Kim Hye-sook spent over four decades inside North Korea's prison camp system, starting at age 13 when she and her family were sent to Bukchang, also known as Camp 18, after a relative was accused of defecting. The film follows her account of forced labor in the camp's coal mines, the deaths of family members inside the wire, and the years spent watching guards decide who lived and who was worked to death. She describes the moment she finally understood escape was possible and the route she took out of North Korea and eventually to South Korea, where she has become one of the most detailed witnesses to the camp system's daily mechanics. Interview testimony carries the film, supplemented by maps and drawings Kim herself made to document the camp's layout from memory. It is a firsthand record of a prison system Pyongyang denies exists, told by someone who spent her childhood and adulthood inside one of its largest facilities.