Stockholm Syndrome [h.s]

one

A girl is walking down the street in the middle of the day. She has headphones in her ears and has her head down looking at her phone. She's not paying attention to her surroundings at all, but suddenly out of the blue she stops to look around.

She sees nothing.

She keeps walking to her destination, which is the bench at the bus stop a few meters ahead, but she hasn't returned to looking down at her phone. Only her headphones are in, but now she's more vigilant to her surroundings.

She reaches the bench in a matter of seconds and takes a seat. She takes another look at her surroundings before returning her gaze to the phone in front of her.

After a few minutes go by, she checks her watch and frowns. Her bus should have been here three minutes ago. However, she doesn't think anything of it. Today is Thursday, and Oscar is working the shift. She knows Oscar is always late, which is why she's decided to take the bus into town that goes an hour earlier.

Another couple minutes go by, and now she's getting irritated. While she's used to the lateness, being seven minutes late is a new record. She's about to get up to go to the train station that's twenty minutes away when she sees a man walking towards her.

"Hello," he says. He seems nice enough, and he's either in his late teens or early twenties.

"Hi," she replies.

"I saw you were waiting for the bus. I hope you know that it's Oscar working the shift. He's always late."

"I know. But he's seven - now eight - minutes late. Five I can deal with. But when it gets past six, it messes up my schedule."

"I see. But if you know that he's always late, why don't you take an earlier bus?"

"I do."

"Then how does it mess up your schedule?"

"I expect him to be late so I take an earlier bus. Now he's later than usual. I guess it doesn't really mess anything up; I just don't like it."

"Oh. Well I best be going. I thought I might take the bus for a change today, but Oscar seems to be eleven minutes late now? Seems like I'll be taking my car. Do you want a ride in? It's no hassle."

The girl considers it, but politely says no and shakes her head.

The boy nods and walks off into the direction he came in. She decides against going to the train station and decides to just wait it out. Oscar can't be too far away now, seeing as it's already been thirteen minutes.

Two more minutes pass, and still no sign of the bus. The girl is extremely irritated and wonders why she didn't accept the boy's offer. Then, in the distance, she sees a pair of headlights. The car pulls up into the bus stop and the driver rolls down the window.

It's the boy again.

"Do you still not want to take up my offer?"

Again, she says no. While it would be more convenient, she still has another forty-four minutes until she needs to get on a bus or walk to the train station to catch the 13:06 train.

The boy's smile falters a bit. He gets out of the car and goes to open the trunk. He takes a bag out before going back to where the girl is sitting. She frowns but says nothing.

"I seem to have misplaced something. Could you help me look for it? Oh, I think I see it. Could you just get up for a minute? It's right under your seat. Wait, never mind, I'll just crawl under from behind."

The boy moves behind the girl, and she is about to turn around when suddenly a hand wraps around her mouth and a voice whispers in her ear. Scream. I dare you.She tries, but her lungs won't work. Soon the world goes black around her.

When the boy feels that the girl's body has gone slack, he picks her up and puts her in the trunk of his car, shuts it, and gets into the driver's seat of his car. He smirks as he pulls away from the bus stop.

A mere minute later, Oscar pulls up with the bus. He opens the door and is ready to apologize to Sara for being twenty-two minutes late. There was a mother who was having trouble getting her baby carriage onto the bus, and he had to help. But when he turns his head to look out the door, he sees nobody. He frowns, but instead shuts the door to the bus and drives on.

Hi guys, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! Just letting you know, the rest of the chapters won't be written in this format (it will be written in Sara's - the girl's - point of view), but I always have a hard time starting off a story and this seemed to be the best way to go about it. I'm not sure when I'll be able to update next, but I'll try to make it soon.

x.sofia