Box Z

It was a regular Monday morning, the
symptoms of fall were just beginning to show. The same old man was seated on his porch as usual with his same old, wrinkly dog. There were red and orange leaves scattered all over the sidewalk and in the street. I walked opposite the large group of kids on the other side of the street on our way to school. They all chattered rambunctiously amongst themselves as I walked quietly- attempting to read my book and catch glimpses of the concrete in front of me. The occasional drop of morning dew would fall on my forehead as I continued to walk down the quiet street. Nothing exciting ever happened in this quiet town and today wasn't any different....

Or So I thought.

VROOOOOOM!

A large pickup truck is being chased down the block by 5 other police cars, there's so much smoke and commotion that no one even bothers to notice the medium-sized package that fell out of the carrier. While the other kids are attempting to catch the high-speed chase on camera, I walk over and pick up the box, school can wait, I thought to myself as I tuck the box under my arm and head in the opposite direction. When I'm finally far enough away that it is now quiet again, I take the box out from under my arm and set it down in front of me. I take a peak around me before opening the box to reveal, an old polaroid camera and a stack of worn photos tied together by a tan rubber band - the band itself was so old it nearly crumbled in my hand. I carefully pull the band off of the photos to reveal pictures of different people. People I've never seen or heard of, they're just doing normal everyday things. There was nothing significant about the photos but there were so many of them and the more I looked, the more unnatural they appeared to be. They almost looked too perfect, almost staged. Their clothes were dated but the background looked modern. Then I get to the last 5 photos. The feeling I have while staring at these nightmarish images is inexplicable. It was a photo of a girl, probably the same age as me- walking and reading a book while a group of kids stand across the street from her. The next picture is her peering at the same old man that I had previously seen in the same position with the same dog. The next one shows her hair blowing in the wind as a large truck flies past her. The next photo shows her walking in the opposite direction with something tucked under her arm. Then I look at the last picture, It's the same girl- beaten and bloodied- tied up with a few more pictures of her being tortured in different ways surrounding her. She is staring at the camera with a permanent look of terror etched into her face. I drop the pictures in my hand and turn to run and leave those horrible images in that alley and as far away in my mind as possible when I bump into something solid...and the world goes black.