On 9th September, my brother and I went to a Wan Chai office building to have lunch with my cousin, Tom.
Tom worked at a publication company. When we arrived, as it was Saturday, there were only 4 people, including Tom. He asked us to wait for 5 minutes to let him finish the task which he had been doing first. A girl, called Mary, led us to wait at the reception.
Suddenly, all the lights went off. I first thought it was just because of the blown fuse. But when Mary grabbed her bag and wanted to leave the company, the door, which I opened several minutes ago, was locked tightly. A man with glasses appeared and told us all the exits seemed to be locked, which meant we were trapped in a tiny, stuffy and boring place!
The man with glasses, Peter, was the computer technician of the company. He said due to an electricity failure, all the fire exits were locked for safety purposes. Tom said he had already dialed 999, but the only thing we could do was just sitting down and waiting.
It was so difficult to wait with an empty stomach. My brother started to complain. A man, who had not spoken a word since we arrived, suddenly took out a white board and some pens. After a while, he showed us a very vivid and funny comic, which made everyone burst into laughter. Then, he started to draw us a romantic story about a dumb man and a rich girl.
The story was very touching and inspiring. It made time fly faster. I had no idea 5 hours was gone until the firemen broke the door and rescued us. They apologized to us that they could not arrive earlier due to traffic congestion.
Being trapped in the building is a “unique” experience, but what’s more interesting is that I saw the silent man get into a glamorous car after leaving the building and Tom told me that he was dumb.