Dear Sontah

Dillion was on his way to jury duty on Christmas Eve, it began to snow heavily on the drive there as Dillion pulled into a space in the parking lot he notices that the lot is basically empty. While parking the car, he sees something black run across the empty lot out the corner of his eye. When he turned his head to look, there was nothing there. Uneasy, Dillion searches the lot for any signs of movement but he sees none. Finally, he gets out of his car cautiously, heading towards the building he can’t help but feel a knot in his stomach. As he reaches the door, he tells himself that everything is okay and he’s just upset to be at the courthouse instead of with his family. Walking inside almost immediately everyone’s head turns to him, surprised and confused to see anyone walk through the door. Dillion coughed as he looked at the two man who stood behind the security desk, he notices that the men are plainly dressed but heavily armed. Unsure if there was a mix-up with the dates Dillion spoke out to them,

“Am I not supposed to be here? I got called in for jury duty …”

One of the men interrupted Dillion mid-sentence,

“No, you’re cool kid. Come walk through.” As he motions to the metal detectors,  

“It’s just that a lot, and I mean basically everyone except you and four others called out today. As you can see were dressed down, our boss came and got a few of us on her way into work. There’s a giant snowstorm coming…You might’ve just beat it driving here.”

The guard continued to talk as Dillion walked through the detectors. He started to collect his belongings out of a bin, the guard continued talking.

“Okay, the door to your left is where you’re heading my man, have fun in there.” Dillion smirked at the guard’s humor, as he headed towards the door. Walking into the room Dillion sees that it’s only three people who have come in for jury duty and the other two are workers, no one looks up as Dillion makes his entrance into the jury room. As Dillion finds a seat, he looks at the lady sitting right in the middle of the room. She’s just sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth. Dillion tries not to stare but he notices something black smeared across the woman’s pants. As he looks closer, he realizes that it’s blood, his eyes blogging he speaks to the woman,

“...Mrs.? Are you okay? I think you have blood on you…”

As soon as Dillion speaks to her, the woman jolts up towards him, immediately he stops talking and jumps back at the woman’s reaction.

“HOW DID YOU GET HERE?!?!?” She screamed at him.

“What?” Dillion whispered, he looked around to realize the at no one else was in the room anymore.

 As he looks back at the woman, she has a taser in his face…

“WHAT THE FUCK?!”

Dillion screams before slapping the taser out of her hand. When she drops the taser, she starts to bug out, while her attentions on the taser, Dillion runs out of the room closing the door behind him. Out of breath, Dillion turns around to the entrance area where he sees the security guards standing around with the two other people from before. They all look at him, and before Dillion can ask for help somebody said “She didn’t kill him…?”

Dillion runs towards the stairs, as he runs up the stairs he could hear multiple footsteps behind him. Without looking back, Dillion ran down the hallway trying to open any doors, but to his dismay they were all locked. Two doors left to check and finally as the group reaches the top step, the second door opens. Dillion runs in, quickly but quietly closing the door, turning around he finds himself in an office space with cubicles. Knowing that he’s not safe Dillion searches for a place to hide, running the room in circles trying to find anywhere that he could be out of sight. Starting to panic, Dillion falls to the ground thinking at any second the group would be in the room, he miraculously sees a vent. A vent big enough for him to go through. He lunges toward the vent, as he tries to wiggle it to test how tightly its mounted, the cover fell off into his hands. Dillion hurried up and jumped into the vent, moments after the door to the room bursts open. Shaking as he puts the vent cover back, Dillion sees their feet through the vent. He hears a woman speak,

“What the fuck! Who comes to jury duty fucking 3 hours late! WE need to find this little fucker and kill hm, he’s seen our faces! I am not going back to jail!”

A man answers her “Well then maybe you should’ve fucking killed him when you had a chance. We? No, YOU. This was your plan, I told you I don’t hurt kids’ man. I say we just leave the little prick!”

“No way man, he saw our faces. He has to go. Come on, I’ll look down the other way and you guys check the other room.” A familiar voice responds back.

The voices and footsteps disperse, but Dillion decides to stay inside the vent until he knows for sure it’s safe. He puts his head down against the cold metal, suddenly he quickly lifts it back up remembering his pocket for his phone. As he looks for it, he hears something…something in the vent with him.

‘Could they have gotten into the vents? Where the fuck was he supposed to go? Maybe it was a rat or something.’

Just as his mind starts to race, Dillion feels his phone, immediately bringing it to his face, his heart sank. His phone had no service, he tried to call 911 but even that wasn’t working. Again, Dillion heard something rumble in the vents, he looks back and sees nothing but he can’t help feeling scared. Getting anxious, Dillion tries to open the vent but the cover won’t come off, Dillion pushes with everything he has but nothing, the vent won’t budge at all. Dillion hears the sound again, overcoming with nerves Dillion tries and tries but can not open the vent. Finally, he gives up, turning himself to lay on his back, he prays to God for his safety. Now that Dillion is on his back he is immersed in the vent’s darkness, uncomfortable Dillion turns on his phones’ flashlight. As soon as he turns it on the light beams brightly showing not empty vent, Dillion sees something crawling towards him, in fear he drops his phone with the flashlight facing down, as he reaches to pick it up, someone grabs it and slides it all the way down the vent. Dillion frozen with fear doesn’t dare open his eyes, Dillion starts crying just at the mere thought of who he was with in the vent. A voice spoke,

“It’s okay...I only want one thing from you...a letter to me, Sontah.”

Dillion started to cry heavier at the sound of the eerie voice, he tried to back up against the vent but something pulled him back, Dillion screamed. The voice spoke again repeating itself,

“It’s okay…I only want one thing from you…a letter to me, Sontah”

Dillion softly spoke back “I have nothing to write with…”

Before he could continue to speak, he felt a pen and piece of paper slide under his hand.

“Here, but make sure you write it to me, Sontah…. Write “Dear Sontah” and ask me for anything in the world, BUT you have to ask me Sontah.”

“I… I… Just want to go home.”

“And you can, just write it down BUT remember write Dear Sontah.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only way I can help you. I can’t do anything until you write.”

“…What happens if I don’t write Dear Santa?”

“You need not to think of that, just write a letter to me, S

you. Spell it right or I’ll eat you... Lalalala…”