North Korea's prison camps the most secure camps in the world which have existed more than twice as long as Stalin's gulags are a one-way ticket to death. In over sixty years only a handful of people have escaped them. Chae Jae and Park--three camp-bred boys whose existence the government denies--overhear rumors from the guards about the outside world and begin to piece together the building blocks for an escape that is until Chae unwittingly runs over a guard with a runaway mining cart. Within days Chae's execution is set. Will he be executed or will his friends Jae and Park succeed in getting him--and themselves--out alive?