Submission Received.
Thank You, Participant 847-Sk-2847.
Further Instructions Will Be Provided Shortly.
The timer disappears.
I sit back.
It's two-fifty-five in the morning now. I've been staring at this screen for three hours, excavating my psyche and assigning dollar values to my boundaries.
My phone vibrates.
I nearly jump out of my skin.
A text message. Unknown number.
Take nothing with you but your phone and go downstairs to the lobby. A car is waiting.
I read it again.
Now?
Right now?
My apartment is a disaster. Dirty dishes, blanket for catastrophe, and I'm wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt I've beenin for two days. I haven't showered. Haven't brushed my teeth. Haven't?—
My phone vibrates again.
Now, Scarletta.
They know my name.
Of course they know my name. They have my bank account. My psychological profile. Forty-seven stories worth of my deepest fantasies.
They know everything.
Take nothing but your phone.
I stand on shaking legs.
Look around my apartment one last time.
The blanket fort. The laptop. The eviction notice on the floor.
One-thousand forty-seven dollars in my checking account.
Forty-four thousand waiting for me downstairs.
I pick up my phone.
And I leave.
