As Mia picked a pretty pink flower off of a bush on her way home from her last day of high school, an old raggedy dog approached her from behind the bushes… it seemed.

“Hello there young lady,” the dog said.

Surprised, Mia replied, “You can talk?”

“Why yes. Oh, where are my manners? My name is Russell,” he said, slowly wagging his tail.
“Mia’s the name,” she replied.
***

“Two Missing Teenage Girls Still Missing From Monday.” Mia’s mom read aloud as a tear ran down her cheek.

“The police and search crews will find them soon,” her father said drying the last dish from the sink. “Where is Mia anyway?”

“It’s the last day of school. She’s probably hanging with friends.” She said walking inside the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

He sat at the kitchen table staring at the newspaper, when the front door creaked open.

“I’m home!” shouted Mia.
“Good, I was just getting ready to call you.” Her father responded.

“Oh, sorry, I was saying goodbye to my friends,” she lied, dropping her bag onto the mat next to the door and hanging her sweater on the hook.

She went to her room and threw her long, curly, red-tinted hair into a messy bun. She threw on an old-ish Hollister shirt and some jeans with some rips by the pockets. She jogged down the stairs and walked over to the fridge.

“How was school sweetie?” her mom asked.

“It was okay. Just wasn’t the same without Emily and Tina.”

“It will be okay, you’ll find them soon.”
“I hope so; speaking of them I’m going to go meet with the search groups and police.” She said, taking a bottle of water and heading for the door.

“Be back by dinner,” her father commanded from the couch in the living room.

The door closed. She knew she had lied. She knew she was going to visit Russell. She couldn’t help but notice the path behind Russell when they were talking earlier. It lead to a tree in the back of all the bushes… kind of hidden it seemed. As she approaches the bushes with the pretty pink flowers, she takes a look around for Russell, but there was no sight of him anywhere at all. She followed the path; it lead to a door in the ground underneath the shades of the tree.
“Strange.” Mia said quietly.

She dusted the leaves from the tree off of the top of the door and opened it, only to see nothing but pitch black. She gasped quite loudly as she felt a forceful shove on her back. She fell and fell for what felt like forever, screaming all the way down until she hit the hard, cold concrete floor. She used the light from her phone to find a light switch. She screamed a high pitch scream as her eyes adjusted to the light; she couldn’t believe what she was seeing…



























2

On the right of Mia was Tina and on the left was Emily. They were both conscious… they were in glass boxes. You could tell they were both happy to see their dearest friend Mia but they were utterly terrified. She could tell they were yelling and trying to communicate with her, but the glass was sound proof. No matter how close she got to the glass, she couldn’t hear a word either of them were saying. Mia viciously banged on the glass, tried to ram it, trying with all her might to break the glass.

“That’s not going to work, dear,” a deep voice echoed.

“Who’s there? Why do you have my friends?” Her voice shook.

“I’m so alone I need friends,” the voice answered back.

“Who are you?”

“It’s me Russell,” he answered in a tone as if she should’ve known who he was.
Mia took a glance at her friends, and then she noted her surroundings, which wasn’t hard. The lights only covered that little bit of area. The rest was all black. She didn’t know how far this tunnel type of thing went on. As she tried locating where Russell was she felt around checking for walls or another light switch. She began wondering just how many more people were in there. Just then she heard footsteps. It didn’t sound like a dog trotting round; it sounded like a human was walking somewhere oddly close to her. She looked behind her noticing she had distanced quite a ways away from her friends. She could still see the light and the glass boxes from where she had started. She thought to herself: “Should I run for it?”

She denied the thought, figuring the person watching her is dangerous. She started to slowly step backwards. She stepped on something, it was a shoe and someone’s foot was in that shoe! She gasped quickly and deeply. As she went to lean forward to sprint away a hand firmly grasped her arm. She started screaming loudly at the top of her lungs hoping someone would hear her.

“No one can hear you hun!” a scratchy voice yelled.

“Let me go!” She yelled back.

“No, you’re one of us now. Once you’re in hear you never get out.”

