“Stay quiet and don’t move” said the man with a gun.
It was July 31st, 2009.I was on 7th grade. It was my brother’s birthday. Waking up in a Friday is very difficult, but this was a special Friday, it was our fist stomping project, besides my brother’s birthday.
I woke up like a normal day, heading directly to the shower. The hot, almost burning water awaked me a little from staying asleep in the shower. Putting on my contact lenses was a very exhausting thing to do, also brushing my teeth.
Don’t blame me, it’s Friday!
Anyways, singing “Happy Birthday” and hugging my brother started to make my day better. But the emotion of performing our fist stomping project was bigger. I felt like nothing could ruin this day. I walk down the stairs as always, jumping them in groups of 5.
“Morning mom” I said, “how did you slept?”
“Fine darling, thank you” she replied, rubbing her eyes to separate them to not fall asleep. Maybe she didn’t sleep so well at all.
5:25 AM, 5:26 AM… I felt like the clock didn’t want me to go to school! Time was passing slowly than ever. Now, I wish time would have been passed slowly that day.
However, I grabbed my lunchbox, my backpack and my little, oval, Adidas suit where my clothes were. I grabbed them so fast, that I didn’t realize that I had thrown away a red, squared candle in the little, like side-bed table, besides my backpack.
“Sorry mom!” I yelled from the door.
The bus passed like 10 blocks away from my house that year, so my dad always woke up, put on his green, almost mint, V neck shirt and his black shorts. Since my dad is a doctor, his shirt had a big, black impress stamp that said “Nuestra Señora del Pilar- Dr. José Manuel Lemus (Departamento de Radiología)”. Seeing this stamp each day was good. It meant it would be a normal day. Well, it didn’t was.
“Its time kids” yelled my dad, searching a song in the radio of the car. At that time in the morning, he didn’t find anything, so he finally gave up and turn it off.
“Let’s go Rodrigo” I yelled to my brother, from the first floor to the second.
“I’m coming” he yelled back “Get into the car”
My car was a big, reddish, almost wine-color, truck of the year. My dad worked hard to buy it, and he finally achieved it
“Let’s go” I said. I was thrilled and excited to get school. In fact, it was the first Friday this happened to me “Exited to get into school in a Friday?” I thought to myself, “What a freak!”
The street we usually waited for the bus was a silent, almost empty corner. I remember that in the corner, there used to be a Banrural bank and on the opposite a Dominos Pizza that is still there. We also see allot of people who was heading to work, walking alone.
We usually talked about things we did in school the day before, activities of the day, or how exhausted work was yesterday for dad. Sometimes, we find a song and started singing.
I was excited, almost yelling to my dad, telling and explaining him what a stomping was.
My dad was in front, with my brother as a co-pilot. I was behind my dad.
I saw two men walking down the street, beside the car, trying to look inside. I really didn’t pay them to much attention, they seem normal. Well, they didn’t were.
“Look, you have to make sounds with your hands or with bottles or with normal stuffs you …”
I just saw my dad struggling, like fighting with something, or someone at his window. The moment I turned my head, my mind went black and my heart stopped beating.
I saw the two men with guns. One of them points at me and the other points at my dad; with a face that I felt they were the devil.
Till today, I don’t understand how they managed to enter the car. But it happened. They enter the car and started yelling at us.
“Move, make me space, don’t yell, don’t cry, don’t move a finger, don’t do a thing!”
“How to move a thing when you have a cold, freezing metal called gun pointing your head?” I thought.
My dad was forced to move from the front to the back, where I was, inside the car. His knees hurted, but it was major the scare and the fear than the pain.
“Where is the alarm of the car?” said one of them.
“I don’t know” said my dad. Hearing this make me fell more afraid. He said it with so a fragile and frightened voice. Imagine your biggest support in life in a situation that you’re involved and he feels.
“Tell me!” He said. I only heard an “Ouch!!” from my brother. The man in front hit him to make my dad said where the alarm was. My dad literally yelled where it was. In his place, I would do the same. It his sons life, the most precious thing in life, who is in risk of death.
The engine started and we are moving.
“Where we are going? Are they going to kill us? Are going to kidnapped us? Are they going to leave us alone with no dad? Are they going to keep one of us and free the others?” all these questions were around my head, while, the man who was driving told the other one, who was pointing the gun to me:
“Call the boss, tell him we got them” said with a voice so hard, deep and threatening, that made me a chicken-skin.
The car was moving so fast that in every curve, I got closer to the gun. I never felt so cold, mean and freeze metal in my life. It was an awful feeling, just with a finger move; a life can come to an end. In this case, mine.
“Where do we put them? In the same place as always? Or in the new one? Do we kill the all? Or just one of the”” these were the questions one of the robbers asked in the phone to, maybe, his boss. These questions were the death ion life for me.
“They have a place?” “How many people have passed form these situation?”
These questions bounced in my mind, until we finally stopped.
“I want you to go out of the car fast, and get into the ditch that’s over there”
“Do not look back and stay there for 30 minutes, someone will be watching”
“If you go out or move, the spy will kill you”
These statements were frighten, horrific, scaring, etc… all you can imagine.
“Out and run” said my dad. My brother and I exploded into tears and started running.
“Where?” we were at a desolated ride in the middle of nowhere. But a little house on the horizon saved us.
It was a hospital. We ran into it and started crying. We asked for a call. The first person to call was my mom.
“Are you ok?” said my mom with tears the moment he saw us. She lasted 15 minutes from my house to the little hospital. But, they were 15 hours to me.
Feeling fear that the robbers would come and kill us was the worst part of it.
“Now that you’re here, and we are safe, yes” said I with all the tears in my face, feeling a mix of emotions. Fear, happiness, safeness, scare, frightened, but most important, relief. Relief because these situation have ended. This situation thankfully ended. My stomp day has ended, finally.
