Airi is a twelve-year-old girl. Slightly introverted, a little quirky, addicted to studying. She's never really considered herself that special, and she probably isn't - at least, not until she's hurled into a drama of the modern slave culture, well-hidden but widespread beneath our noses.

On continues a string of joys and terrors comingled into confusion as Airi desperately attempts to escape her life as a slave. Will she succeed, or will she submit to her life forever?

What am I?
        Am I smart? Psychotic? Paranoid?
        I'm not quite sure why I'm so obsessed with my research, spending hours on end recording thoughts and notes on kidnappings, whether in America or in Iraq, or some other distant country I'll probably never have the good fortune to see.
        But I keep studying, and studying...
        My name is Airi, pronounced 'ah-ee-ree', not 'airy'. I study kidnappings for fun. With every website I cross paths with, my interest, my thirst for more information grows, until the feeling fills me up like a balloon, makes me float away into daydreams of what would happen if I got kidnapped. I call it 'mental practice'. My brother, Hikaru, calls it insanity.
        Not many people are exactly kind to me. Hikaru is no exception.
        However, Evely is. She's just as interested as I am, though it's hard to believe through my eyes. We go to the library a lot, turning the creased and worn pages. Eventually, we'd read all of the nonfiction books on the topic, and turned to fiction. We've even gone online, looking at silly stories about vampires and slaves and torture.
        We love it.

        So, it probably doesn't surprise my mother today when I text her, informing her that I'll be staying at Evely's until 9:00 instead of heading home after school. She doesn't reply, but I know she's seen my text. She always checks her phone the second it starts ringing.
        Evely and I walk along the pavement to her house, our feet creating an abnormal rhythm on the hard ground below us. We're both silent, lost in our mental libraries, barely noticing the areas around us except to see possible scenarios that we both unconsciously know will never happen. We nearly run straight into the brick outside of her house before coming back to our senses, laughing a little, and then stepping into the door.
        Evely's mom is still at work. She's working a very demanding job. The work pays off, as her family is the proud owner of a very large house and many other meaningless riches, but Evely barely ever sees her mother. So it's no surprise when we enter the house only to be greeted by the creaking of the wooden floors. Nobody's home.
        We dash up the stairs, sprinting to her room and tripping a few times on our own feet to start our research. It sounds unrealistic, but we both function off of the research. Somehow, it makes me feel as if I have purpose to my life; as if the information may help someone else. I know that's seriously unlikely, but it's consolation so I don't just feel lazy, and sometimes I need consolation.
        Filing through Google results, I finally settle on a government website and scroll through the data, losing myself in the endless text.

        It takes me a moment to notice the time. Holy crap, it's already 8:45. Looking up at Evely, I murmur, "Gotta head home. See ya."
        "I'll text you," she replies, not looking up from her screen. She, like I, stays up late filing through the information. We joke that the research is a drug we're both addicted to. In a way, it is.
        I slip headphones onto my ears and step out into the night. Since it's winter, it's already pitch black outside, but I live in Arizona, which means no snow to ruin my shoes and freeze my fair skin. Cranking up my music, I huddle up in my coat, keeping in my body heat, and shut my eyes as my feet echo on the sidewalk.
        Suddenly, there's a rustling behind me. I'm not sure how I heard it, since my music is so loud, but I whip the headphones off of my ears and turn quickly, removing keys from my pockets and brandishing them. If you have to fight when being grabbed, keys are one of the best weapons one can use, along with my teeth. I stare intently, watching for something to emerge. When the shadow finally does, my cheeks heat up quickly, and I can tell I'm blushing.

        It's a rabbit.

        Groaning, I turn and take one step before feeling a hand forcefully pushing on my mouth. A second arm wraps around my waist, and I begin to yell - as best I can with a hand covering my mouth, that is. You should never scream when being grabbed, because it creates a sense of weakness, which sex offenders evidently just love. Swiping my keys madly around, I feel them meet flesh a few times, and the person - I think it's a man - cries out, digging his fingers into my abdomen harder.
        "Just stop it, will you?!" he screams into my ear. I reply by biting one of the fingers on my mouth.
        Nobody runs out of their house, dialing 911 or brandishing a flashlight to see what's going on. It's as if I'm in a ghost town. I imagine a tumbleweed drifting across the road, and it distracts me for just a second.
        But it's one second too long.
        I feel the hand on my mouth released for just one second, then back with something soft. It takes only one breath to figure out what the person's trying to do. Sickeningly sweet, the odor of this mystery fabric drifts throughout my body, making me feel nauseous and giving me a headache. He's trying to drug me! I want so badly to just punch him right in the face, break his nose, but there are two things holding me back. I'm not strong enough, and you should never resist being drugged, because the alternative is usually getting beaten to unconsciousness.  So I take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut, and think one last thought.

        This is real.