Han Hong woke from a terrible dream. Someone had put her in a box, loaded her into a vehicle and driven her away over some very rough terrain. She’d been smashed against the sides of the box and the rough wood had splintered her skin. Scratchy hessian, damp and tied tight, rubbed at her eyes.

She smelled eggy methane fumes mixed with the tangy scents of onion and garlic. She could hear music, dark and electronic, like something from a video game.

‘I’m at the restaurant, sorting supplies.’

Han Hong stiffened, her mind rushing full throttle to complete wakefulness. This wasn’t a dream. Someone else was here with her in the darkness. She recognised the voice – it was one of them.

‘What time will she be leaving?’

A one-sided conversation. Han Hong’s heart leapt. This meant a phone.

Han Hong scoured her memory for details of her time in the box. The dream had prompted memories of her transportation here, to this dark place. Had the trip taken one hour or two? Or had they driven all night? She couldn’t remember. But they were obviously somewhere with mobile coverage. And that meant a chance.

Fully awake now, Han Hong tried to assess her situation. She was cold, dressed only in a T-shirt and underpants. She couldn’t feel her arms. She forced her mind to seek out the different parts of her body, assess herself for pain and injury, discover whether she was still whole. Her hands were pinned behind her, tied together with some kind of thin cable. Her fingers ground into the concrete, mashed into the floor by her weight. Her legs were crossed and strapped at the ankles. She rolled to her left. There was space here, in this place that smelled like her dad’s cellar.

At least she was no longer stuck in the box.

Han Hong bashed her head against something hard and metallic. Ripples of pain washed through her temples and jerked down her spine. She groaned and rolled to her right. She felt more metal; it pressed into her forehead, its mesh pattern sinking into her skin.

‘Shut up!’

The voice again, from somewhere ahead of her. Raised, demanding. Talking to her.

‘I wish it hadn’t happened.’ The voice softened again as the man returned to the phone. ‘But business is business and we need to clean this up. If they find the real girl and she talks, we’re done.’

Han Hong struggled to make sense of the conversation. The real girl?

And then he was beside her and she could smell the garlic on his breath.

‘It’s your lucky night,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some business to attend to. You get the night off.’

She listened to his footsteps as he moved back across the room. Then the creak of a hinge and the slap of wood against wood as a door slammed shut.

She was alone.

Han Hong mustered all her strength and stretched her neck high. Her abdominal muscles screamed in outrage and her head felt heavy but, through the fuzz, she recognised the sensation of the top of her scalp touching a ceiling of some kind.

Exhausted, she lay back against the concrete and allowed a tear to run down one cheek. It touched her mouth and she savoured the moisture, even though the salt stung her lips.

So this is what it feels like, she thought, to be caged.