The Stranger

Once someone had figured out what was happening, it was too late. An earthquake hit London at precisely the wrong time. Panic filled the streets as people hurried towards the port, hoping to be lucky enough to be able to sail away on a ship. But Mother Nature said no. Unluckily enough, the earthquake had caused a tsunami, and the tsunami had destroyed all ships but one.

Hurriedly, the Griffiths family ran towards the last remaining ship; they were running their hearts out, but it wasn’t enough. The deadly combo of the earthquake and the tsunami were going to hit and kill them any second now. The last boat was rocking side to side, aggressively in the furious waves. The desperate family had given up all hope; they started their prayers silently to themselves. Then, with no warning, the last ship was hit hard by the waves and was knocked onto the port and fell on top of the Griffiths, enclosing them with no escape. At first, the family thought this would be the end, so they closed their eyes to not see the horror taking place. When they woke up, it was complete silence.

They crept out of the ship and took a step onto the rocky foot path. Janine, who was age eleven and the only girl sibling in the family, immediately pulled her foot back when she discovered that she had been standing on a dead body covered in blood. Jacob, ten, was checking his phone for any tweets or texts (he was addicted to his phone.) Then, as ridiculous as it sounds, he decided to take a selfie. Kevin, thirteen, was a high-achieving, popular person. He had all the “spotlight” according to Jamie, who was only eight. Their mother and father were hard-working people and had earned more money than you can ever imagine. Their mother was named Lucy and was forty-one; their father, Lucas, was two years older than their mother and was a brave and courageous man. Sadly, their grandparents (Lucy’s parents) had gone missing the day before the earthquake, which was also the day they lost the knife.

The knife was a precious item that was one of the major money-earning items their parents had made. It was a razor-sharp weapon combined with some of the strongest materials ever discovered. The knife could easily cut off your hand with no problem at all. It could also slice a door in half as if it were a piece of paper. It was so extraordinary, that someone had even offered the price of three billion dollars (!!) for the knife. But the Griffiths knew that if it belonged in the wrong hands, it could seriously cause some trouble, so they kept it to themselves… until now… The Griffiths were on a holiday in Hawaii, but when they came back, the first thing they did was check on the knife. As they did the secret combination, they opened the safe and found that the knife was missing! Their mother was so mad because of this theft, she refused to talk about it for the rest of the day. Everything was silent.

Now, back to the present. The Griffiths sprinted back to their home to check on all their precious belongings. They were all shattered to pieces in an unusual way; it seemed like it was man-made. A few things were left though, like clothes, food, etc. The family gathered the remaining belongings and went off to find shelter someplace else. On the way, a heavy storm took place. Rain poured from the skies above onto the Griffiths, but they continued on with their journey nevertheless with great courage. Jacob stopped suddenly and requested the whole family to wait for him. He then got out his phone and took a selfie and posted it on Facebook saying, “Check out this storm!” Annoyed, his father pulled Jacob’s hand and made Jacob drop his phone, which broke in the fall.

“Now look what you’ve done!” exclaimed Jacob angrily at his father.

“This is about survival! Not your useless, little phone!” replied Lucas.

With an offended look, Jacob stuttered, “M-my phone is n-not u-useless…”

“Oh, shut up!” shouted Lucas.

Caught off-guard, Jacob was surprised at how angry his father was, so he took a step back, tripped on a stick, and fell on the floor. When he was getting up, the floor formed a sinkhole, and Jacob fell right through and landed on his face. He got a scar from that twenty-feet drop. His face was bleeding, and he was screaming desperately for help, but he could not be heard due to the sound of the pouring rain and the raging storms. Then, out of nowhere, there was a sound of a stick cracking behind the Griffiths. They all turned to where the sound had occurred; there was no one. When they turned back, Jacob was gone, and there was not a soul to be seen.

Frightened, the Griffiths pelted away from the sinkhole and tried to find some shelter. That night, they all sent their prayers to Jacob and hoped he was well. They made a hut out of sticks, wood, and leaves…

Jacob’s eyes burst open, or should I say “eye” since his other eye was bruised and battered and could not be opened. He looked around the room. It was a small-sized cave. The cave was quite cold though, and had mold on the walls.

“Ah, I knew you were awake,” said a rough voice coming from nowhere.

“W-who are you?” squeaked Jacob.

Then, out came a man in an iron suit with scratches and holes in it. “I’m the one who took you away when you fell into that sinkhole. Did you know that sinkhole wasn’t actually a sinkhole? It was a trap I laid for your family. I was hoping that your parents would fall in though, but you fell instead. You’re quite useful actually… You could help me attract your family.”

Jacob shuddered at the thought of his family falling into this trap set up by this despicable villain.

“By the way, remember how your grandparents disappeared the day before the earthquake? Well, here they are…” Then, he stepped aside to reveal Jacob’s grandparents, bruised and covered in blood and locked in a cage. They were whimpering until they saw Jacob.

