The early morning air consisted of a tense hostility about it, which escaped Jason Mitchell’s attention since he snoozed snug in his luxurious waterbed, engulfed in a cotton blanket wrapping him up. Jason snored uproariously, like a magnificent bear getting his tummy rubbed. "Ahhh," he muttered in my sleep. His father created a massive electronic business which led to all this money. They moved here to Palm Beach, Florida to a building called Maison de L'Amitie last week. Jason had loved the massive 60,000 square feet compound which contained gold and diamond fixtures, a ballroom, a conservatory, a 30.5 metre-long swimming pool, and a garage capable of housing up to 50 cars. The white exterior magnificently gleamed in the sun. "Food," Jason groaned.

Alvin, his cousin, jolted awake, "Shut up Jace!" he hollered thunderously across the room... "It's just one o'clock, we didn't even sleep for an hour."

"You're the one who hogged all the superb food! I got all the … crud ones."

"Shut up already, get back to sleep."

"You are the one..."

He just slumped back in his bed and sighed, "Forget it."

Jason’s dad woke up and tramped along the hall to go to the bathroom. Suddenly, he took a whiff of something aflame. He peeked through a window and saw an inferno of flames burning, grabbing hold of anything near it and incinerating it. His dad gasped, not believing his eyes. Precisely two seconds later, a piercing scream rang out, echoing through the main hall. His mom leapt out of their bed, briskly put on their clothes, and scurried down the hall to inspect what happened. Obviously the cryout reached my cousin's ears. Alvin started shaking me up and down in a forcible manner. Jason moaned and yawned as he rose up, as stiff as a zombie, stretching out his arms and legs in all directions. "Why'd a wake me up for?" Jason demanded.

"I think I heard someone scream," Alvin divulged, speaking with a face white as sheet.

Jason snickered. "Good one. I like it. Should I run off screaming too and call the cops?"

"Good idea!"

“It’s sarcasm you dolt.”

"Well anyhow, hurry up and get dressed! Meet me downstairs. I am gonna check it out since I slept in my jeans."
"What if the ghost eats you my dear?" Jasin spoke in a whiny voice with sarcasm. "I am gonna cream you if nothing really happened."

Alvin bolted from his standing point, dashing out and jogging downstairs. Jason put on blue jeans and a baggy t-shirt with a black silky Adidas jacket and strolled down the hall, whistling idly to the ‘The Duck Song’ tune. His cropped black hair looked as if it went through a hurricane. As Jason wandered near the stairs, he saw something that nearly made him blanch. A colossal swirling wall of flames coated the stairs. The horrific inferno danced in front of his eyes trying to taunt Jason. At one point, the flames sent scorching fists trying to fry him. It also cut of his access to the others. I hope everyone’s okay. Jason happened to see a wooden ladder jutting out from one of the rusty old cabinets. He darted to the room to retrieve it. It certainly is a relief the fire didn't spread to the rooms down here. Yet. Jason looked out the window, and he repeated to myself that it was a long way down. Heck, the ladder isn't 15 ft tall. Darn it all. At that moment, Jason saw a giant fig tree located across from the window. In his head, Jason started formulating a plan far from perfect.

***


"I just can't believe that there is a possibility that Jace might be dead," his mom whimpered. Tears welled up in her eyes in her eyes, and she began to weep.

"There is nothing we can do except to hope that he isn't injured. I ain't think the fire got up to the third floor. Jace is a pretty resourceful kid, he has a chance of surviving."

His mom wiped away the remnants of her tears. "Just cross your fingers and hope."

