My name is Sam and my family does not have a lot of money. I work everyday in the rice fields and my family is slowly starting to starve lately since we have been under Khmer Rouge’s power. The days I don’t have to work in the fields, me and some friends go to the city and go into the stores to sneak food out of the stores so we have more food for our families. I have a family of four but used to have a family of five. When I was really young a guard took my mom to a jail for no reason, well that's what I thought.

“I’m heading to the town” I said to pa. I left without him responding to me. I was with some friends walking around town and I saw a few guys getting taken away by some guards under Khmer Rouge. I knew that those guards took people to the prison Tuol Sleng (the prison known that a lot of people go in but none come out). Since my mom has never came back I am pretty sure she is prison Tuol Sleng.

My friends and I were coming out of a store that we stole food out of and a guy yelled at us “Hey, you there, come here.” We started to run as fast as we could but this guy was fast. Another guard just appeared and the next thing I knew, me and my friend were on the ground, but one got away because there was only two guards. We thought they were taking us because they saw us steal food but they said they needed to extract confessions from us. They also said they were taking us to “Tuol Sleng,” the prison where people go in but never come out. People say between 1% and 5% were traitors. But they still take people in even if they're not traitors.

The prison wasn’t super nice and I think it was just in an old school, if it was a school it had to be able to hold many many people. When we got out of the vehicle I tried to escape the guards grip but he was just too strong. It looked like there were a lot of people jammed into the small jail cells and a lot of them looked innocent. One of the people I saw was just a five year old kid. There was no chance he had anything to say and the guards were whipping him with electric wire and it looked like how farmers treat their animals. After every lash he cried and bled more.

As I was walking to where the guards were bringing me I saw a list of ten rules that looked really important for this prison but I didn’t have time to read them all. I’m sure I could read them again though sometime. After the guards extract confessions from the people they bring them somewhere, but I didn’t know where. The guard told me that I can’t make any noise. Then read me the list of ten rules.

The next morning when I wake up the guards are standing right next me and it scared me like crazy because I didn’t know how long they had been standing there. I realized that today was the day that they were try to get me to talk or else they would give some terrible punishments that just gave me a gruesome thought.

They took me to a room where there were different guards inside. A woman had just came out and I think this was the first time I could smell the smell of blood. It smelled sweet and sour. I went in and my feet were sticking to the ground from all the blood. They asked me questions that were impossible to answer for me because I didn’t know anything. They thought I was hiding something but I had no answers at all. Since I couldn’t answer they gave me 5 lashes of electric wire and then 2 electric shocks. I had never been in so much pain.

After they tried to get answers from me they loaded me up in a truck to the place where they bring all the people after they answer the questions. The whole ride I felt the sticky feeling of blood. I realized that this place is where they execute the people. I got out and they brought me to a woman and I realized that it was my mom and she was really injured!!! They brought me there to let me see her death, they killed her with a gunshot right to the head. I ran to her limp crippled body and the guards kicked me away. Then they yelled at me and said I was next. They held the gun to my head and I saw a flash and I fell and died as I watched the bloody ground get closer.