing
wind was still blowing, the branches and leaves from trees were still being blown off the trunk and the great
wall still lay majestically along the mountains, but something was different than before. There was a sandstorm
coming towards me, and they looked just like the white trail of condensed water vapor that formed when I was
breathing. But as I looked closer at the sandstorm, something strange was also there. There were many small
black shadows behind the sandstorm. When they came closer towards me, I realized that those small black
shadows were indeed people riding on their horses and the sandstorm was actually the sand the horses kicked up
when they were dashing at great speed.
Minutes later, I was horrified by the size of the invaders. I couldn’t see where the group of countless
horses and soldiers ends. The scene was rather like all the ants from an ant colony running towards a honey pot.
I was shocked and stared at the “sandstorm” with my mouth wide open, but after a while, another soldier patted
on my back and told me to go help start the fire in order to inform other soldiers along the Great wall about the
invaders and telling them to prepare to fight. We took some firewood and laid them in three separate piles, while
other soldiers brought sulfur and niter and added then to the piles of firewood. I held my torch next to a pile of
firewood, while two other soldiers were doing the same thing for the other two piles. The small weak flame
slowly set the pile of firewood on fire. The three piles of firewood turned into three ten-feet tall red hot flames
that could be seen from miles away, signaling that more than one thousand invaders were attacking the Great
wall.
The Mongolians arrived in front of the Great wall and went in formation while the supporting forces
finally arrived from other parts of the Great wall. Both sides were in position and ready for battle.
Thunder and lightning stroke as the generals of both sides shouted “attack!” I took my position at a
strategic location on the top of the wall, where there was a gap in the wall so that I could fire arrows out. Arrows
flew across the air in every direction. Painful screams were hurting my ears. Blood turned parts of the originally
yellow wall into red. Dead bodies were everywhere. It was like hell.
Some Mongolians were firing arrows while they were still riding on their horse. Some others were
throwing ladder up the wall and tried to climb up the wall, whereas the remaining were fighting off the guards at
the gate of the wall and trying to break through the wall.
I kept on drawing arrow from my arrow bag and shooting them at the enemy soldiers, just like a machine.
Then, I saw a Mongolian who was on his horse charging towards a Chinese soldier who was guarding the gate
and has his back facing the Mongolian, just like a cheetah chasing a deer. The Mongolian was about to kill the
Chinese soldier and rose his sword, preparing to swing down as I released the arrow. The arrow flew straight
towards the Mongolian as if it was a magnet, hit the body, causing him to fall off the horse and laid on the floor.
I had no time to celebrate and I immediately drew another arrow out from my arrow bag. As I turned to
get the arrow, I heard the sound of an arrow flying really clearly. Then, my head was so painful that I thought it
would explode. I touched my head with my hands; fresh, red blood was flushing out. I looked at my hands, full
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