Motionless

            “Check over there,” I hear a strong, deep, male voice announce.

            I find myself hiding under a twin-sized bed that reeks of urine and other strange smells. “What is going on?” I mutter.

A voice from not too far away replies, “They’re trying to kill us.”

Trying to snap out of my state of shock without screaming, I just close my eyes and start to count. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ni-”

“What in the world are you doing?” She sounded young, maybe thirteen? None the less, she was younger than I.

“Counting. Nine, ten.”

I see feet walking in front of me. What would happen if I reached out and grabbed his foot? Would he fall? Many thoughts run through my head as I try to think of a logical way to remove myself from this situation.

Just wait, I tell myself. Be patient.

 

It feels as if hours have passed; nothing has changed. I'm still cramped in this small space with a young child who doesn’t understand silence. “We need to do something,” I whisper to her.

“I know,” she starts with an attitude. “I’ve been saying that for a while now.”

“Help me think of an actual plan. Stay quiet.”

A few minutes later, we decide that we need to try to escape, even though we could not think of a decent plan. Slowly, we maneuver our bodies out from under the bed without causing any abrupt noises.

Sitting on the floor in front of the bed, we look at each other with blank faces. What now? I think to myself.

“I'm Sarah,” the young girl says quietly.

“Zailey.” I replied. I suppose that we should try to befriend each other. “Wait here, I'm going to go see where they are.”

Nervously, I pick my bottom off of the ground and stand on my two feet. My legs feel shaky, as if I was swimming for a couple of hours. This place looks oddly familiar, I think to myself. I slowly spin my body around to examine the room that we are captive in.

My eyes become glued to the door to my left. It’s barely connected by corroded hinges, but it is a door nonetheless. As I cautiously step towards the door, I see a shadow walk by. “Crap,” I mutter.

“Don’t worry, about a thing, ‘cause every little thing, is gonna be alright.” I hear Sarah’s soft, fragile voice singing Bob Marley’s beautiful lyrics.

I stand beside the door, listening carefully to the men on the other side.

“What are we going to do with them?” the voice was extremely deep.

I peek through the crack of the door.

“Don’t worry about it, Joe. We’re here for one reason.” The man who spoke has a full, dark brown beard along with a thin head of hair outlining his tan face. He’s inches taller than the other man, though both are at least half a foot taller than me.

“I know,” Joe mutters in reply, though I don’t think his partner heard him. Joe is much darker skinned than the other, but his voice is calmer and less aggressive.

What is the one reason that they are here for? This question along with many others is currently floating through my brain. I need to figure this out.

I walk back to Sarah. “Do you want to come with me?” I ask.

“Where are we going?”

“I need to figure out who they are and what is going on.”

She picks herself up onto her feet and grabs my hand. A shiver is sent through my body, but I ignore it. We’re safer together, I think to myself. Though I'm not completely comfortable holding a stranger’s hand, I go along with it and we walk towards the door.

 “So what happened?” Sarah asked.

I give her a confused look.

“When you were standing by the door. What happened?”

“Oh. I heard them talking. They don’t care about us. They are here for a reason.”

“What is the reason?”

“That’s what we’re about to find out.”

As we slowly push open the door, it makes a loud creaking sound. I hope they didn’t hear that, I think to myself. We push it open completely and look out, though there isn’t much to see. The door exits into a hallway which is piled in dirty clothes, used paper plates, fast food containers, and other grotesque objects.

“This place is gross,” Sarah mumbles to me.

“I know,” I reply. “Who would live in such a place?”

Instead of waiting for a response from her, I head down the hallway. Her fingers are still interlocked with mine, so she follows closely behind. It’s like a maze; we’re stepping through all of this trash, trying not to make any noise or hurt ourselves.

“Over there!” The man’s voice was piercing through my body. Sarah and I froze in pure terror.

From around the corner at the end of the hall, I saw the two men stop and stare at us.

“Mark, take them to the van. They are being a distraction.”

The man who spoke before, Mark, approached us and cautiously grabbed our arms while muttering, “This was not part of the job description.”

He pulled us down the hallway; we turned right, into a room messier than the hallway. The couch and tables were drenched with mold while producing a smell much like that of urine. He continued to pull us out of the front door.

Why am I not struggling? I don’t think he’s going to hurt me. What if he does? He won’t. My thoughts are going back and forth, contradicting each other to try and make me feel safe.

Minutes that felt like hours later, we were outside in the bright sunlight.

Mark spoke softly, so quietly that we could barely hear his voice. “Go. You do not deserve any of this.”

And so we ran. We ran as fast as we could, but that wasn’t fast enough.

 

I felt a piercing pain through my stomach and I looked over at Sarah. Her loud gasp caused me to look down at the whole through my stomach, penetrated by a bullet. She grabs my hand as I collapse to the ground.

Motionless.

Dead.

Reviews

[Loki the Shadow]

sorry forgot to rate

[Loki the Shadow]

nice write great read :)

[Andy Ruffett]

I agree. A huge surprise. Expected more really, didn't expect the finality so quickly. You left so many questions unanswered. But I guess that's good, in a way.

[howlfjdks]

The end was a surprise!