Ransom

Jimmy walked into his bedroom. It was like any other day, he was none the wiser that it would turn into the horror show that it did. He laughed and smiled has the family dog, Bobby, ran in and around his feet as they made their way over to his toy box.

He sat down cross legged on the ratty old rug that had been in his room for all of his memory. It used to be sky blue, plush and soft but now, now it was matted, a discoloured teal shade and well hard and yes crunchy in some areas. But what could you expect of a young boys room who cared for nothing but his favourite toy?

Jimmy was very excited, it was his favourite part of the day, after school. He couldn’t wait to come home and play with Tal’cu, his very favourite toy! It was a space warrior with long bright blue hair and green skin. His arm and leg muscles were bigger than his head but you couldn’t take that to mean he wasn’t smart because Jimmy would argue to the moon about how smart Tal’cu is.

And so like every other day after school, Jimmy went to open his town chest, except today all he found on top of his pile of toys he didn’t care about was a detached muscled green arm on top of a piece of paper. Jimmy screamed with terror! He recognized that arm, that was tal’cu’s arm. But where was the rest of him? Jimmy scrambled to grab the piece of paper. It was a white piece of paper with big blocky letters written in coloured crayons. Right away without reading it, he thought it must be his sister! Who else would both do such a thing and use coloured crayons?

Jimmy slowly read through each word of the letter:

Now you know I am serious.
Do as I say and I will give Tal’cu back.
Don’t and he will burn.

Jimmy couldn’t help but start crying. He started to picture Tal’cu melting away in flames. They had been on so many adventures together, what would he do without him. as he turned the page over and over looking for more information. What did his sister want? Was this his sister? He jumped to his feet. One way to find out he thought to himself. He grasped Tal’cu’s dismembered arm in his hand tight and refused to let go as he ran out of the room.