Boom Boom Pow

I never took it seriously that night. That night where I received that fortune cookie that read, “Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone. You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing..” Never did I think I would actually have anything to fear, but now I’m looking up from heaven watching my friends live the life I was supposed to live.

Here’s the scoop, my friends had taken me out to a new chinese restaurant on 5th Ave in NYC. All was good until the meal was over and we all received our fortune cookies, everyones seemed to be positive, uplifting messages but mine on the other hand, mine was dreadful. Mine read, “Your life is in danger. Say nothing to anyone.You must leave the city immediately and never return. Repeat: say nothing..” I will admit that I was a bit skeptical of it, but as the drinks were flowing for the celebration of my 21st birthday, it was the last thing on my mind. I was spending the next two weeks in New York before I had to head back to the sunny town of LA. A few days after the incident at the chinese resaurant was when things began to escalate.

My friends and I gathered at an apartment to get prepared for a typical friday night out in the big apple. Drinks, food, laughter and joy circulated the room, until a funny knock on the door sounded. The male at the door shouted in a stern voice, “It’s the building manager, let me in or I’ll let myself in!” My friends and I were situated at my friend Tobys apartment, so without any question he opened the door to let the man it. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! POW! BOOM! Gunshots went off and Toby hit the floor, a puddle of blood beginning to pool around him. Screaming and running frantically the rest of my friends and I tried to find some other place to be in the apartment, away from the crazy gunman.He scoured throughout the apartment breaking lamps and firing out lights with his gun. He found me crawled into a ball in the corner of the closet in the master bedroom, grabbing me by my hair he took me away from the others, slamming the door of the apartment shut. He quickly takes me down the stairs where he then placed duct tape around my ankles, hands, and mouth so I was unable to communicate or scream. I saw a faint outline of his arm raise then down to my face where he proceeded to punch me several times until I was unconscious.

I woke up in a cold, dark, damp room. I believed this to be a dream considering I had watched countless episodes of Law and Order along with the rest of the crime shows, but this wasn’t a dream. I was really tied to a chair in the middle of a cold, dark, damp room. Blankets covered the surrounding walls so even if I were to scream, no one would be able to hear me. A dark figure approached me, pointed a gun to my forehead and whispered in my ear “How was that fortune cookie? You obviously aren’t a very good listener now are you...” I began to cry, sweat dripped from every inch of my body as I began to try to wiggle my way out of the chair. He had a tight grasp on my hair which made it impossible to move. He put a can on the top of my head, stepped away from me and said “Lets have a little target practice.” Stepping away he began to shoot at my head, missing the can consistantly but grazing my shoulder and cheek with a bullet. He reloaded, said “One more time” and shot again. This time he fired one straight bullet, right between my eyes. Instant death. He disposed of my body in a nature not so pleasantly, and so when the cops dug me up they could barely make a facial match. I was laying down in the autopsy room, chest cut open but covered when my parents walked in. The look on their faces was indescribable. Puddles of pain flowed through their body as they cried so hard they washed me with their tears. They held each other as they walked out, wondering “Why did this happen to my baby girl? Why her?”

I, myself, had never truly understood why I was the victim of such a heinous crime. Why was I targeted? What did I do? I certainly did not know my killer, but also how did he find me after I opened up that fortune cookie? It could have been any of my friends. As I lay here, on this cold metal table, watching people poke and prade at me, I could only think of how that bullet felt, piercing its way through the middle of my eyes, and exiting its way out of my skull.