I remember the day I said, "Bye mom,". I remember hugging her and saying, "You'll be back in 20 minutes, right?" "Yes, of course! I'll be right back." My mom left for the store. My dad was at work on a Saturday. I stayed at home. Suddenly I felt this weird scared feeling. I felt so scared, it came out of no where. I locked all the doors, I didn't realize not all the windows were locked, or the screen in my bedroom wasn't shut all the way.

I was watching TV, I heard a grunt, and a crashing sound in my parent's bedroom. I turned up the TV, hoping that would scare them off. I heard footsteps, I staired at the TV, hoping I was hearing things. The next thing I knew a man with a mask entered with a gun drawn. He unplugged the TV. "You!" he pointed to him, "How much money do you have!" I has 1,500 dollars saved up for college in my parent's room, but I answered none. He had a funny accent, like he wasn't from Sweden, or anywhere else in Scandinavia.

He told me to follow him. He went through jelwery my mother hadn't worn in years and probably wouldn't wear again. He never found my money. I picked up the phone at one point, no dial tone at all, "What?"

"I cut your phone line," the guy said, saying it like I was stupid. I ran for the door. he shot a round. I looked next to me and saw a bullet hole right next to my head, in the door, "You're lucky I missed, sit your a** down now!" I sat on the couch, and he tied me up, making sure I couldn't get away. "When are your parents getting home? Answer me or I shoot!" He pointed the gun at me.

"In like 5 minutes."

"Dam!" He said a worse cuse word than that but I wont write that down. He said he'd have to take me with him, since he didn't have time to clean up or knock the memory out of me. I didn't even get a chance to say no, before I knew it, he was carrying me out to his truck like a baby.

He put a mask on me backwards, and he said that he took his off. We drove for a while. It felt like forever, I was starting to get hungry, but didn't say anything. The car ride was pretty much silent. I once heard a siren of a police car go past us, I thought about my mom and dad, probably wondering where I went and what happened to the house.

After we stopped, he said, "If anyone asks your my nefew, you understand?" I nodded and he took my mask off, showing me his face. We were at a hotel.

"Are you going to untie me now?"

"I'll get a room first." He locked me in his truck, all tied up and unable to move. He came out soon and pulled up right next to the room, so it was a motel instead of a hotel. He looked around, and then quickly carried me into the room. After 10 minutes of still being tied up, and untied me. "I still have the gun in my pocket so one wrong move, I shoot you and you die!" I could tell his Swedish was bad.

He kept me locked there for a week. We had minimal food, and he barred the door when he left me there in an unnoticable way. He would be gone all day and come back with food and money. He told me, "If housekeeping comes, hop in the shower and they'll leave you alone. Never answer the door!" All I had was the clothing I left with.

On the 6th day he packed up his things, "Look, you're not going to remember a thing." He sounded confident. I was scared. Now what?

He mixed something in the water, and gave it to me, "What is it?"

"Drink it!" He demanded. I drank the whole thing, like he said. After 20 minutes I was getting really tired. Soon I fell asleep, and that's the last thing I remember.

I woke up on the bed in someone's house. I heard his voice talking to someone else. I stayed put, I was afraid if I walked around, I'd get shot. He soon came into my room, "Come on, let me show you someone." His Swedish was worse than before. I followed him. "This is my friend, he'll help take care of you."

"Hi." I said to him. He didn't say anything to me.

After weeks of being beaten, and hurt, and starved, I tried to run away. I made it to the end of the front yard when he grabbed me and through me into the room. "You brat, we'll get you some food, stay put!" He held gun so close to my face I could feel the hard metle on my forhead.

He fed me later, and the next day I ran away. I saw a police officer down the street and ran right to him, "Officer! These guys! They kidnapped me!" As I told my story, the officer, male, just looked at me like I was crazy. "Can't you help me?" I said to him. The man that kidnapped me and his friend pulled me away and started speaking to the officer in a laugage I didn't understand. "Please, you need to help me!" I told him.

The officer looked something up on his computer, and I saw the faces of the man that kidnapped me and his friend. The officer arrested him, and tried to ask me questions, I think. Well he spoke to me, "Can you help me? Where am I? Where are my parents?" I asked him. I rode in the front of the cruser after a while of the officer not knowing what I was saying.

"Look kid! Don't you rat me out! Say that this was a misunderstanding!" he shouted at me. The officer said something to him, and he said something back, then started talking to me again, "Say I'm your uncle, like I said before. He's a friend of mine. Don't you rat me out, kid!" A 16-year-old wasn't a kid.

We were at the police station, and the police officer had a paper with a bunch of words on it that mostly I didn't understand, untill I read, "Svenska" that means Swedish, in Swedish. I pointed to that word. The officer nodded. Soon their was a person there that was a translater, I told him everything that happened, and started crying through most of it. "How did you get here?" the translater asked.

"Where am I? I don't even know that."

"You are in the United States of America."

"What? How did I get there?" I heard a bunch of stories on Americans, and what the USA was. Apparently they were all speaking English. I only knew some words in English, like "chair" "cup" "pencil" and other simple words. I had forgotten most of my English.

After a while the police officers realized I knew nothing, and on the plane ride back home I got sick and threw up on everything several times. I was so happy to get back to Sweden again. I waited a few hours before my parents arrived at the Stockholm police station. I hugged them so hard, and they said that they missed me so much. Since then I improved my English a lot. I still love my mom and dad, and hope nothing like that happens again.