Running Home

Something Taken

Cold December nights were always my favorite. There was the heavy rain pouring down onto the roof, my sister in the other room with her music spilling through the open door, our parents sitting by the crackling, warm fireplace, and the slight chill in the air that allowed me to bundle up in a blanket. The trees waved in the wind, and the lightning flashed, just to be followed by the familiar boom of thunder.

It's a shame and a blessing that my tale began on such a night.

Nine o'clock PM on a Thursday night. No one thinks anything bad can happen on a Thursday. I was sitting at my desk, studying for my trigonometry test, which was scheduled for the next morning.

My father has always had a tradition that has never changed even as I've grown; he comes upstairs around 9:15 each night to say good night and kiss me on my forehead.

"Wren," he would say. "You are the perfect daughter."

"Really?" I'd always ask.

"No, I'd trade you out any day," was his standard response.

When I was small, he used to tuck me into my bed, and the times were earlier. However, on my eleventh birthday, I insisted that I was too old for "little kid things," and the ritual evolved to 8:30 rather than 7 sharp, and he would make me say, "I love you around the world and back."

If I failed to say it quickly enough, there would be a lot of tickling to compensate.

As I was finishing re-reading my notes, I heard the doorbell downstairs. Footsteps followed, echoing across the hardwood flooring. The door creaked open, and a conversation began between my parents and the person. I meticulously filed my notes back into order and placed them in my binder as the conversation in the distance ended.

Finally, at 9:27, my dad made his way up the stairwell and down the hallway to my room. I didn't make an effort to look up from my organizing as he came over to my desk. That was my first fault.

The man behind me was most definitely not my father or any other member of my family. Instead of the tall, dark-haired, glasses-clad man I was expecting, the person looming over me was quite average height, but that made him no less intimidating.

He had striking green eyes, a large hood covering a mop of blonde hair, and was easily fifteen years older than me; to top it all off, he had a daunting, cruel smile upon his unshaven face. No matter how reluctant I am to admit it, he had quite sensible running shoes to accompany his grey sweatshirt and camouflage pants.

I opened my mouth to scream, call for help, anything, but no sound came out. I was paralyzed by fear. A million thoughts raced through my head at once, and I was stunned beyond belief. The fact that my average Thursday had led to my being kidnapped left me frozen in place. That was my second fault.

As I sat helplessly, my gaping mouth was taken advantage of, and I was gagged. My hands were brought behind me and were bound together with zip-ties. The man, whoever he was, grabbed me and draped me over his shoulder like in a movie. The bumpy ride downstairs was only made worse as I kicked and tried in vain to scream or escape. At the base of the stairwell where the carpet met hard floor, I was dropped. I hit the floor with a thud, but my family failed to come to my rescue.

No one was in sight. My captor hauled me out the door, as I tried frantically to make any noise or sign at all that something was happening, but I was unable to attract any attention before he shoved me into the back of a vehicle that was pulled up on the street.

The whole ordeal had gone on without a noise. I managed one last glace back at my captor before the trunk was shut and the lock clicked. The engine began to whir, and before I knew it, my average Thursday evening had been turned upside down.

I tried to take in my surroundings once my vision began to adjust, but there wasn't much scenery to admire. It was the confines of an average sedan trunk. There wasn't room to roll over, much less sit up. Suddenly, the entirety of all of what had just happened hit me. I've been kidnapped. I'm in someone's car, and they're driving me to who knows where to do who knows what. My parents are either abducted as well, in league with the kidnapper, or dead. My sister, Leah, wasn't with me, so I had to assume her fate was the same as my parents'.

Once I had considered what might have happened to everyone I loved, I began to wonder what this man wanted with me. Was I to be sold? Was I to be used as a slave of some sort, or maybe for the ransom? Or did he want to kill me, but he would have risked being caught if he had stayed any longer? The first two options seemed plausible, but he would have taken Leah as well. The third option was ruled out, as it would have been faster to kill me than the kidnapping.

My imagination was getting the best of me, and I began to panic. I was never one to hyperventilate, but the enclosed space of the trunk was starting to worry me. If we didn't reach the destination quickly enough, or if the man forgot about me, I could easily run out of air and suffocate. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, and I started to flail. The rain pounded harder and harder on the car until I was sure I was being driven to my death.

I curled into a ball, trying desperately to calm down and breathe normally, but nothing was working. I eventually began to hum, thinking of the songs playing from Leah's room right before the night turned disastrous. "Pompeii" by Bastille had been her favorite song for months, and she never stopped playing it.

She was twelve, so she tended to remain addicted to the same song for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. It was one of her many obsessions, as well as a few television shows and books.

The humming helped me keep my mind off of the potential dangers of the trunk. There could be bugs and spiders lurking in every corner. My mind wandered with the song, and I zoned out.

*****

Author's Note:
Hello! 'Tis me, the author. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoyed reading it. Feel free to comment or message me and leave suggestions or anything else. Also, please help me, as I am writing the majority of this without spell check. If you see any errors, just comment.

I'm not sure how often I'll get to update, or how long these chapters will be, but I hope you guys will read. I'm also considering adding dedications, but I'll have to see. Thank you again!