By Raymond Zhou (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-05-21 09:17

"I'm breathing hard, as if there is a big rock on my chest. I cannot see anything, but hear only a chilly voice whispering into my ear: 'Li Ximin, you're dead.' How can I be dead? I have a clear sense I'm alive - my mind works quickly, only my body cannot move, as if it is bound and gagged. Who's joking with me?

Famous Chinese writers, including Sichuan-native A Lai (left), take part in a fundraising event in Beijing Book Store, on May 18, for the earthquake victims. [File photo]

The voice vanishes.

I see a pale light in front of me. I want to climb out of my bed, but I can't move my body.

Suddenly, I hear howling as my room teems up with people. Among them are my parents, my wife, my child, my brother, my friends and some indistinct faces. They're all crying. Some are saying, 'It's no use crying over a dead person. You should take care of yourself. '

'Who is dead?' I shout. But, nobody answers me.

Darkness engulfs me as I hear the sound of nails being hammered into the coffin. I can move my body now, but my struggle is in vain. Nobody knows I'm alive. My relatives and friends are still crying.

In that single moment, desperation wells up inside me. I have a feeling I am being buried alive."

The above excerpt was posted on Li Ximin's blog on April 29. At the time, the writer of horror stories never imagined he would two weeks later be living out a scenario far more frightening than his self-induced fiction.

Li was buried alive for more than three days - 76 hours - in last week's earthquake in Sichuan.

It was truly a nightmare that rivals any of his previous works.

He managed to survive. And, he lives to tell his story.

At the request of a friend, Li took a trip to a mountainous resort in northwestern Sichuan's Dragon Gate town, of Pengzhou city, roughly a dozen miles from the epicenter.

The fresh air and beautiful scenery was something the Fujian-born and Shanghai-based writer felt was needed to fire up his imagination for a new novel. After spending five days in town, Li had written 30,000 words by May 12.

Li was diligently working away on his manuscript when things started swaying and falling off the shelves in his room. He quickly ducked under a bookcase.

The building collapsed and he was trapped underneath the fallen shelf and a pile of rubble. His neck and left hand were completely stuck. Only his right hand could move, but it could not reach anything.

"I couldn't even drink my own urine, if I wanted," Li said.

Coincidentally, his notebook computer with wireless Internet capability had fallen right in front of him. He thought of seeking help through the Internet.

The connection was lost, but fortunately, Li had mistaken the quake for just a landslide.

"Had I known it was an earthquake of such magnitude, I would have figured out that help could not easily reach this isolated place - and I might have given up hope," said Li.

Amid the aftershocks, which sent rocks rolling down hills, Li could see a ray of light through the cracks of debris.

   1 2 3   

   1 2 3