His grandmother exclaimed, “Oh, dearest Jacob! You’re so big now! Not when you were four, you were tiny back then! You’ve grown so much! I’m so glad to…”

But she was cut off by the villain. “Silence!”

But he was not to be heard. Jacob’s grandparents kept talking to him and ignoring everything else happening around them; they were extremely glad to see Jacob.

“That’s it. Say goodbye, you fossils.” The villain then opened the cage door and whipped out a weapon.

At first, Jacob didn’t recognize the item he was holding, but then he peered a bit closer and noticed the villain was holding the knife! His grandparents seemed to know it as well and were frightened at first. They knew that if they didn’t fight, they were going to die for sure. If they did fight, they might actually survive. No matter how desperate Jacob was to join the fight, he couldn’t do it due to the fact that there were chains holding him back.

The two elderlies jumped from their cage floor and pounced on the villain at high speed. The villain didn’t expect the grandparents to be so quick and was knocked over in surprise. The villain muttered something under his breath and elbowed Grandmother in the solar plexus. She fell down onto the floor in pain. He raised the knife above his head and steadied himself. Then, he swung at Grandmother, but he was disrupted when Grandfather tackled the villain. But the villain was ready for an attack and swung the knife randomly at Grandfather. Sadly, the knife sliced Grandfather and killed him. Grandmother immediately stopped and became very mad due to the death of her husband. She pounced on the villain like a tiger, but missed ever so slightly and accidently dived on the end of the knife. This left the married couple both dead…

At this point, Jacob thought there was no more hope: the despicable man was going to murder him any second now.

“W-who are you?” questioned Jacob while holding back tears.

“Me?” the man asked, then laughed an evil laugh. “I… I am the Stranger…”

“I don’t… I don’t believe you… ” gasped Jacob. The Stranger had been known for over twenty years for some of the worst crimes ever committed, and this one might be one of the worst. And with that, the Stranger stormed out of the room.

***

In the forest, Jamie moaned, “How long more do we have to keep searching?”  

“Until we find Jacob,” replied his father.

The Griffiths were using one of their first inventions, DNA tracker 2000, to find Jacob. The DNA tracker 2000 was a device that could track someone by putting in something like their blood, hair, etc. into the machine. It would beep when you were near the person you were trying to find. They had been searching for hours and hours for Jacob, but they had no result. Then, with no warning, it started beeping.

Beep, beep, beep.

Anyone could hear it. The Stranger mumbled quietly to Jacob, “Move, move. Follow me.” Jacob obeyed. They ran to a different room full of potions and liquids that nobody had ever heard of. “Sit down on this seat,” ordered the Stranger.

“But… ”

“Now.”

So Jacob did. The Stranger got out a jar of gooey, purple liquid and took out a handful. He spread it over Jacob like sunscreen, and then said, “Finished. Now they can’t track us with the DNA tracker.”

Jacob couldn’t believe how stupid he’d been to follow the Stranger and do what he said. He then decided to plan an escape plan to get out of the cave and be in the safe arms of his family.

Meanwhile, the Griffiths noticed the beeping suddenly stopped, and a confused look appeared on their faces. On one hand, they were relieved that Jacob was still alive and was close. On the other hand, they were annoyed that Jacob had disappeared when they had finally tracked him down. They decided to go back to their newly made home and roasted some dead animal body parts, which they had hunted down earlier, on top of a fire. That day, they ate roasted pig and cow meat, which was surprisingly tasty. Afterwards, the Griffiths settled themselves in their own sleeping bags and slept a heavenly sleep.

In the cave, Jacob was thinking up a risky plan. He first thought about stealing the knife from the Stranger while he was sleeping, and then slicing the door to get out (there was a lock on the door), but it was too risky and had a low chance of success. Then, he thought about stealing one of the Stranger’s potions — surely he had an acid potion — then, using it to melt a hole in the wall to climb out because using it on the door would cause too much noise. Finally, Jacob decided the best plan would be to go to the Stranger’s stash of items that he had stolen (he must have had a phone in there), and then he would contact his parents with a quick text about where he was.

So Jacob got up from his rock-hard bed, given to him by the Stranger, and cautiously crept over to a room labeled “Weapons.” Jacob shook his head while thinking, Nope. Wrong room, because he was already too obsessed by the idea of getting another phone. He then crawled over to another room, this time labeled “Storage room.” Jacob thought this must be the right room, so he slowly opened the door. The door creaked a little, so he slowed it down even more. Then, before his eyes, Jacob saw a large room full of precious and important goods and items. Jacob scrambled around the room, hoping for a discovery of a phone. After a few minutes of searching, the desperate child finally found a slightly cracked Apple iPhone. Silently celebrating, Jacob turned on the iPhone to discover it had run out of battery! Cursing under his breath, Jacob continued to seek for a working phone. Sadly, even after an hour of searching, Jacob had no result. Giving up all hope of finding a phone, Jacob walked out of the room with a long face, but tripped over something and fell with a surprise. But luckily, Jacob managed to save himself from the fall by landing in a push-up position. Angry, Jacob tried to find what he fell on and found out he tripped over a phone! Excitedly, Jacob turned on the phone, and to his surprise, it was on! But Jacob’s happiness was quickly interrupted by the footsteps of the Stranger, so he immediately ran to his bed and hid the phone in his shirt.

