Edward Powell: BBC ‘Write a Story’ Destination unknown
But his eyes had the kind of look that you know this isn’t going to end well. The Driver did not stop as was expected, but he kept picking up speed more and more, breaking speed limits by nearly double in places. I gazed into Grandad’s eyes and he gazed back into mine, and we were on the same page. We hopped up and proceded up to the door of the bus, only to be held back by the odd looking passengers. Two quite large men grasped us by the shoulders and pulled us back into out seats. They searched our pockets for any communication devices or anything dangerous, and retrieved our phones, and flung them straight out the window. Two minutes later we were blind-folded. “This couldn’t be good” I thought...
We remained in our seats for the rest of the journey in fear of what may happen to us if we attempted to get up again. We were roughly two hours on that rugged bus. I felt sick, I didn’t know whether it was travel sickness or nerves, but by now that was the least of my worries. Grandad and I never let go of each other, even when we were being guided off the bus. You could hear the bangs of large steel doors, and we were later tied to chairs back-to-back. The kidnappers had all left and were left in this room which felt somewhat like a warehouse, in complete silence. I was trying not to break out in tears as I didn’t want to show weakness, but when I think back by now it wouldn’t have made much difference anyway..
Some time passed and a few people as far as I could tell, entered the room in a laid back fashion. They paced around us for the first minute, and just stopped. One deep-voiced man slurred out in a foreign accent, “You are being held hostage. We kidnap you so we get big randsome. You are allowed one call each, If we don’t have six million Euros in forty eight hours, you will die a slow, painful death”. Since I was younger I was let go first. I rang my mother, screaming what had...