***


Jason’s plan went haywire almost immediately after he tried it. He didn't realize the tree was too far away until Jason hung in midair. Jason grabbed for the branch, but grasped thin air instead. Out of a stroke of luck, a thick branch extended out beneath him. This is just like in the movies, just more challenging since I’m scared of heights. The landing onto the branch gave his butt a big buttache. Jason slowly dismounted the tree, carefully stepping from branch to branch. He learned how to ascend and descend trees a few years ago in Boy Scouts. His jacket hung on a tree branch, much too far for him to reach. A long blue shirt hung on to his Jason’s body. Jason decided to retrieve it later. After reaching the bottom, Jason sprinted to the gate to meet the others. I embraced my parents in a tight hug.

"I knew you could do it."

"You and Alvin will go and search for help. our grandmother and I will do our best to try and put out the fire. Now go!" We sprinted as long as we could, stopping one in a while to catch our breath. After a little while, we took a slight pause. "Huff, huff," Alvin huffed heavily, so heavy his words were barely audible. "Any idea where the police might be because we’re lost."



Jason thought hard, racking his brain, to find where the police station was. Where is it? Where is it?! C’mon I can do this. Beads of perspiration broke out on Jason’s forehead. Alvin started dashing back around the corner. Jason ran after him, but knowing the fact that he's well known for track-and-field, Jason knew there was no chance that he would catch up to him. But right after he turned the corner, he simply vanished into thin air. Jason looked left and right and left, searching for any sign of his cousin. "Oh no, what happened," Jason’s eyes darted. For five minutes, Jason ran around calling his cousin’s name. In the distance, shouts of dread and terror penetrated his ears. Taking advantage of his stunned pause, a masked figure attacked from behind. A pungent rag covered his nose and mouth. Jason bucked and squirmed, but the fumes from the rag quickly made him light-headed. The room swayed, and his sense of urgency faded. Senses dulled, Jason sagged against a man and slipped into the grip of unconsciousness. Jason returned to consciousness by degrees. He heard a distant babble of a conversation. Then when he tried to stretch, Jason became aware that my arms were bound. His alertness increased, and Jason remembered about Alvin's disappearance. When Jason tried to call out, he noticed a cloth wadded in my gagged mouth. He looked around and found himself in a warehouse. The walls were old and rusty with a thick layer of dust. Corrugated galvanized iron siding cladded the structure. The windows contained spider-web cracks. A faded ‘Warehouse 14’lay painted on the exterior. Someone noticed that Jason woke up from his unconsciousness.

"Hey boss, he woke up."

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the rich old man's son,” a man said. The man wore an expensive Giorgio Armani Italian suit. It was cut very slim, the silhouette was sleek, modern and very stylish. It looked tight fitting and shoulders were padded with lapel notches and buttons. The pockets are flapless and the jackets pronounced a V-shape. It used light cloths and high gorge lines. The man brushed his hair back. His light skin went along well with his Infinit glasses.
Jason uttered muffled complaints, pleading with his eyes.
"Don't like the gag much?"
Jason shook his head from side vigorously. "I sent out my helpers to take a hold of you and to bring you here. But it was simply childish if you think it out. I gagged your cousin and put his head underneath the water for a certain amount of time for information. He adamantly refused to give away your location. I realized that after the fire, your daddy would have sent both of you out to search for help. That meant you should have been right behind your cousin."

Jason gave him a dirty look, trying to lift myself with the chair they attached me to and hurt his shin in the worst way.

"Can you keep your trap shut? Believe me, I'll put you right back under." He opened a desk drawer and withdrew a small bottle and rag. Unstopping the bottle, he moistened the rag and set it aside. "Cry out and you'll be sorry. If you think you have a headache now, just wait until after a second dose of chloroform. You with me?"

Jason’s dark chocolate eyes widened and glistened, he nodded. The man peeled the duct tape from his mouth and tugged out the saliva-soaked cloth. Jason smacked his lips. His tongue felt really dry. "Why did you do this?"