The next morning, Jacob woke up with a sense of elation. The Stranger was in his secret room, which he basically never came out of, doing God-knows-what while having no idea what Jacob was secretly up to. The ten-year-old got out the phone and pulled the blanket over his head, preventing himself from being seen. He then put in his father’s phone number and sent a text saying, “Hey dad. It’s Jacob. I’m fine. I’m in a cave underground where u found me with the DNA tracker. The Stranger captured me.” Jacob thought they’d understand, so he hid the phone in a specific spot in the storage room where it would be easy to find next time.

Back in the forest, Lucas Griffiths’ phone started rumbling. Mr. Griffiths fished his hand in his pocket and brought out his phone, which had a text from an unknown phone number. But the text was in the style Jacob wrote in, so he knew Jacob was alive and well and hoping for help. Mr. Griffiths then decided it would be best to show every other family member, so he did.

“Well, what are you waiting for?!” exclaimed Mrs. Griffiths. “Let’s go!”

“Hold on,” said Kevin. “Shouldn’t we be prepared when we break into the cave? Isn’t it a bad idea to run into the cave of the Stranger?”

Embarrassed, the mother of the Griffiths family replied, “Oh, yeah… Um… You’re right. We should be prepared… Um…”

***

1 month later…

The Griffiths family were armed and prepared to break into the cave that the stranger was living in. They had weapons and wore armour. They stood in front of the door to the cave with a rock to throw onto the door as a distraction.

Meanwhile, Jacob was lying on his bed while he daydreamed about futuristic computers. Suddenly, something hit the door. The Stranger stomped over and slammed the door open impatiently, but there was no one there. But as the Stranger turned around and was about to walk back in, the Griffiths family ambushed him and knocked him over aggressively.

“Augh!” screamed the Stranger. But he quickly recovered and swiped at Kevin.

Kevin managed to dodge it, swipe back, and scrape the villain’s armor slightly with his knife. The Stranger was annoyed he was losing a sword fight to a thirteen-year-old, but he was impressed. He then moved on to attack Jamie, since he was a small boy who was short for his age. The evil man tried to kick hard at Jamie, but missed due to the size of the boy and slipped on the rocky floor. Then, Janine, who was a shy girl, jumped on top of the Stranger and swung at his face with her fist and hit him hard in the nose. The villain’s nose had started bleeding atrociously and covered his face in blood. His nose was probably broken.

The family celebrated their victory over the greatest villain of all time, and everyone was glad to have Jacob back. As they were leaving, Jacob suddenly said, “Guys. Can you wait here for a second? I need to go to get this phone I stole from the Stranger.”

Everyone sighed except for Mr. Griffiths, who just grinned and said, “Classic Jacob” under his breath so no one would hear. Then, he replied, “Sure.”

Jacob then raced back to the cave. But when he ran into the storage room, he thought for a minute about what would have happened if he wasn’t so obsessed with his phone. All this probably never would have happened, but his thoughts were interrupted by a cold voice from behind him that said, “Ah. There you are.”

Jacob whipped around, and there stood the Stranger alive and (not) well. “H-how did you survive?” questioned Jacob, frightened.

“Did you really think a punch from a puny little girl would kill me?” laughed the Stranger evilly. “Now, say goodbye, Jacob,” whispered the cold-hearted villain.

But as he was about to swipe at Jacob, a dagger went through the villain, and the Stranger screamed, “Nooooooo!! I’ll be baaaaack…” Then, he was gone. When the Stranger fell to the floor, there stood Mr. Griffiths.

***

2 years later…

The Griffiths family moved to New York City shortly after the death of the Stranger. Mr. and Mrs. Griffiths remained the same. Kevin started playing hockey, and Janine became warrior-boy-like. Many thought she’s a tomboy. Last of all, Jacob despised phones and computers; instead, he fell in love with TVs…

But meanwhile, in the streets of London, there was a baby ready to be taken from its mother’s stomach. It was kicking desperately to break out into the free world. Then, once it was finally taken out, it was as joyful as you can imagine. After the married couple and the newborn baby left the hospital, they spent quite some trying to find which name would be most suitable for the child. Finally, when they decided on what name they should give, the mother delivered the news.

“Hey there little guy, you know what your name is?” asked the mother sweetly. “Well, your name will be Jacob. Jacob Griffiths.”

And the little Jacob Griffiths will soon discover his obsession with phones that will nearly end his life…

Bad luck never ends…

The end (Or is it…)

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