Skaters 101 (but without the skating)

Mission Possible Really?

When Cheng woke up, everything was unfamiliar.

For starters, she wasn't lying on her bed, feeling the cold hard ground beneath her. Secondly, when she tried to move, attempted to get off the floor and climb back onto her bed, she couldn't move. Not even an inch.

That was when she was aware of the tight thread against her skin, pressing into her flesh. It encircled her limbs, forcing her arms behind her. Cheng also noticed that the room she was in wasn't her room. It was a bare, dark arena, with a barred window and a door.

Finally, she was aware of the strong scent of instant noodles seasoning.

Now Cheng wasn't your stereotypical kidnapped hostage. She was well equipped with the knowledge of stereotypical kidnappings, (She was an avid fan of mystery/horror novels), and she deduced that whoever took her hostage must not have been very experienced.

Firstly, Cheng could feel the bulge of her phone in her pocket, so she knew that whoever kidnapped her was not experienced.

Who in their right mind would not conduct a body search on their hostage in case they had a handphone on them?

Secondly, despite Cheng's wrists being tied behind her, her fingers were left free. Cheng ran her fingers over the knots that bound her knees. She slowly tugged at a loose end of rope, causing the knots to undo, setting her legs free. Although she was confused, Cheng wasted no time in standing up and twisting her arms in front of her.

Examining the ropes that bound her wrists, Cheng suddenly understood how she managed to free her legs so quickly, and started to laugh. The inexperienced kidnapper had tied a large, floppy bow in place of tough knots. With just a gentle tug at the strings, the bow came apart easily in her hands and she got up and jogged over to the window. As she neared the window, Cheng realised that the metal bars that barred the window were actually made of wooden planks. On closer inspection, there were even price tags still attached to them with a logo that looked suspiciously like TaoBao. One well-aimed kick was enough to smash the wood into splinters. Cheng squeezed herself out the tiny window, and dropped silently onto the grass outside. Taking a step back to survey the place she was kept hostage, she was met with the sight of a large abandoned warehouse. She thanked her lucky stars that she had not been taken hostage on the upper floor, or else escape would have been far more dangerous.

Breaking into a jog, Cheng ran along the street which the warehouse was located at. After a brief check with Google maps, Cheng realised that the way back to the student hostel wasn't very far, confirming her suspicions.

She wasn't concerned about the kidnappers at all, for from what she had seen, the kidnappers did not seem to pose such a threat to her. In fact, she even had a rough idea on who the mysterious kidnappers were. Well, when she got back to the student dorms, she could always beat them up.

On the way, Cheng checked her news feed. Yang wasn't there to tell her off for looking at her phone while running, so she figured that she might as well take the opportunity to do so. A news article caught her attention, and she clicked on the link; the mentioned bringing her to a video of a news report with the heading, "What are teens coming to nowadays?", posted about an hour ago.

Cheng turned up the volume ever so slightly to be able to hear what the news reporter was saying.

"-strange happenings tonight at 49 MooMooMaMa Street, there seems to have been a break-in but no one was harmed..."

There was a cut to a scene of a front lawn of a house, which was lit up with red and blue flashing lights, emitted from the multiple police cars parked around the lawn. The subject of interest seemed to be a young man kneeling on the grass, peering into a small house surrounded by a wire netting, facing away from the camera. Two burly policemen swaggered out of the police cars, made their way over to the offender. When he didn't respond to their arrival, one of them kicked him harshly, provoking him to get to his feet.

When the victim did, both policemen swarmed onto him, man-handing him over to one of the police cars. In the background, two middle-aged ladies with weird fashion were cheering and shouting abuse from the top steps of the house.

Cheng squinted at her screen. The victim looked somehow familiar, but the camera angles were too blurry to make out who it was exactly. Furthermore, the camera did not seem to favour the subject, focusing more on the policemen's faces, making the victim only part of the background.

The trespasser lay helpless as the policemen mercilessly slammed him into the side of the police car. Pinning him such that his body was facing the police car with his arms behind him, the policemen slapped a pair of handcuffs onto the young man's wrists.

"Right now, we have a chance to interview the victims of the break-in, the two Wang sisters who own the house."

The reporter took hold of the camera again, announcing into the microphone loudly as the police lights flashed brightly behind her. "Hello, this is Channel 49, live stream. I am Ariel Nadas, is there anything you have to say?"

The lady in tight-fitting pants immediately snatched the microphone away, speaking rapidly into it.

"I have so much to say! We were coming home from a shopping expedition, and found this man here in the garden, stepping on my beloved Bunbun!"

Ariel Nadas looked a little perturbed as she took back the microphone and asked, "A shopping expedition? At 3 am in the morning?"

This time, the one in baggy pants spoke up, "Well, the supermarket here is 24 hours. Plus, we figured that the cashiers there were probably bored to death. So why not?"

"I see. So, how did the man act? Did he threaten you, or do any heavy damage to the property?"

"He was-" The lady in baggy pants paused, "queer. Very queer."

"We found him coming out of the house. There were not any hidden spare keys around, so we guessed that he had broken in." The short-haired lady explained, "We were just in time to see that he had killed Bunbun."

"Murderer! Treason!" The other screeched.

Peng wondered how the whole neighbourhood wasn't awake by now.

"And he trampled on my flowerbed," the lady continued, "damaging it so severely that I couldn't enter any of the buttercups there into the upcoming Buttercup Contest."

Pictures of the damaged flowerbed and dead bunny flashed across the screen, (The carcass of the dead bunny was blurred out for sensitive viewers) and a voiceover explained the situation.

"At three am in the morning, the two Wang sisters were coming home from a trip to the supermarket. As reported, they found the man at the doorstep, stepping on victim no. 1. It was then that they called the police over, when seeing that their bunny was dead. Fortunately, before the offender could attack anyone, the neighbourhood police arrived swiftly, and handcuffed him. They had found him staring up a rabbit house inside a rabbit pen. The offender has declared innocence, and is currently residing in the nearby neighbourhood jail."

The scene changed, now displaying the dull grey walls of a prison cell.

With bated breath, Cheng waited for the offender to come into the field of vision. Perhaps with the proper lighting of a jail cell, she may be able to clearly see the perpetrator's face.

It never came. The prison guards hustled the offender into a cell very quickly, and slammed the door on him, locking it with a key. For some reason, the camera seemed to always focus on the actions of guards, or anything other than the offender himself. Even the key got more screen time than the offender.

It was then when Cheng knew that she had some work to do.