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "To make long story short, I am after your father for destroying this man’s company along with something he stole. I am a contract killer."
"You created the fire too?"
"Yeah. How I did it is another matter."
"What are you going to do to us?" Jason asked, an edge of anxiety creeping into his voice.
"I am going to...snuff out your cousin today, and I am going to hand you over to the man who hired me," the man's eyes were getting misty, focusing somewhere distant.
"Just kill me? Just kill me!" Jason chuckled bitterly, a single tear leaked from his eye. "That won't resolve anything!"
He just got up from his chair and left.
Jason called out to his cousin seated across from him. His face looked straight, his eyes staring nowhere. "Look at me! We have to get out of here now!"
Alvin turned his neck towards Jason. "Like I didn't know that."
"Any ideas?"
He shook his head with a frown furrowed in his eyebrows. "None."
Jason tried wiggling and struggling to loosen the iron grip of the ropes. After a few minutes of back-breaking struggles, Jason stood up from the chair triumphant. I went to untie my cousin from the hold of the chair. Alvin stood up and stretched his arms out. "It feels good to stand up."
"Come on, we'll leave these people to the police."
Ironically, right at that moment, the gangsters strolled into the room. "Not so fast, where are you going in such a hurry? Hey boss, you certainly were right, they did almost escape."
"We are going to escape you know, whether or not you like it."
"Kill the boy with the red hair, but not the one with black hair. I want him alive. Anyone who hurts him, I hurt. Understood?"
The people with the machine guns started firing from the hips. That apparently worked in the movies only. In no time, bullets zoomed around the room. Jason noticed the man ordering everybody around had a weapon strapped to his side. "Run!!" Jason ordered his cousin. Alvin was shocked right to the core of his heart at the sight of the guns. His focus snapped backed to Earth in a split second, and he started backpedaling to the door set ajar. It was a miracle I wasn't shot and cut open in half by the .50 cal bullets fired. I hit the ringleader in the shin, and he crumpled, eyes wide open. "You try to shoot me, and he dies first." Jason hadn't really anticipated the strength of his masculine captive, and he gave him a blow in my solar plexus. Jason’s legs buckled, and he fell down with a crash, gasping for breath.
"Ha, ha, ha, if you think you can just take me, you'll need to do much more than that." Jason fell silent, knowing I needed a good plan to wriggle out of this one.
"You are so stupid, my cousin is probably informing the police that you are here, in this rusty bucket warehouse. Ha ha, look at your face, full of anger and desperation. " Jason gathered up all the saliva he could find and spit near the man’s foot.
"You little maggot!" he spat. His face turned from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. Jason smirked. "Let me at him! I am going to come over there and permanently wipe that smirk off of your face!"
His people held him back, forbidding him to kill Jason right now. While all this happened, Jason walked over to the head boss, and hit his face. "Ohh, I am going to kill you!" Jason fled with his life. A shot rang out, and Jason felt as if a thousand knives were stabbing his arms. Jason looked down and saw a crimson liquid freely flowing and dripping to the floor. Jason’s bones were surely splintered. He tried walking a few more steps before he collapsed from the immense pain.

For the second time that week, Jason awoke with a terrible headache pounding at his head like those big drums that you find in a parade. But this time, Jason experienced a weird tingling feeling throughout his whole body. He tried moving his arms but had to no control over it. It felt as if he only had his head and his brain was denied control. No matter how much he tried, his body wouldn’t move.“WE ARE NOW CRUISING AT AN ALTITUDE OF 32,000 FT. YOU MAY NOW TURN ON YOUR WIFI.” 32,000 ft? That means I gotta be on a plane. A PLANE! A man stood up and walked in front of Jason. As Jason couldn’t move his body, he only noticed an Italian suit in front of his face. Holy Guacamole!!!!That’s the contract killer guy who held me in the warehouse. Zelj turned around and grinned, “Are you alright, anything else you need?” People turned around to gawk at Jason.
One person asked, “How did he become paralyzed?”
Zelj replied with a fake sadness in his voice, “A severe injury to the head in a car crash.” Jason and Zelj promptly arrived at New Jersey at two o’clock. Jason was driven in a car to a helipad where the slowly wore off. Chop. Chop. Chop. The blades of the helicopter started to rotate with gaining momentum. Zelj tied up Jason very tightly, so tight that his body might collapse inwards. The next thing Jason saw were the knuckles of Zelj’s hand.

