I was walking back home from the park, the wind blowing my hair back from my face. I had already walked my best friend Meaghan back to her house. I felt pretty nice because it was a beautiful 75 degree day in late May. My birthday was tomorrow and my friends and I were so excited for my party. I flashed back to my party last year. It was a small family party, and I remember the whole family screaming,” Happy Birthday Brianna!” It was an okay party, I guess. I got a lot of presents, but we didn’t do much and the whole family left after the cake was served. Hopefully this year’s party would be better, since I would be with my friends this year.

I turned onto my street and all of a sudden a black van sped towards me. I walked towards my house a little faster because the van seemed a little shady and made me nervous. The van pulled up to a house on my street that belonged to a family that never seemed to be home. They always had soccer, or volleyball, or gymnastics. Two men hopped out of the van with two black trash bags and ran up to the front door. One of the men kicked the glass and it shattered everywhere. They both looked around to see if there were any witnesses. Fortunately by that point I had already crouched behind a bush so they wouldn’t see me. I knew they couldn’t see me because they kept looking around to make sure no one saw.

I couldn’t believe what was happening! I was witnessing a robbery! I decided that I was going to make a run for it and sprint to my house. I would’ve just called my mom but I got my phone taken away because of my grades. I quietly got up to start running, but at that exact moment the men came out of the house with bagfuls of stuff. They spotted me, and at that moment two things happened. The men came toward me with scowls on their faces and I realized that I didn’t have even a slight chance of escaping this dangerous situation All of a sudden the bald man was lunging at me and I was desperately trying to move out of the way. I tried to escape his grasp, but the world went black.

I woke up in a dark, confined space. Thankfully, I wasn’t claustrophobic. Apparently, the two men had shoved me into the trunk and tied my hands and feet together making it impossible to escape. I screamed because they were too stupid to tape my mouth shut.

“Hey! Be quiet back there,” one of them yelled at me.

I then decided to be quiet, but just because they kind of scared me. I eavesdropped on what they were saying.

“Steve, are we going to just keep her with us, because if we let her go she will definitely tell someone about how we robbed that house,” said the short brown-haired guy.

“No, I say we just get rid of her the easy way, if you know what I mean,” replied the bald one (apparently Steve).

Wait, what did that mean? Oh no! They planned on killing me! I listened to them chat about nothing for a while, and then we came to a halting stop. We pulled up to what appeared to be a log cabin deep in the woods. It looked like we were somewhere in the mountains. It seemed like we weren’t too far from my house, because the drive only took under 10 minutes. The men hopped out of the front and popped the trunk. They yanked me out of the car and untied my feet. I stumbled a little because I was still a little woozy from the lack of air in the trunk. We walked over to the cabin and the men sat talking for awhile, occasionally looking over at me when they started seriously discussing their plan again. I could hear small parts, just words and phrases, though.

“Should we just-“

“No, no that’s a bad idea.”

“What are we going to do with h-“

I was starting to feel nervous, and sitting on a wooden bench wasn’t exactly comfortable…

I wondered what my family was doing. They probably thought I was still at the park. The bald man strolled over to me. He looked at me and then startled me by saying,” We are going into the woods, but you won’t be coming back.” We headed out the door and into the woods. They tied my legs back together and tied me to a big oak tree. They got out two shovels and started digging a hole.

After a few minutes, I could tell the men were getting tired.

“Ugh, I’m tired,” said the brown-haired one.

“Yeah, let’s go inside really quick and get a drink of water,” the bald one agreed.

“Don’t go anywhere… oh wait! You can’t!” they chuckled. Once they were inside I started fiddling with the knots around my hands. I worked at it for a few minutes, and it came undone! Yes!!! I quickly fumbled to untie the loose not around my feet, and that came undone, too! Yes! I scrambled to my feet and started to make a break for it when I heard them approaching.

“Hey! Where’d she go?” the brown haired guy asked. Oh, crap! What do I do? I was a good 400 feet in front of them, so I took a chance climbing up the nearest tree. They crossed beneath the tree, searching everywhere. They must’ve searched the area around my tree for at least 20 minutes, and then they moved on. Once I decided they were far enough away not to see me, I decided to climb down and get away from here. I stepped on patches of grass, doing my best not to rustle any leaves or snap any twigs. Once I reached a (surprisingly close) road, I started sprinting the fastest I could. It was hard to judge how long I ran, but after about 30 minutes of running I began to realize where I was. Five more minutes of walking and I would be in my neighborhood. I was really thirsty, but I decided I could stick it out. Five minutes later, I was on my street! I spotted my mom frantically talking on the phone, and when I ran up to her she dropped the phone and hugged me. I knew then that everything would be okay.