The Outside World

[Melix]

Role Play Rating:

• T- Teen (13 and up)
  

Role Play Status:


Open - Accepting


They met under the weirdest circumstances. He was a professional thief who got more than he bargained for. She was alone for the first time in many years. And the other one had a great desire to protect her.


1) I'd prefer everyone's character 16-20, but it's up to you.


2) We will set up a posting order to make things easier but because I have a bad habit of this myself there will be NO NAGGING until it is absolutely necessary (which is when no one's replied in 25 days and we get an inactivity warning).

 

[khuyen]

It was a regular monday afternoon and the sun was shining brightly in the city of New York. Beautiful, big houses decorated the streets in Pine Hill, New Canaan. The streets were otherwise empty, kids having gone to school and parents to work.


Emma sat in her bed, looking out the small window, she had in her attic. Her finger traced a bird, flying in the sky, untill it disappeared from her narrow range of sight. Sighing, she decided to go downstairs. "Mother?" She called, as she descended the stairs. A woman sat in the living room, and immediately turned off the television, as she heard the girl come down. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Do not call me that, sweet dove, it makes me sound so old."


Emma really wanted to roll her eyes at her step-mother, but decided not to. "Stephanie, then." She corrected, and the woman nodded, pleased. "What is it, child, are you hungry? I'll have the maid cook something up for you."


"No, I'm really just..." She just wanted to talk really, but before she could finish her sentence, she clutched her heart and collapsed to her knees. It felt like the air was slowly leaving her lunges, and her chest heaved harshly. The stepmother panicked, and shouted things at her, but Emma couldn't really hear what.


"Ha-harold, it's me! She's acting weird- What? Medicine?" A rummaging sound was heard, as the woman nearly trashed the kitchen cabinets. "Th-there's none! No the maid isn't here? Pharmacy? This is outrageous, Harold!" She shouted into her cellphone and turned to Emma, not bothering to help her up though. "You stay here, dove, I'll go get you some medicine, for gods sake."


It became quieter, as the door slammed, and Emma focused on calming down her heart. Deep breaths, Emma, Deep breaths. After a while, she managed to get to her feet and slowly staggered to the kitchen counter. Her step-mother had forgotten her purse. Grabbing the purse, she dragged her way to the front door, that she had never been able to cross. I'm just giving her her purse, right? She needs it.





Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself and opened the door... The sun warmed her skin immediately, and she took a quivering step outside, looking around for her step-mother. The car was no longer in the garage. She should probably get back inside, she thought, but couldn't help but take a step longer out into the yard. It felt so nice. Suddenly, her vision began blurring and her mind became dizzy. She fell to the soft grass in their front lawn, before passing out.

 

[Fus ro dah]

Hands buried deep in his pockets, the youth's boots clicked over the pavement, the warm sun beating down on his slightly tanned skin. He seemed so unassuming, just a regular guy walking along the street, humming to himself. Daylight break and enter jobs were rare, as they were extremely risky. Although he'd been informed that this home was empty today, all he had to do was casually slip around to the back of the house away from the road and break in through either a door or a window.


A police car rolled along the road and he felt a pang of nervousness at the sight, as always. Guilty conscience or something like that. Thankfully the patrol car ignored the young man and vanished into the distance, leaving Montague to continue on his merry way. The brown backpack slung over his shoulder was empty, waiting to be filled with all manner of spoils that would be sold off to Fences. Soon the house came into sight, a rather large and impressive two-story home. His whole plan was to break in, case the place and get out. Jewelry and cash were his best bet as they were easy to carry and easy to Fence.


As he approached the home, something out the front caught his attention It was partially obscured, but it almost looked like a pile of clothing. That was strange, what rich people would leave a pile of... He was close enough now to realise that it was a person, unmoving on the ground. Possibly a woman, and the front door was ajar. Which meant his information was bad, and there was an unconscious girl on the ground. Wait, if she lived here...