Jason woke up with a throbbing pain on his ear. He found himself in a ruin without being tied up by a rope. In a moment’s notice, Zelj stood in front of Jason with a heinous smiled curved into his lips.

“Welcome to the Grand Hotel in Kupari, somewhere in the middle of Croatia. I know it looks like-umm-well anyway water and rust have marred Kupari’s once majestic hotel. Feel free to look around. You can try to escape, but there isn’t anything in a 100 miles, so good luck.”
Jason looked out one of the ruined windows. Dense fog gathered in the center of the terrain. Over a ridge to the north, surrounded by rolling hills on each side, a desolate church stood isolated and abandoned, the fog extending its creeping fingers like tendrils, ever crawling closer. It slowly smothering the open pathway that lead to the entrance with the oak doors of the church. The hazel frame of the door had a corner missing, all splintered and fractured from where the termites had been chewing for centuries. The metal of the door handle had eroded with rust and the colour had faded from the harsh gold that it once was to a dull grey today, each screw contained its own swarm of mites, chewing from corner to corner, fighting and competing against the rest. The gravestones that surround the church outside from all four sides were standing stationary, helpless and crippled from age, each symbolizing its life through the gentle glimmer of light that was shining softly from above. The wind howling, almost creating sounds like the whispers of those who lay beneath. No other sounds except those of your feet as they step across the moss-covered ground. Jason shivered from the thought.

At dinner, Zelj and Jason sat alone, his goons leaving them in privacy. When Zelj told him why he got kidnapped, Jason’s jaw dropped.

“My dad didn’t steal anything. He isn’t that type of a person.”

“Well, money is everything. My contractor wants something, I give it to him. I gave a phone call to your dad from a tape I recorded using a computer. He is coming here in one day. Hahaha. We are going to get him. We know where you live, you see. While your dad arrives here, Yakov is going to get the supercomputer from your home. We are gonna capture your dad and kill his guards with snipers and wait for Yakov to arrive.” Zelj promptly stood up and left.

The next day, Jason tried to find places to hide and break out to help his dad. But the fact that there were 200 people near the place didn’t boost Jason’s luck. At around three o’clock in the morning, Jason heard a loud shot ring out in the air. DAD HAD ARRIVED! Jason tried to run out but failed because he got tied to a chair. But from the sight, Jason bucked and squirmed. Brian Mitchell arrived in a helicopter with his guards, but got startled when he looked upon ruins of a building. Everybody got out, and one by one they fell like ants getting trampled. It was a cruel, bloody, and silent massacre. At the end, Brian Mitchell was the last person standing. THUNK. Brian looked down and noticed a tranquilizer dart protruding from legs. It must have been a really strong dose, because he fell immediately.

Jason tried hard to believe it was all a dream. He opened his eyes slowly and hoped he would still be immersed in his nightmare. Instead, he looked upon a man with a close resemblance to a skeleton. His eyes burned with black hatred, staring down at his dad. Jason growled, “ You must be Yakov.” Yakov turned around to face Zelj.
“You told him about me? Ugh, I prepared a whole speech for this moment.”
“How could you? Just to get a computer!” It was the first time Jason’s dad had spoken. Yakov swiveled around look at Jason’s dad.
“Do you know what you did to my life? Stay quiet.”
Jason suddenly felt a black cloth wrap around his head. His breath grew shorter and shorter, puffing out with both his nose and mouth. One hour later, Jason landed on his head. He felt the velvety touch of the soft swaying grass around him. Through the black cloth, he heard Yakov.
“Thanks for the supercomputer Brian. I hacked the US’s governments computers. I am in control of everything on the US. This beast piggybacks the government satellite. You peeps are sitting next to a silo, which contains a missile. You are next to a Poseidon missile, which will detonate in…… 30 minutes. Everybody will now understand the pain of having two bullets and cancer. Adios.”
Jason felt an ever growing fear in his heart, which creeped slowly along his whole body. Jason felt a protruding needle from his jacket. The needle slid out from under his jacket sleeve and Jason caught it. He started slicing the tough rope. After a few minutes, Jason stood up and immediately started slicing the rope that held his dad. After a few seconds, his dad stood up without a smile.

