Wanted

[Weird, futuristic music begins playing]

Narrator: Wanted.

[Boom]

[Crash]

[An old woman’s voice slowly becomes clearer…] 

Old woman: Hello? Hello? Are you okay? What’s your name, sweetie? Where’d come from?

Narrator: You slowly peel open your eyes. You blink a few times to try and expel the dust that has settled itself in them. You turn your head slowly, both to the left and to the right, to try and work out where you are. You swing your head around quickly, snapping it back, to where you remember the old woman calling out to you. A few words fall out of your mouth. It sends her away, which clears your mind and makes you feel less uncomfortable. Your arms feel like jello, but you manage to lift yourself off of the searing concrete and onto your worn, adolescent feet. As the sun bears down on your neck, you hear the familiar ‘slap, slap’ as your feet drum down on the pavement.  

[Feet pacing on concrete]

Narrator: You finally arrive at your house. As you stumble over the doorframe and inside, you catch the delicious scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

[Wire-screen door shutting]

Narrator: Your favourite. Your kind, rosy-cheeked mother knows you so well.

Mother: Hi sweetums! There’s no milk in the fridge! Do you wanna quickly hop on down to the milk bar?

Narrator: Before you’ve even had time to unlace your Chucks, you’re reversing out of the house with a wilted five-dollar note gripped tightly in your hand. As you slope down the path, you hear the radio playing in a decrepit, covered-in-peeling-paint, garbage-heap of a car.

[Radio tuning sound]

News reporter: There’s been a murder at the Cavenaghtown High School today. Police reports show that the victim, who is yet to be identified, was murdered at approximately 12:50pm, while the pupils of Cavenaghtown High were eating lunch. Investigators are currently calling in suspects to be questioned, some of which are students of Cavenaghtown High…  

[Voice slowly fading out]

[Radio tuning sound]

News reporter: Tune in at six o’clock for more information.

[Eerie music playing underneath narration]

Narrator: That’s odd, you think. You were at school today, eating lunch today, with your friends today, like you usually do every lunchtime. How did you not hear about this? Surely someone would’ve seen if there was someone suspicious lurking around the school? Surely someone would’ve said something? Surely someone would have - no. This thought leads you to an even more disturbing thought, something you can’t bear to even consider the possibility of. What if someone at school did it? What if it went unnoticed because whoever committed the crime goes there every single day?’

[Creepy, eerie music plays]

Narrator: You halt at the front of the milk bar. You take a deep breath in through your nose…

[breath in through nose]

Narrator: …and out through your mouth-

[breath out through mouth]

Narrator: You enter the milk bar, the one you love so much in the same way that a seven-year-old may desperately cling onto a tatty blanky they’ve had since they were two. You desperately cling onto this milk bar, the one that smells so strongly of tobacco and cigarette smoke that you almost pass out every time you enter. The one that you broke your ankle in during second grade, because you and Becky Wazowski were playing tag through the limited number of aisles. The one that you had your first kiss in, when all of your friends were busy buying chips and soda at the counter, and you and Jonathan Jacobs snuck into the back room and were all over each other, like flies on honey. These are the memories you cling onto. These are the memories you will never forget.

You grab the milk, a safe 10 degrees Celsius when it should be four, from the broken down fridge near the back. While you’re paying, another news report, this time on a tiny television, teases your attention.

[Radio tuning sound]

News reporter: An anonymous source called in to detectives at 4pm today, with information regarding the dead body discovered at Cavenaghtown High School earlier this afternoon. The investigators are now honing in on a different set of suspects – school children, classmates of Lindy Chaplain, who is thought to be the victim. Eloise Flowers…

Narrator: Your best friend…

News reporter: …Marcus Dangero…

Narrator: …your enemy…

News reporter: …and…

Narrator: …you. You are a suspect. You are an outcast. You are wanted.