He didn't even think beyond his fragmented thought and he glanced around, making sure no one was watching. There was no one. Not even any cars on the road right now. He knelt down beside the... he hoped it wasn't a corpse... and breathed a sigh of relief as he felt her warmish pale skin. At least she was alive. There was no way he could lift her alone, good thing his ride was waiting just up the road. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he called the driver, quickly explaining the situation to him before hanging up and waiting for the car to pull up. Once it did, the two men lifted her into the back seat and as if nothing was wrong, drove off back towards their headquarters.

 

[khuyen]

In her dream, she was being carried by gentle arms. She felt warm and fuzzy, and wanted to desperately hold onto this warmth. As she opened her eyes, a brilliant sight met her eyes, something she had only read about in her story books. The ocean spread wide before her eyes and into the horizon. She was on a boat, rocking gently in the breeze, and she could almost smell the smell of...





Gasoline. The gentle swaying of the boat in her dream, had turned into a nightmare. Emma was trapped in a dark room, a vehicle, she thought, as she felt the bumps from the road beneath her. "H-Help!" She screamed out, frightened. What was going on? Was she still dreaming? Her heart was beating fast, but before it could make her lose consciousness, a large bump in the road resulted in Emma's head beating up against the car, knocking her out.


______


This headache was unbearable. Her eyes slowly tried to open, but her eyelids had never felt so heavy. It felt like she had been through a nightmare. Or maybe a ton of medical visits. But really, to her, they were the same thing. She wanted to move, but something held her back. Rope. Her hands were tied together, and she was laying on a dirty, smelly, mattress. This was so not her own room.


Looking around, she almost cringed. The room wasn't that bad, it was just so strange and bare to her. No pictures decorated the walls, and there were little to no furniture. Finding it best not to panic, she quickly began her breathing exercises, lying calmly on the bed. Breathe in... Breathe out... Breathe in... Breathe out...

 

[Melix]

Average day, average time. That's what Jem was thinking when he woke up outside of his home, mid-city, with rope-burns on his arms. Seemed to him like most people's ideas of a spectacular and scary days' adventure was exactly what his normal routine was like. "What do you want?" he asked his captors, one a large, chunky middle-aged Asian and one who appeared to be a skinny mix of just about everything. "You do realize most people prefer to get paid, rather than kidnapped, right?" He coughed up a little phlegm. His throat was dry. "And water. People love water."


The middle-aged one glared at him. "Sorry, boss," he said a bit dumbly. "Our man McDaniels sent us to get you, but you snore like a donkey and sleep like the dead."


"Someone's a writer," muttered Jem. "Who does McDaniels want? This time? Double-crossing businessman, painted person, freakshow, what? I swear he always has the weirdest requests." On the back of his mind was money. Even in handcuffs, he wasn't leaving with nothing- jewelry, cash, a car or a VIN number for a car...something that could be useful to him in the long run. Something that could help him find Dad- and Sarah. He wanted answers. It was near time he got them.


"Business man's daughter," Skinny Mix informed him. "Went missing a little bit ago. Hours. Never been outside a day in her life- she got sick and took off. We don't know if she's alone."


"So...what, you want me to find her and bring her to the hospital?" Mix shook his head, grinning, and mouthed No.





"We want you to hold her for a ransom," said Mix, after checking that no one was listening. "The longer she's held, the more her life slips away, and the more it's worth."


McDaniels is evil, Jem thought, but didn't say it out loud. "What am I paid in?"


"Diamonds," said Mix. "Twenty-five refined, polished, twenty-four carat pure diamonds."


Screw my conscience, Jem thought. "I'll need information. Name, and a photo." The big dumb one handed him a photo and it took ten seconds for Jem to scan it and realize it was the girl off the news a couple of hours before he took a nap. Different picture, same face. Same mischievous, intelligent glint in her eye. Jem resisted the urge to pull out his own photos and compare. He already knew: Same face.