“Okay, we can’t run that far away without getting ourselves vaporized, so….”

“Wait is that the computer?” said Jason.
They ran over to what his dad pointed out. The computer lay counting down when the missiles would detonate.
“Yes!”Jason’s dad exclaimed. He slammed down the button which was labeled, “Abort”. But to his discontent, the countdown still continued. They needed a card to activate. From behind, Jason heard a voice.
“Yes, you need the card, which I have. And how are you going to get it?”
Jason sprinted like the wind towards Yakov. He kicked him near the groin but Yakov didn’t show any sign of falling. Yakov swiped viciously near Jason’s neck, and if he succeeded, Jason wouldn’t have stood a chance. Jason took a step back and tried slide tackling. Yakov crumpled with a grunt. THUNK. Jason saw a tranquilizer dart placed near Yakov’s head. Jason looked around and saw Jason’s dad holding a sleek tranquilizer gun. To the side, Zelj lay with his eyes closed. Jason snatched the card from Yakov’s pocket and ran to his dad. Brian inserted the card. Immediately after, a sign read “Insert Code”. He heard a body fall to the ground. Jason looked behind and saw his dad lay at the feet of a man. His eyes had a crazed look with shambled hair. Within moment’s notice, Zelj scooped up the computer and ran. In the distance, a sleek black jet plane was parked on a thin uneven strip of land. Jason couldn’t let him leave with the computer. The fate of the world’s most powerful country lay crumbling in Jason’s hand. The ground blurred below him as he felt a surge of adrenaline. The steady thump of his footsteps echoed in his ears and he felt a bead of sweat roll down my forehead. The only things stopping him from victory was his physical limits. To his surprise, Jason nearly caught up to Zelj. As a last effort, Jason leapt forward like a cheetah pouncing on his meal. Zelj let go of the computer, which landed on the floor five feet in front of them. Zelj groaned from the impact with Jason on his back. Zelj stood up and dropped Jason on the floor. As he began to move, an ear blasting shot blasted into Zelj. His eyes stared out into space while his legs gave away. Jason’s blood froze when he noticed Yakov peering through a sniper scope. Jason picked up the computer and ran like nothing mattered. He reached a rusted door. He rattled the handle which he found was locked. Yakov had dropped his rifle and was bolting to Jason. Jason ran to Zelj and snatched the pistol. Yakov stopped at Jason’s arm length. .
“You could shoot me. I don’t care about my life anyway, I’m dead. But you, you would have to live with what you did for your whole life. You think you can handle that?”
Jason’s eyes started darted. All hell broke loose inside his head, one side battling to kill Yakov, and the other side defending him. Perispiration started flowing from his body. From that indecision, Yakov made his move. He lashed at the pistol, and Jason let go. Suddenly everything went completely silent.All movement around him slowed down to an excruciating pace. The FBI and SWAT raided the room with full weapons and gear on. One man ran over to the computer and entered the code. He could hear a voice saying detonation terminated. Jason felt his pulse pounding through his body, and escaping in torrents through the open wound. At this moment he felt no pain, he felt no sorrow. Jason was amazed by all that surrounded him. Jason looked down his hands, and flexed it. He was amazed at how the muscles flexed back and forth perfectly and would soon move no more. Jason fell to the ground, a dull ache forming in my chest. Slowly, all the sound slowly faded away. There, he lay perfectly calm.