After rolling down the slope, I grabbed the AK and ran desperately into the forest. The thugs were hot on my heels, firing shots every now and then.
At first, I managed to put some distance between us, but gradually they got closer and closer. The sparse forest and my lack of strength allowed the off-road vehicles to catch up quickly.
"Damn it, drop the gun and we won't kill you!" shouted a dozen thugs, pointing their guns at me.
Saying I wasn't scared would be a lie. Saying they wouldn't kill me was also a lie because I had already killed one of their men. So, even if I had to die, I would take a few more down with me.
"Come on! We can die together!" I yelled, aiming the AK at one of the thugs on the vehicle, my eyes red with anger. Dying here was better than being taken back to the KK camp.
"Still acting tough, huh? You think a crappy gun can take down all of us?" One of the thugs laughed, jumping down from the vehicle with a string of bullets around his neck. Seeing all those bullets made me eager to grab them.
Yeah, what could I do against them? I couldn't match their precision at a distance, and I'd be riddled with bullets in a firefight. But thinking of the tortures at the camp made me fearless. Death was better; I could be a hero again in the next life.
"Shoot me if you dare! I'm bored and need some target practice!" The thugs laughed but didn't come closer, wary of me accidentally firing and fighting back.
"Mom, Dad, I'm sorry! Your son will make it up to you in the next life!" I was about to pull the trigger to shoot the thug covered in bullets when the gun jammed.
"Damn it, even this gun is against me!" I cursed, sweating, almost wanting to break the useless AK.
Seeing my struggle, the thugs understood what was happening. "Ha! The gun jammed, didn't it? Our security budget is tight, so the firearms we get are cast-offs. Just your luck to grab one. Come on, shoot me!" They laughed, advancing with their AKs.
"Come on, you bastards! A dozen of you with guns, is that what you call men?" I yelled, angrily dumping the bullets and smashing the gun to the ground.
"Fuck! Acting tough, just as I need some exercise!" A tall black man, speaking broken Chinese, disdainfully approached.
"Can you handle it, Blackie? Just shoot him already!" shouted a few Chinese thugs from behind.
"A man never admits he can't. Watch me take him down alone!" The black man tossed his gun to a companion, ready to play a game of cat and mouse with me, thinking I'd be the mouse.
"Hey, you Chinese?" He mocked, stopping about five meters away.
I glared at the Chinese thugs, baffled by their willingness to be lackeys and attack their own people. "Chinese!" I spat, standing tall and shouting.
I darted forward, striking his artery with a fierce blow. The big black man collapsed immediately.
"You...you..." he stammered, looking at me in disbelief before falling unconscious.
"Fuck, he knows kung fu!" another black man yelled, grabbing his AK.
"Kill him!" The local thugs aimed their guns at me. Facing certain death, I felt a strange calmness.
"Bastard, you think dying will be easy?" The thugs swarmed, beating me with punches and kicks. Exhausted and starving, my strength waned quickly. After knocking down a few, I collapsed under their assault.
"Get a knife, cut off his hand!"
"His legs are strong too, cut his tendons!" One thug fetched a sharp knife from the trunk, looking at me menacingly.
Rather than being maimed, I'd rather die. Lying on the grass, I watched helplessly as the knife descended...
"Wait! Don't cut him! We'll take him back for the supervisor to deal with!" Another thug intervened just in time.
The new arrival was short, dark-skinned, with sharp, stern features. His eyebrows were like swords, exuding an air of determination and strength.
"Wrench, what do you mean? He killed our brothers! Even if we kill him, the supervisor won't blame us," the thug holding the knife protested, enraged.
"Fuck! I'll kill him to avenge my brother!" another black man, cradling the dead black thug's body, shouted through tears.
"You can't kill him!" Wrench yelled back.
"Wrench, you want to keep him alive so he can kill us all?" the black man demanded.
"If he can still kill you when he's half-dead, it's your own incompetence!" Wrench, a fellow Chinese, stood out among the taller thugs with his sharp, fierce gaze. From my martial arts training, I could tell he was skilled.
"Fuck, die already!" The black man kicked my arm hard.
"…" The pain brought tears to my eyes.
"Blackie, the supervisor is recruiting fighters. If you kill him, you know the consequences!" Wrench slung his AK over his shoulder, smiling coldly at the black man.
Hearing the supervisor's name deflated Blackie and the others quickly fell in line, putting away their weapons.
"Wrench, don't pull rank with us. He's not from our camp, no one will know if we kill him!" another local thug protested.
"Am I dead? My words mean nothing now?" Wrench kicked the protesting thug to the ground.
"Go to hell!" Blackie smashed my head with his gun butt.
Everything went black as I lost consciousness...