“Help! Help! Please, Anyone!” All she could do was scream. Her time was limited and there was nothing she could do. She was helpless to what was coming. She could feel a slight vibration on her back and she knew it was approaching her. The train was speeding towards her, the conductor  oblivious to anything that was happening a short way down the tracks. She started to feel dizzy with anxiety, she could smell the dust in the air, she felt it on her skin, it seemed to coat her whole body. She felt dirty, disgusted with herself, she was such a helpless person, tied to the train tracks like a useless animal. Her mind raced, moving faster than the train that would inevitably kill her in just a few minutes. Why was this happening to her? What did she do? This was not how she had envisioned her first week of high school to go. 

Earlier that week, Emma had started high school and was finding it hard to adjust to all the things about her new school. She was a confident person and was not at all afraid to stand up for herself, in fact, that’s how she got into this appalling situation. The third day of school, Emma was sitting in the library at lunch doing some homework when an older boy walked over to her.  He informed her that since she was a freshman, she would have to do something for him in order to become a part of his friend group, where all the kids were very popular. She asked what she would have to do (her first mistake) and he told her that she would have to help him and his friends break into a gas station the next night. After hearing this, she declined the invitation but he insisted, multiple times, that she had to unless she wanted something bad to happen to her. Emma yelled at him,”Leave me alone, Asshole!” and threw a ruler that was on the table at him. “You really are stupid, you shouldn't have done that” he said calmly and slowly walked away. When she was walking home that day, a black car with tinted windows drove up next to her. Emma was immediately nervous but she didn’t want to make anything out to be worse than it was so she kept on walking.  Suddenly, a large threatening man jumped out of the car, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled her into the car.  

She could faintly remember what happened after that but she knew it was that boy and she knew that she had gotten herself into something very dangerous. She remembered a small item being shoved down her throat, most likely a pill, and then feeling very dizzy. She would be wide awake one second and the next it seemed that she was falling into a thousand-year sleep. It didn't feel good, and that was all that she could know for sure. Her body ached, she didn't know why exactly but it felt like she had just been body slammed by a truck. She heard two deep voices but she couldn't tell what they were saying. She felt angry, like if she had the strength she would lunge forward and attack her captors. But she couldn't, she was useless. Even if she wasn't going in and out of consciousness, she wouldn't be able to stop them. Now her anger was becoming greater, she was angry at the boy who had done this but now she was becoming furious with herself. Why had she made that idiotic decision to be rude to that boy, Why couldn't she just say yes, it was better than being kidnapped for sure. God, she was so useless and stupid, always knowing how to get herself into trouble but never knowing how to find her way out of it. She was hopeless and her life was meaningless so it no longer mattered what happened to her, who would care anyway?. 

So now she was here, in the middle of nowhere, probably miles from her town, awaiting death on the train tracks with no one to help her. She wanted to break free of the irritating ropes that bound her to the train tracks, she wanted to run away, but she couldn’t, it was hopeless. Still, she tried everything she could, screaming at the top of her lungs was the first thing she tried. Once she figured out that no one in the whole useless, stupid world was coming she had to think of something else to do, quickly.  She looked at her surroundings, desperately clinging to the thought that she might escape in time to stay alive. All she saw was dirt and darkness around her, it began to seem like the world was closing in on her, like it wanted her to die, like she was meant to go out like this. No, she couldn’t accept that, she would survive, she had to. Although her hands were limited, she felt around the ground beneath her for something that could save her and she was in luck, a large piece of glass was on the ground close to her hand. She could hear the humming of the train’s engine now, see its lights harshly shining down on the tracks, the train was speeding forward. She sawed away at the ropes confining her left wrist and after a few seconds her left hand was free. She soon did the same with her right hand and left leg, she had now shifted and was halfway off the tracks when- “NO!”- the train had ran right over both her legs that were sitting on the tracks. She watched in horrifying agony as the train ran over her legs again and again and again, each time causing pain to shoot through the lower half of her body. Now all she wished for was death, she felt it would provide some relief from the extreme pain she was experiencing, but she would have to wait 15 more hours for that to happen. Two days later, Emma Wright was found dead, sprawled out on some train tracks, with her legs crushed, 20 miles from her home.