"Her name is Emma Craft."


Sarah.


"Where do I sign?"

 

[Fus ro dah]

"Hey, Monty!"


A dented candelabra soared quickly through the air toward the man who had used the forbidden word and it almost hit him, too bad he had quick reflexes. Montague's eyes were narrowed, Devin knew better and one day his trolling would get him seriously injured.


"Next time, I'll use my bare hands." The youth huffed as the blond flashed a stupid grin.


"Well, don't you think you should go check on your special guest? She's probably awake by now, take her some chocolate or something. Seriously, what the hell possessed you to kidnap her? We don't do kidnapping!"


"You saw her house, Dev." Montague retrieved the candelabra and set it back on the fireplace ledge. "Her family will probably pay ten times what we could get from casing that joint, just to get her back. So, that's why."


"You... make a good point."


"Exactly." The dark-haired youth grinned. "So, I'm going to go make sure she's... comfortable."

 

[khuyen]

It had been hours. Or at least, it felt like hours. There was no clock in sight, and no windows for Emma to base her assumptions on. She had long calmed down, although feeling the occasional anxiety of her new, strange situation. Panicking would do her no good though. Sometimes she thought, she could hear voices from the other side of the door, but they were so quiet, she could barely make out anything. Perhaps it was just her imagination.


She was sitting on the worn-out mattress, clutching her legs. Her head rested softly on her knees, and she sighed. Father is going to kill me, she thought. Having been alone for last couple of hours, she had managed to piece together the puzzles in her mind of what had happened. She had an attack. Stephanie went out. She opened the door and walked outside. She... opened the door... and walked outside.


Unable to believe herself, she let out a frustrated scream, muffled by her pants. She hadn't even changed out of her pyjamas. "I actually went outside... Outside..." She kept murmuring to herself as she felt the fear grow word by word. Father is really going to kill me.

 

[Fus ro dah]

He had grabbed something for her to eat and drink, a ham sandwich, an apple and a bottle of spring water. He made his way down to the 'room that's barely used', which is why it's so... dirty and lame. It was the only room they could use to keep a prisoner, the rest weren't secure enough. They had a rotating shift to have one person guarding the door at all times, just to be sure she didn't escape. Montague swung the door open, light from the hallway flooding into the room and illuminating the prisoner within.


"You're awake." He smiled, turning on his charm as he walked into the room, holding out the brown-bagged meal. "Thought you might like something to eat. There's a sandwich, some water and an apple. How you going?"

 

[khuyen]

She heard footsteps approaching, before the door had even opened. She had grown good at listening, sometimes it was the only passtime she had. She sat up slowly, smoothing out her worn-out t-shirt and taming her brown locks. It didn't hurt to look a bit presentable, she thought.


The door swung open, and Emma had to adjust her eyes to see through the light. First it was a silhouette of a person, blocked by the sun in the back. Slowly the person became clearer, and he entered the room. A man, she noted. His hair was short and brown, his jawline strong. When he smiled at her, Emma didn't know what to do. She had never actually met anyone other than her family and their housemaids and doctors, almost forgetting there was a whole world outside bustling with life.


"I'm fine, how are you?" She asked calmly, as he offered her food. Perhaps it was a strange reaction to a situation such as this - she wasn't stupid and she knew, she had been taken by force from her house. But she couldn't lie to herself, the panic had slowly subdued and left was only curiousity and perhaps a bit of excitement. They weren't going to hurt her... were they?


Emma reached out taking the bag, opening to get some water. Her throat was hoarse and her body felt weak. Gulping down the water, she merely looked at her kidnapper with no expression, waiting for him to tell her why she was here and what he wanted.

 

[Melix]

Mr. Craft was clean. No embezzlement, no fraud (well, not much fraud), no extra, secret bank accounts or weird crimes that clicked up next to him. Jem couldn't even find a trace of bribery. That didn't mean Mr. Craft was a good guy. He stole Sarah. It just meant he'd gotten really, really good at covering his tracks.


