For the survivors, the misery had only begun. With the Japanese encamped around the building, no one dared leave in search of help. The only option was to pretend to be dead and wait for the Americans to arrive, which could be days or even a week. The Japanese knew that some of the victims feigned death, going so far as to place a glass of water beside each body so that the troops could check if the person had sipped it. “Don’t drink from your glass,” Fernando Vasquez-Prada’s father warned him. “Drink from someone else’s whom you are sure is dead.”
