He said I collapsed as soon as the plunger was pushed in. He told me of the horrifying car ride that I spent shut up in the back seat of his truck, unconscious. About how easy it was to jump us as we were walking down the street, how much fun it was to grab me and knock me out with whatever terrible liquid he gave me. They were just going to take me, but the friend who was walking with me at the time was chosen at the last second to come along. I don't know whether to be thankful or not that I don't remember the in-between stages of the kidnapping. All I remember is a needle.
A needle, stuck into the side of my neck, filling my veins with poison.
I've always been a simple girl. Simple dress, simple looks, simple language, simple life. I've never really excelled at one thing or another; I've just been me.
But waking up on a couch surrounded by foreign faces was the most terrifying event of my life. I screamed. I jumped off that couch and bolted for the nearest door. I just wanted to get away, run away from them! These terrible people, horrid strangers! I don't have words to describe my fear-- only the aching in my chest as I write this expresses it.
I must have looked like a savage. Yes, then I did think that they kidnapped me and had no idea what they were to do with me. Sure, I just woke up on some random stranger's couch. Fine, it was the most reasonable thing any person could assume. But I still shouldn't have acted that way. They recorded it and posted it on the Internet, and I've been ridiculed since.
I don't know why I'm feeling this. I really don't. I know that every single thing in my life has changed because of this kidnapping. But if I had to go back, I wouldn't. I'd keep every single action and reaction the very same. It showed me what kind of a place this world was. I saw the truth about humanity in that man's eyes that day.
So I'm running, screaming, dying inside when a man catches me and pins me to the floor. Another voice tries to calm me with quiet, soothing words. I look back now to see that they must have been trying to use the 'Good Cop, Bad Cop' routine, but I was just sobbing and thrashing on the floor. So eventually I'm tired and subdued, and they sit me down on the couch I awoke on and try to talk some sense into me. I don't recall much of that conversation, partly due to the drugs wearing off and also to the fact that I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
God, this sounds like something out of a bad horror movie! Trust me, it happened. To boring old me. I got kidnapped...
...but it all turned out okay. Just not in the way one might think.
Well, not really.
I leaped off the couch and had almost made it to the door when I was grabbed by my waist from behind and lifted off of the floor. The sound of my skull forcefully hitting tile is one that I will never forget. But instead of freaking I relaxed, thinking that if I could trick them I would be able to escape later. But then.
Oh god, then.
Then I was thrown around and was forced to stare right into the butt of a gun. I most literally went ballistic. Screaming, crying, thrashing around in spasms, throwing up. Every single side effect of extreme stress. So I'm rolling on the floor feeling all of the water in my body collect in a puddle of tears on the floor when another cruel voice starts speaking to me. It presses the gun into the side of my neck and starts storytelling. It tells me horrendous stories; ones stretching from how they captured me to where the police would find my mangled body. Terrible, terrible tales, all said in a laughing tone as if he was reading me a funny joke from the newspaper. His words cutting through my body, finding my hope and my happiness and banishing them and good feelings. I was just crumpled in the fetal position, wishing I was dead. Wishing he'd hurry up already and kill me. Next thing I know the front door opens and shuts and I'm hearing loud footprints and rough breathing advance towards the room we're in. A familiar voice shouting, “Stop!”
The pressure lifts from my throat and the voice stops.
I remember being baffled. So utterly baffled that all I can do was raise my head and gawk.
It was him. The one that I was apparently kidnapped with. My best friend Brian's older brother Dan. He was alive and well and looking very angry as he ran towards me. He was screaming something along the lines of, “Stop! Stop! You stupid! God, didn't Brian tell you the joke was off?!”
I'm embarrassed to say that I fainted then.
To tell you the truth (or to tell the water the truth, if nobody ever finds this) I woke up in my own bed. I wasn't physically harmed or beaten up. But these strangers in the room, they were sitting around my bed next to my friends. They were trying to tell me that it was all a joke.
It was all a joke.
None of it was real. They thought it'd be funny to see my reaction. They showed me the video they recorded of the entire thing.
I looked like a monster. A crazy girl with wild eyes, shaking like a rabid animal, crouching against the clean white tile.
Yeah, post-traumatic stress disorder is real fun. Reliving that day in my dreams every night? A blast. So is not trusting anyone that I meet. Moving to a new school and being the 'freaky emo girl'? Made me feel so great.
So, whoever you are, that's my secret. I never told Mother, Father, the police. Anyone. Not even my therapist, who has been trying to crack me open for the past few years. This bottle contains my hidden woes, banished to the waves. The one big secret that ruined my life. I will never tell.
So if you see me in the future, wandering aimlessly with a broken look in my eye, go ahead and judge me. I am the embodiment of human cruelty.
Sincerely, broken.