Jem had always liked a challenge.


He erased his minimal findings. Not just his computer history, but his whole hard drive. He needed something else. He looked up Mr. Craft's wife, Mrs. Craft...nothing. Her daughter, though. Oh, that was a fun one. SO many underwear pics on the internet...Maybe this was why they didn't let Sarah go outside.


"Pervert," said the man standing behind him at the library.


"What? No! I'm- I'm doing research! I'm trying to find a missing person! She's older than me!" Jem protested, clicking out of Google Images. "Besides, you sneak up behind people when they're alone! So y-you're the creeper!"


"Okay, then," said the librarian, leaving. "Have a nice day."


Jem turned back. On Yahoo, there was more pictures...Here she was with a guy, here she was with a girl, here she was shopping for colanders with Mrs. Craft and some older man with his arm on Mrs. Craft's shoulder and...


Well, there he had something. Dirt. On the wrong family member, but still. ANYTHING can be twisted if you give it enough thought. Jem clicked out.


(Sorry, I'm having minor writer's block. I won't be back until Sunday, also. I'm going camping. Happy 4th! That's tomorrow!)

 

[Fus ro dah]

"So," He stepped back a little to let her feel comfortable, "do you have a name? Well, I mean, you have one... may I know it?"


He lent back against the door to give her space in the small room, watching to see if she would eat, his arms tucked into the pockets of his pants. "Well, I'm Montague. I found you laying on the side of the footpath, passed out. Do you remember what happened?"


(Short post coz no idea what else to post xD )

 

[khuyen]

"S-shouldn't y-you already know my name? If you took me?" She asked him, cursing herself for stuttering. It was something entirely different talking to... well... generally just talking to people, who weren't in her household.


She picked at the sandwich a bit, before taking a testing bite. Deciding it was good enough, she continued munching on her food, looking like she was thinking hard. She saw him leaning against the door, and looked him over. He was... handsome, to say the least. But she didn't really have anything to compare it with. "Nice to meet you, Montague... I guess..." She furrowed her eyebrows. What was the correct way of addressing her kidnapper?


"I must've passed out from one of my attacks, while my step-mom went to get my medicine..." She shrugged nonchalantly, remembering the events before her black-out. "How long do you intend to keep me?"


A part of her thought it didn't really matter. If she was stuck in here, or stuck in her room back at home. At least this guy was willing to talk to her.

 

[Fus ro dah]

"If this was a planned kidnapping, sure." He shrugged, watching as she picked at the sandwich. "I just found you, laying there. I assumed the massive house you were in front of is yours, if if is... it means your family is loaded. Being of the poor persuasion I made a quick judgement and we bought you here. So, I guess until we find out who you are and contact that family of yours... you'll be a guest here. No one is going to hurt you though, I won't let them."

 

[khuyen]

Emma thought about his words. A silence stretched in the room, as she looked down at her hands. A guest, huh. She wasn't going to get hurt, just used as a pawn for money extortion. So after they find out who she, they'll send her back and she can go back to wasting her life away in the attic. Her thoughts flashed back to a travel guide, she had stolen from her father's desk one time. There were so many places, she hadn't seen yet. Was she ever going to get better? Do I even want to go back? She clutched her heart, feeling it beat slowly, like a clock reminding her of the time that was running out.


She finally looked up at Montague, her eyes lit with a new fire. "I'll give you all the money you want." She started out with a voice full of confidence. It was her first time lying straight out of her teeth. Or it wasn't really lying. "Just let me live a good life for 2 weeks. Please." She wanted to see things, hear and feel things. She wanted to... live.

 

[Fus ro dah]

There was no way in hell Montague could hide the surprise on his face at the words from her mouth. Was she... trying to pull the wool over his eyes? She had to be. Catch him off guard and slip away? That had to be it. Right? He was curious now, in case she was telling the truth.


