Kidnapped

Black, pitch black, I know my eyes are open, yet I can’t see. But I can hear shuffling feet and gruff voices conversing in low tones. I can feel the ropes holding my hands and feet to a chair. I can also feel the blindfold covering my eyes, explaining why I can’t see. While exploring what my senses can tell me I remain calm. Suddenly, a hand is on my head and the blindfold is removed. I can see, it’s not much, just a dark, cold basement with no windows. A musty lamp is the only source of light in the room and out of the corner of my eye I see a door, covered in more locks than at a paranoid survivalist’s bunker.

“I see that you have woken up my dear”, is spoken by the scruffy man in front of me. In total there are three men in the room, all of whom look as though they haven’t washed in months. I choose not to say a word, it would be of no use to me and anything I do say would only entertain them.

“Not much of a talker, no matter. We can start sending letters to daddy, I’m sure he is worried about where his little girl is.”

This is spoken by the shortest of the three men, with a wild grin on his face. It is starting to make sense now, this is a ransom kidnapping and I am their meal ticket.

Time passes slowly, with no way of telling the time aside from my daily meals. They are very dull, bread and water, likely the only things these rats can get their hands on. Most of the time, I am left alone to ponder what got me here and the ways I could escape, not that there are any. I often find myself wondering what on earth the men get up to during their time away. I can’t imagine that they would have regular jobs, going about a daily nine to five job when they have had to resort to kidnapping for a cash influx.

So much time has passed now. I wonder at what point these imbecilic men will give up, realise the reality no money is coming and it never will. Clearly, they have me mistaken for someone else, I have no money to my name and my father well he’s been dead for a long time. It’s quite boring spending days with nothing but your thoughts to occupy yourself, I still haven’t spoken a word to these men and I can tell that they are starting to get bored and frustrated with the lack of response as well.

It all comes to a head the next day, one of the men come rushing in smugly waving a letter around.

“We got a response, finally.” Shouted the man holding the letter as he thrust it into the first man’s chest. By now I have established that he appears to be the ring leader in all this. He turns to me with a sinister smile.

“Well, it’s about time. You’d think the mayor would care more about what happens to his daughter.” The man stated and finally, it sunk into place what was going on.

These idiots thought that I was the mayor’s daughter. Ha, that’s rich. I couldn’t help but start to laugh. Of course, the one time I accept a ride home from my friend is the day three morons decide to try their luck at ransoming the mayor’s daughter. Obviously, they hadn’t done any recon otherwise it would have been obvious, they grabbed the wrong girl.

“What’s so funny, girl.” Cried the small one stalking up to shout in my face.

“Why don’t you read the letter and find out.” I spat in my superior than thou voice just to mock them. They looked taken aback, as these were the first words I had spoken. They all turned their attention to the letter, ripping it open and scanning the contents quickly. I waited and watched as their faces fell from eager to confused to dumbstruck. Finally, it had sunk in.

“You’re not the mayor’s daughter” whispered the short one.

“Nope” I said mimicking the smug tone that was used by the one that brought the letter.

“So you knew that no ransom money was ever coming?” yelled the first one

“Yep” I replied keeping my smug tone. I could see fury brimming in all of their eyes. Maybe it was foolish of me to be so smug.

All of a sudden, the sound of sirens filled the air. Of course, these idiots had sent a letter of ransom to the mayor with a traceable return address. No wonder their plans failed. Panic broke loose, the two men that seemed to have the least amount of brain started scrambling trying to come up with the best plan of escape. While the first one, the ring leader just stood there furious.

Maybe this was dumb of me, maybe if I had made better decisions things would have turned out better. But I couldn’t help it, a mix of delirium, hunger, and stress had addled my mind and I started to laugh and once I had started, I couldn’t stop. I laughed and laughed as if I had heard the funniest joke in the world.

That was the wrong move. The main man’s eyes go bloodshot, a crazed look in his eyes.

“Don’t you laugh at me” He cried.

He pulled something from his musty jacket and pointed it at me. There was a bang and the chair tips. I come crashing to the ground, with a hole in my chest. It appears he had a gun this whole time. My vision goes fuzzy and only one thought is in my mind. Guess I will be seeing my father after all. Then my vision returns to black, pitch black.