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Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: Indus Valley Press
ISBN-10: 100984756116
Type: Fiction
Pages: 286
Copyright: December, 2011
ISBN-13: 13:9780984756117
Price: $1.99 (eBook)
The One Hundred, based on a true story, follows a sixteen-year-old runaway, who escapes a troubled childhood only to be thrown into the dangerous streets of Lahore, Pakistan, to fight a merciless enemy.
When Yosef, a motherless sixteen-year-old, escapes a carpet looming factory with ten-year-old Daud─ leaving his troubled childhood behind─he has no idea he would be thrown into the dangerous streets of Lahore, Pakistan, to fight a merciless enemy. With growing concerns over street urchins disappearing at an alarming rate, Jugni─a transgender teenager who acts as a guardian to many runaways─rescues Yosef from a rival gang and an unparalleled bond between them develops. With one hundred children, including Daud, vanished and the police grappling with the tragic crime, Yosef knows there won’t be swift justice for his kind. Filled with rage for losing Daud and the law not on their side, Yosef and Jugni embark on a terrifying journey to find the man responsible for the disappearances of the one hundred boys.
Excerpt
October 10, 2000
Yosef slowly opened his eyes. A deep, sluggish breath exhaled from his mouth. He felt the coldness of black tar paving soak into his chest. Heavy-lidded, he blinked. Blinked again. Yosef’s mind tried to recall how he’d ended up lying on his stomach in the middle of the road. There was a voice saying something. Up ahead at a distance, someone shouted. The dust in front of his mouth scattered as Yosef took another deep breath and exhaled.
With his left cheek hard-pressed against the road, he stared ahead and saw several boys his age attacking four men on the ground. He pressed the palms of his hands against the road and propelled on his feet. With the gradual awakening of the senses, Yosef realized his left eye was swollen shut, ears ringing. He ran his tongue over to the side and felt the crusty, dried blood sticking from the corner of his mouth. A shooting pain invaded his body.
He grabbed his head and tried to squeeze the numbness out. As he looked again at the mob in front of him, he recognized one of the men on the ground, taking punches from the gang. Among the assailants, his sight registered the profile of a boy, Meera. Yosef knew Meera. His blurry vision cleared and memories trickled back in. Muted voices turned into screams and shouts. In the background, the sound of crickets and other night creatures got louder, tearing through the silence of the night. He staggered back on his feet. He was remembering now.
“Yosef, hurry!” a voice had said.
Yosef turned, and, like a flash, it all came back. He remembered why he was there. The pain, the swollen eye─it was as if he were waking up from a dream. His panicked gaze roamed for his companions, Jugni and Saif. But he didn’t see them. His heart started to beat faster. Things had not gone as planned. Yosef looked ahead at the building in front of him, the police station. He was supposed to be inside the station at this hour, not outside.
Yosef looked over his shoulder and glanced at the mob calling his name before inching toward the police station. His wounded knee made each step feel like daggers falling from the sky and piercing into the flesh. He bit into his lips to cut the pain. There wasn’t much time left. Having no sense of how long he had been out cold, it could now be too late. Through labored breaths and clenched teeth, he staggered forward toward the building.
Yosef crossed the courtyard and entered the main entrance. Hatim, in police uniform, was slumped on the floor, unconscious. The middle drawer of his desk was half-open. Yosef noticed the gun missing from his holster. He looked around once again for Jugni and Saif. There were voices coming from the hallway. A scream. Yosef followed the voices. He placed his hands on both walls of the narrow hall for support and wobbled down. In the third cell on the right, he saw someone sitting on the floor inside with his back pressed against the iron bars. That was Saif. His shoulders jerked as he sobbed with his face cupped in his hands. Jugni was standing next to him, her long, braided hair hanging loosely down to her waist. They made it inside the cell, Yosef thought. His eyes then skimmed past his friends to the man sitting on the cell’s wooden bench, across from Saif, wearing an orange prison suit.
Half of the man’s face was shadowed in the dappled lighting of the prison cell, but that didn’t stop Yosef from recognizing who he was. That man was the reason Yosef was here. He heard the man talking to Saif. This was the moment Yosef had been waiting for. The sound of clock ticking echoed in his head.
“I pity you,” the man was saying. Saif had developed hiccups in between his sobbing. Yosef looked into the man’s stony eyes. An icy feeling ran down Yosef’s spine. It was as if he was seeing him vicariously through Daud. He wondered if Daud felt the same chill staring into the eyes of this monster before taking his last breath. The man looked up in Yosef’s direction. Their eyes met. Yosef clenched his fists, let out a growl, and entered the cell.
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