Mia was terrified. She didn’t know what to do or what to think. She noticed she had no idea what this guy even looked like. She was thinking if she ever got out of there without him catching her, she would have to know a description to tell to the police. She quickly glanced back, scared of what she would see and what would happen. She saw a stalky man, late 40’s, with black hair. He was wearing a black shirt and overalls. He shoved a rag with chloroform onto her face covering her nose and mouth. Slowly but surely Mia blacked out.















3
When Mia woke up she was in a glass box similar to Tina’s and Emily’s. She had no idea what was going on. She was wondering what had happened to her while she was blacked out. The lights came on row by row. As she observed her surroundings she saw other people looking at her through glass walls. There were people beside her, people in front of her, and people in back of her. These people were the people she saw on the news that were reported missing or in the pictures in the newspaper. Some of the people had been missing for years. Mia saw someone’s glass door swing open, but the person inside didn’t get up or try to get out as if they knew what would happen. The stalky man that had caught her grabbed the young boy. The boy seemed used to the way he was being treated. Two more doors opened, including Mia’s. Mia didn’t wait and she didn’t think she sprinted out. She had a plan. While she was sitting in her glass box she was looking and she saw a light coming from the “ceiling” just a couple feet away and something shiny caught her eye, it was a metal ladder leaned up against a piece of ply-wood that was being used as a wall. As she sprinted she looked behind her and quickly motioned for the other free people to come with her.

“Don’t worry I have a plan! Hurry, hurry!” She shouted.
The people, with no intentions of staying in the environment they were forced to be in, quickly ran to catch up with her. She climbed up the ladder quickly, motioning the people to follow her. She hit the door as hard as she could. Mia finally got what she thought she would never have again… a breath of fresh air. Mia pulled the people out from under ground. As she pulled the last person that had followed her out of the ground she saw the colors of black and white from the corner of her eye. Seeing the police, gave Mia a sigh of relief, knowing that they could instantly get them over to her location giving those cruel people no time to run.
“Over here!” She yelled, waving her hands around.
The two other people joined her, quickly catching the police officers attention. Before the police officer could even get over to Mia she was talking loudly and fast trying to explain this horrible experience.
“Ma’am, ma’am I’m going to have to ask you to slow down. He said in a calm voice.
Mia was gasping for air.
“My friends are down there,” she said pointing to the door in the ground.
“Your friends?” he asked in confusion.
“Yes! Tina and Emily! Don’t you remember me? We’ve been searching for them for almost a week. That’s the whole reason you’re circling this block!” Mia explained.
“Stand back!” he yelled. “I’m going to open this door and jump inside, and whatever you do, do NOT go in.”
“Okay.” Mia said.
She was confident that this was the end of misery for those people as well as herself. As the policeman slowly opened the door and jumped in, he pulled his gun. Searching all around with his flashlight, from the time Mia and those few other people had escaped the lights had been turned off and the guy had seemed to vanish. The police officer looked around.
“Watch out!” Mia screamed to the police officer.

Before he could turn around the man struck him in the back of the head with a steel pipe, knocking him out cold. The man took the police officer’s gun out of his hand, and dragged him beyond Mia’s point of view. Mia noticed that the tazer had fallen out of the belt. She hesitated but jumped into the tunnel motioning for the people next to her to stay where they are. She could hear the police officer had already gained back consciousness by time she had caught up with them. She quietly got behind the man carrying the police officer, put her hand on the trigger of the tazer, and tazed him. She didn’t know why but she couldn’t stop tazing him. She had so much anger built up inside for him.
“Stop.” The police officer said. “His body can only take so much.”

Mia finally pulled the tazer away from his neck. The man had begun to bleed out of his nose
“Did I kill him?” Mia said with a concerned, scared voice.
“No… you saved my life young lady and everyone else’s. I thank you very much.”
The police officer called for backup. Mia not being far from home asked permission and ran home, telling her parents everything that had just happened. Tina and Emily were escorted to the hospital along with all the other victims, and then happily reunited with their families. The men were taken to jail. The police wouldn’t believe Mia about how Russell could talk n’ all, but him being an old “stray” he was taken to the shelter and later put down. A week later Mia was rewarded with citizenship of the year award. She and her newly graduated friends lived happily ever after.




















THE END