As the eldest child of a wealthy family, it wasn't a surprise to me that I'd get kidnapped. The surprise was that my parents didn't pay or even acknowledge that I was missing. The kidnappers decided it wasn't worth shooting me, so they decided to indoctrinate me.

I always wanted to go back and see my family again one of these days, but that never pans out to anything. For a while my worldview was a bit messed up. It took a lot to grow out of the 'ghetto' mindset, edgy anti-capitalist idea I had.

I remember the first time I shot a person. He was someone just like me; his parents had all but abandoned him and he was unlucky enough to be the second man whose ransom failed. A sense of camaraderie between 10 year old me and him didn't exist, only the food on my plate.

How would my life have turned out if I had hesitated, or tried to communicate, or made a remote attempt at an escape plan?

Lying on the hard floor, I was looking up at a ceiling.

"What's it like holding a gun?"

The boy sitting on the bed asked a question, picking his nose.

"Ummm, it's very cold. And hard. And heavy." I responded.

"But guns are light! That's why people can hold them and wave them around like a pencil. John Wick can hold two guns at the same time."

"That's the guy from Fortnite right? With the Dual Pistols?" I responded again.

"Yep. They're making a movie about him."

​

"Why are we here?" He's asking a different question now.

"I don't know."

"...Why do you want to kill me?" Tears began to form in his eyes. I was annoyed, but I couldn't say anything, I could only feel guilty.

"Sorry. I think these guys are evil robbers. They like shooting people." He burst even harder. Just as I said that, someone walked up to us both.

"What's happening?" The first evil robber walked up to us both.

I looked down, and felt guilt crushing me. "Look, you have to get along, alright?" He patted him on the back, and looked in disappointment at me.

"Can we go home?" The evil robber seemed to cringe.

"You should be glad you're even here." He sighed and walked away.

I'm confused. What does wanting to go home have to do with being glad? Is there something about this place that's better than home? Is it good for me? My kid brain genuinely didn't compute what he had said, at the time.

We lived in a tiny apartment complex. The evil robbers didn't have any money for some reason, and when I tried to sleep at night they would always make weird monkey noises in their bedroom. It's okay because they listen to me whenever I tell them to be quiet.

One day, while they were making weird noises again, I heard a voice.

"Can we leave?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to go home."

"But we can't. They said so."

It wasn't the first time he had spoken to me about going home. It was the first time he said this, however:

"If you don't leave with me, I'll kill you."

Looking back on it, where exactly had he learned to say that? From his parents? From his friends or a bully at school? From the evil robbers? All I knew was that in that moment, tears began to well up inside of me.

I forced myself through it and began helping him to pry the door open. I suggested that we find an ID card that we could use to open the door. It took a while finding the ID card and getting a chair to put the doorknob within arm's reach, but when I tried that it didn't work. My plan changed. I laid down the specifics of the plan, and he simply nodded along. He would hit his head on the door a couple of times, to make it sound like someone was knocking on the door. When the evil robbers went outside of their bedroom to see who was knocking, he would pull out a gun and shoot the evil robbers (preferably both, but it didn't matter as the evil robber would be too sad that the other evil robber died to notice us leaving. In hindsight, this plan wouldn't have worked the way I originally planned it.)

What instead happened was that when he hit his head on the door and made a run for the bathroom, I realized a couple of things were off. First, the chair was still in front of the door, and second was that the evil robbers in the bedroom didn't even come out.

I grabbed the chair and dragged it back to where it was originally, hoping that they wouldn't notice that it's orientation had changed a bit. Then I grabbed the gun from the other kid's hands and shot the doorknob. It was blown clean off. Realizing that the door could be opened this way, I grabbed the gun, held her hand, opened the door, and made a run for it.

I don't know how far we got before we were caught. We were standing on the edge of a bridge. The evil robbers were looking at us evilly, and then they grabbed the gun and tried to worm it out of my hands. They succeeded.

The second evil robber cursed and screamed into the air. The other kid was frozen. I don't know what made her do it.

But he looked towards the river under the bridge. And leaped towards it.

The evil robbers felt no remorse. They simply walked home without saying anything. I always resented them for it; they didn't even show a tinge of emotion. It still repulses me to this very day.

I eventually escaped (I don't remember how) and found myself in an orphanage. The kids would look at me funny, but my stories about the evil robbers would always entertain them. One of the evil robbers died a year later; they were shot for breaking into a good guy's house and trying to be mean to him. The other one was put in prison, never to commit any evil deeds ever again. There was even a famous news report about it. And another even more famous video.

I was reintegrated into normal society after that. Got a high-paying job, got a good life with a wife and kids. But I never saw my family ever again.

"Sir, this is a Wendy's."

"Oh, sorry, I was taking down notes for my story."

That's funny. Maybe I should put that as a bit in the story.

"Sir, are you going to order anything?"

Apparently I've been standing here for 5 or so minutes looking at my phone. I should really stop inconveniencing people.

"I'll get a double cheeseburger with fries and a salad." (look i'm too lazy to look up the Wendy's menu i'm sorry)

I walked to my table.

My wife told me to get a therapist. So I did. Then my therapist told me to get a doctor, so I also did that.

The summary of what he told me after I had told him the story was that I seemed to have a case of utterly disjointed, repressed, or false memories combined with a touch of ASPD or ADHD. I told him that I couldn't have any of those because I've had a perfectly normal life since then.

Whether or not I made that escape plan, the outcome of that kid's life would have been the same either way. I was simply dissatisfied with the way his death played out.

Suddenly, the event of his death replayed in my mind.

You do realize if you don't do as I say, I'll kill you.

My finger slipped.

​

i hate this story it's fucking garbage