"You can't tell me you weren't living a good life before." He raised a brow at her.

 

[khuyen]

She gulped. "I-it's not like I haven't been living a good life, it just hasn't been...good." Emma trailed off, not knowing how to explain it. She rubbed anxiously at her wrist, which had often been bruised by her father in his drunken antics, so much it had become a habit for her to trace the nonexisting bruises on her wrist.


"T-that's not the point. We live in New York right? I haven't seen... New York... yet. But you will take me and I'll give you a large sum of money. Do we have a deal, Montague?" She was feeling surprisingly confident about it. Well, she had made it this far (by not really doing anything), it would be a shame to let the opportunity of a life time go to waste. Looking him over, she couldn't help but wonder. Weren't thieves supposed to be mean and horrible? He certainly didn't fit the stereotype. But perhaps she did not fit the stereotype of a prisoner that well either.

 

[Fus ro dah]

Well that was even more unexpected. He was already playing this whole thing out by ear and now it had became a little less easy to predict.


"And what happens when someone you know spots up and calls the police, hrmm?" He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll be taken away and you'll be taken home, back to where things apparently aren't good."

 

[khuyen]

A moment of silence stretched over the small room once again. "I hadn't thought about that. But I don't really know anyone that could spot me except for 3-4 members of my house." She admitted. Biting her lip, she looked up at Montague again. "Can't we just... be sneaky about it? Isn't that what you do? Sneaky stuff?"


She reached for the water bottle, taking a long sip again. All this talking was making her so thirsty, lord knows, it might've been the longest conversation, she's had in years. He didn't seem like he was keen on the idea though, and Emma looked a bit defeated. She was so close, yet so far.

 

[Fus ro dah]

"There's a difference between being sneaky and escorting a sick girl who has no idea how to sneaky. Plus, how are you going to enjoy yourself if you're too busy trying to be sneaky? Hrm... " He was considering trying to take her out, this room was rather... gross. "Well, there's always the possibility of a wig or a big hat. Big hats are fashionable, right? As long as you don't try to run away, I don't want to have to actually hurt you."

 

[khuyen]

Had he just agreed? Nodding furiously, she looked up at him. "Big hats are great! Wigs are great!" She said, obvious excitement in her voice. "T-this means, you agree right?" She got up from the bed a bit testingly, having not used her legs for while. Deciding, she was fine and in a stable condition right now, she moved to the door. "Can we leave now? Like right now?" She didn't want to waste another time of her makeshift freedom.


"Can you drive? Will we be driving? I've never been in a car before..." Just the thought of it excited her. She had seen her father's car and how he drives off every morning, read books about the mechanics of a car and how it can move so fast.

 

[Fus ro dah]

"Woah woah, calm down. I've gotta try and find said wig and hat first." He eyed her form for a moment. "We might even have a spare dress you can change into as well, or pants. Whatever you prefer. Although yes, I can drive. We can take my car." He wasn't about to tell her she was in a car before, because being unconscious didn't count. "You finish your meal, eat it all, and I'll come back with some clothes and hopefully and hat and a wig."

 

[khuyen]

She had already finished her meal, when he finished speaking. Emma looked down at her ratty pajamas. "Dress or pants, either is fine..." She said, feeling awfully self-conscious all of a sudden. Her first time out in the world, and she was wearing her pink kitty pajamas. He must've thought she was like 12 or something. She briefly wondered if it was normal for a 19 year old girl to get kidnapped for ransom.


Nodding briefly, she sat back on the bed. "I'll wait here then." It's not like I can do anything else, right?





(@Melix , when and how do you wanna jump in?! we can timeskip if you want )

 

[Melix]

(Please! I've been waiting for an opportunity, but none have risen.)

 

[khuyen]

(Alright! Solitaire will write the next post then, timeskipping us to a stroll in new york )

 

[Fus ro dah]

(Once my brain is awake, it's still in 'why am I awake' mode)