Captured

There once was a little girl named Luna. She grew up in a house on Willow Mark Street in the Apostle Islands. Her best friend, who lived right across the street was named Amir, his family was currently going through a lot of struggles that Luna’s family had already gone through since, so at night they would meet up together at their favorite place. Which was the swings at Astral park. Luna and Amir met there almost every night until they turned nine years old, when Amir’s parents got divorced. Since Luna’s parents got divorced about five years ago, she kind of knew what Amir was going through. Eventually, his mind outgrew his body. He started to talk to Luna about how his Mom caused the fight between his parents, so she said “maybe she should just die,” but now she regrets that she ever said anything about it.

As Luna and Amir got to the age of 14 they moved away from each other. But what she didn’t realize was that he had left his phone number for her at their secret spot. When Luna got there she saw the piece of paper that had been left on his swing. When she picked it up there was a letter inside. The letter read:

My sweet dear Luna,

I know that I have gone away but please know that I am always here for you no matter what. You will always be in my thoughts and my heart until the end of time. You will always be the beacon that leads me to you.

Yours truly,

Amir Barlowe

P.S. Don’t forget to call me using the cell phone I left for you. It is in the frame of the picture I left in your room also. My phone number is already in it. Please don’t let your parents know about this. -Amir

After reading this, Luna started to tear up. After sitting there for about half an hour she got up to walk back home, but at the same time she saw a shadow move from the woods to go sit on the swing, just as she did just a few minutes ago. She looked over and realized that it was her little sister waiting for her friend just as Luna had done with Amir. She was devastated and filled with guilt for all of the things that she had never thought of saying to him before he moved away. Luna, filled with devastation, turned around, and ran home to look for the phone that Amir had left for her, so that she could hear his voice just one last time.

When Luna got home her mother was cooking dinner, and her older sister was nowhere to be found. She began to go down stairs to her room, but her mom asked her to get her sisters ready for dinner. So Luna went upstairs and told her sister’s to get ready for dinner. As Luna went downstairs to her room to get ready for dinner she found a big wrapped present on her bed. She thought “This must be the picture that Amir was talking about in the letter that he wrote for me.” As she hurriedly unwrapped the gift, she realized that it was the picture that they had made together when they were younger of the painting by Van Gogh called The Starry Night. As she looked in the frame of the picture a big clunk sounded on the floor. Luna looked over at the sound and found a rectangle box, just big enough to fit a phone inside. She opened the box and inside she found the phone going off, as if someone were to be calling her. As Luna answered the call, she heard Amir’s voice on the other end of the phone saying “help” over and over again. She tried to talk to him and ask him if he was okay, or what was wrong. But she couldn’t because her mom called her upstairs for dinner.

At dinner Luna couldn’t stop thinking if Amir was okay, or what could happen to him. During this period of time, she was zoned out and her mother tapped her on the shoulder to ask Luna if she was alright. Luna said that it was just Amir leaving that made her feel sad. After eating all of her dinner, she went back to her room, and told her Mom that she was going to watch TV in her room for a little while and then go to bed. Instead, Luna grabbed her phone and turned on the TV so she wouldn’t raise suspicion to herself. She tried to call Amir back but he just wouldn’t answer. So she texted him to call her when he got a chance.

During these few hours Luna slowly drifted off to sleep, but was awoken at around one am to the sound of her phone ringing through her earbuds. As she answered the phone, Luna could hear the panic in his voice as he said, “Help, please I don’t know where I am. Please track my phone. I connected them so you could save me from her, bye.” Then Amir just hung up. Later that night at around three am, she eventually figured out how to track his phone. It turned out that he was at the Whitlock science lab on a remote island just off the coast of Mexico. Luna figured out that it was about a 3 - day journey with brakes in between, still traveling about thirteen hours per day. Luna Begged her Mom if she could go to Mexico to visit Amir, but she said “You can only go if you get a job and pay for the flight, and I will pay for your underage fee though.” After that talk Luna went to her bedroom and started looking for higher paying jobs for fifteen year old. A lot of surfing the web, but she finally found a job that pays seventeen dollars per hour after taxes. The negative was that she was now going to be a restocker at the local grocery store.

Luna’s first job there was this Wednesday, at four pm, after school, till nine pm. Luckily, she only lived a 5 minute bike ride from the grocery store. That week she worked three, five hour shifts, and one eight hour shift. So she earned about three hundred ninety one dollars which could get her a flight there but not a flight back, plus Amir’s ticket back, and some snacks and emergency money. Luna would need about one thousand more dollars to go there. So after four weeks of working she finally had more than enough money to go to Mexico and come back with Amir. So, she worked for one more week and had more than three hundred extra dollars.

Her Mom allowed her to go to Mexico and bring Amir back for a “visit”. As she bought the ticket, Amir called again and she answered immediately. This time he said “Hey, I have five minutes to talk,” So, Luna responded “I figured out where you are located! Are you by any chance able to go downtown, or just visit the city where you are?” Amir replied “I am able to go downtown tomorrow, but I will be heavily guarded.” Luna said back “I can bring you a change of clothes completely different from your own, and bring my makeup if you would like to meet me in the bathroom downtown and I will pay someone to walk in with me so it doesn’t raise suspicion to us.” Amir replied “Okay. Sounds like a plan. See you then. Bye,” and then he hung up the phone. But little did they know what was about to happen.k