Meeting Strangers

Arabella Chiang

Ms. Asuncion

English 9H

11 December 2015

Meeting Strangers

            Finally, it’s the last day of high school. Ava, my best friend, came to pick me up in her beat-up Toyota. We blasted our favorite song, “Hello” by Adele and sang to it at the top of our lungs. The day went by so quickly that I was even kind of sad that I was never going to come back next year. This day was a new beginning of our lives.

Tomorrow, my friend and I are going on a road trip we have had planned for years. We decided we wanted to travel across the country and stop at places we see along the way. The first place we stopped at was King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania. We shopped until there was no more room in the trunk.

The mall was humongous. We met a pair of identical twins there. One was named Corey and the other Carter. They both had luscious blond hair and bright blue eyes, but it was easy to tell them apart since one had a tattoo on his wrist. Corey was more reserved and polite, while Carter was the complete opposite. They both seemed like nice and genuine people, so we decided to ask them if they wanted to join us on our road trip. Surprisingly, they said yes and joined us.

            Next, we went to Niagara Falls. The first thing we did was ride the Maid of the Mist boat tour. We could see a rainbow under the water. It was amazing! When Corey tried to take a picture of the rainbow, his camera slipped out of his hand and into the water. The expression on his face was priceless when he realized what had happened. He started screaming, “Why do bad things only happen to me?” It was hilarious.

We also went to the Cave of Winds. Everyone wore these huge blue ponchos. We all looked like large blueberries. The wind blew in our faces, splashing water all over the place from the waterfall. Then the scariest thing happened someone grabbed me from behind and dragged me away from the waterfall.

The person whispered, “Go to the car and wait for me there.” I didn’t even say anything and did as I was told. I completely forgot about my best friend, in shock the whole time. When the car door opened I snapped out of my trance and started screaming. It was the twins! I felt relieved until I saw Ava tied up and being thrown in the back. My first instinct was to get out of the car and yell for help, but I was too slow. Corey grabbed my wrists and tied them together, but not before duct taping my mouth. Then, he threw me in the back seat with Ava. I was so scared my whole body was shaking. Both Ava and I couldn’t stop trembling in fear: we had no clue what to do, no way to get help, and we didn’t know where we were going. The car stopped and I looked around. We were at the twins’ house. Corey took my arm and dragged me into their house and Carter did the same with Ava. They tied us up to chairs and walked out of the room.

When they came back they said, “We’ll take off the duct tape if you promise not to scream.” Both of us quickly nodded our heads because we wanted to know why they kidnapped us. I was the first to speak after they ripped the duct tape off our faced.

I asked, “Why did you kidnap us?” No one responded so I asked again politely.

 No answer again, so I screamed, “What is wrong with you guys?”  Again no one made a sound. I broke down in tears and questioned them again and again and again until Corey broke.

He explained, “We thought you guys were amazing people and wanted to keep you guys to ourselves. We thought if we kidnapped you guys, then you guys would never leave our sides.”

After a long silence, Ava finally spoke up, “What you guys just did won’t make us like you guys. It’s only going to scare us.”

Carter said, “I guess we will keep you guys to ourselves for the rest of our life, whether you like it or not.” Ava and I had nothing to say. We knew that we couldn’t do anything to change his mind.

 For the next month Ava and I didn’t have internet access and one of the twins was always watching us. We tried to find ways to escape, but we couldn’t because Corey or Carter was always there to stop us. First, we tried to escape from the bathroom windows, but Corey had all windows sealed shut. Second, I would try to distract both of the guys, and Ava would run for the door to call for help. She was always a step to slow and would get caught. Lastly, we tried to steal the twins’ phones, so we could call for help. Every time we tried one of them would notice their phone went missing. For weeks we tried to escape. We finally gave up and interacted with the guys.

 Every morning they would cook us breakfast. They would also shower us with gifts. We got along well with the twins. Soon, both of us started falling for the charms of the twins. I think we are suffering from Stockholm syndrome.