text: With suitcases in hand, you head to the station. This is the last thing you have to do before they let your best friend go. You’re not allowed to open the suitcase; they said if you did, you would die. You’re not allowed to call the police; they said if you do, your best friend dies. And you know not to. They could be watching your every move. In fact, they have been. They have intelligence everywhere. They kidnapped her and demanded a ransom of, oddly enough, only $200. You had thought it was a mistake, but they insisted $200 was correct. A $200 ransom payoff was possible. And your best friend is well worth that amount. When you showed up to pay however, nobody was there. The only thing you could see in the abandoned lot were two suitcases, notes on each. The expensive one had a printed note that read, “Do Not Open. We will shoot you.” The cheaper one had the following message: Deliver the $200 to the abandoned bank lot downtown to get the key for this suitcase. Take both suitcases with you. Lose one and you die. You have exactly half hour to do so, or she dies. You alert the police, she dies. Time starts when we say it does. Better hurry :) You picked up the suitcases and headed back to your car. One of them was lightly ticking, barely audible. You felt a slight whirring inside it as you walked. You gingerly placed them in the back seat, not knowing what was inside, and drove downtown. A twenty-three minute drive, with some speeding. As you were driving, your radio was scanning stations, playing only white noise. Over that noise you can hear a repeated message: “We are members of the Mask. We are an anti-government authoritarian body. We will gain control. We have intelligence everywhere.” You turned your radio off and put in a CD to listen to. “Not my favorite, but it’ll have to do,” you said out loud in a nervous stutter. With the CD playing the third from the last song, you pulled into the abandoned lot, driving past a largely overgrown shrub, only to find nobody there. You look around and see nothing out of the ordinary. You decide to drive around the back and then you see another message, this one spray-painted on the wall. “Keep the money, and buy some good music. Here’s your damn key, motherfucka!” You took the key from the wall. The key was still sticky from the tape as you placed it into the lock on the cheaper suitcase. You opened the suitcase to find the following message, exquisitely handwritten: Your final steps: 1. Spin around three times and then look inside the bank window. Play nice :) 2. Go to the train station. There are two close by. Pick the closest one 3. Go to Lot C and park in Spot 33 4. Take the other suitcase and follow the arrows marked on the ground 5. Place the suitcase next to the indicated support beam 6. Go back to your car and await further instruction You spun around and looked inside the bank window. Somebody was inside. They were smiling at you. Directly at you. They nodded, bringing your attention to the gun pointed right at you. They casually lifted up a sign that read: Leave now. No police. Remember, we are always watching. With suitcases in hand, you head to the station. This is the last thing you have to do before they let your best friend go. You’re not allowed to open the suitcase; they said if you did, you would die. You’re not allowed to call the police; they said if you do, your best friend dies. And you know not to. They could be watching your every move. In fact, they have been. They have intelligence everywhere. You leave the abandoned lot and make a right turn. As you’re making the turn, you realize you should have turned left. Your right turn was not right. The closest place to turn back around is about a block away. You drive the block and go to make the turn. The CD has stopped. Your radio starts to fizz again. This time all you can hear is the white noise and a barely audible, “Somebody messed up,” repeated over and over in a robotic and monotone voice. You turn your radio off and decide to drive in silence. Upon arriving to the train station, you park in lot C, spot 33. Just as instructed. You get out of your car, rereading the note as you do. You look at it again. Onto step 4. You follow the marked trail. Arrow after arrow you walk, carrying the ticking and whirring suitcase. It starts to weigh on you. Mentally and physically. You place the suitcase inside a red circle. And it sinks in: the circle is drawn in blood. Your heart sinks. On the way back to your car, you see a few other people leaving the station. They look nervous and defeated. Once back at your car, you hear a phone ringing, it’s sound a bit muffled. It’s not your cell. You open your car door and the sound gets louder. The sound is coming from inside the suitcase. You find a ringing phone in a hidden compartment. The ringtone is excruciatingly loud now. You answer it. Your best friends says hello. Your heart skips a beat; she’s alive! You manage to stutter a hello back. She says she has to go, that it was only for proof of life. She says “goodbye, see you soon bestie” and a robotic voice takes over, “Look behind you,” and then the phone clicks off. You look behind you to the train schedule board and watch a video feed on the screen; it’s been hacked. A large knife can be seen. Engraved on the side are the words “somebody messed up.” The camera pans out to show eight people bound and gagged, sitting on their knees. One by one, they are beheaded. You can’t help but watch; your eyes are frozen to the screen. Your best friend is last to go. You begin to cry as the suitcases explode in unison sending the station tumbling to the ground.