The early morning sky was a soft blue with the smallest spattering of fluffy, cotton-wool clouds and despite the early hour, I could already feel the warmth of the sun on my face as I sat on the park bench. It seemed to be promising to be a glorious summers day, which left me in a happy mood, despite the reason I was here in the park in the first place.

I glanced at my watch and sighed; 8:27 am. I had set my alarm to wake me up earlier than usual because I had planned on spending the day getting some of my mounting college work done. My summer assignments had been hanging over my head the last few weeks and I had been deliberately avoiding them, implementing my usual philosophy of procrastinating until the very last minute.

I couldn't really afford to continue that way, however. I had been given a huge summer project due at the end of August when I returned to college and I hadn't even started. I had to write six essays of 10,000 words each on six prominent poets between the years of 1500 and 2000. So, I had dragged myself out of my gloriously cosy bed and into into the watery sunshine of an early-July morning.

I exited my tiny apartment with a backpack slung over one shoulder, a massive polka-dot mug of milky tea in one hand a piece of toast slathered in peanut butter in the other and set off towards my favourite place to get things done – a stone bench at the back of the local park. I spent hours there almost every day, listening to music, scribbling down stories, sometimes even working on school work, like today. Though it wasn't usual for me to be out so early.

I had set myself up on the bench with a pile of textbooks, writing paper, pens and general schooly things to my left, while on my right only my cup of tea sat steaming away, taking pride of place. I had an A4 paper pad on my knee and a pen poised above it, ready to write down my insights into the life and work of Lord Byron – the essay I had chosen to tackle first. I was studying English Lit. in college and loving it, I just hated the endless supply of work.

After twenty minutes, I had gotten as far as writing the title at the top of my page. This was going to be a looong day.

I sighed again and glanced around. There was no one else in this section of the park. I had seen a couple of joggers as I followed the meandering path to this particular bench but no one came past me here. It gave the bench a sort of isolated tranquillity that I liked.

I looked down at my page again. I knew I had to get this done sooner or later. I would have preferred if it could have waited till later but I had five more of these to do in less than two months. In that moment, two months sounded like a very long time but I knew that every one of these essays would be just as painful to write and would take just as long. I only hoped that I would be able to get half of the Lord Byron one done before my brain shut down and insisted that I go back inside and do something far less mind numbing.

I was just riffling through my stack of notes, looking for a good opening line, when I was distracted yet again. This time it was a drop-dead-gorgeous blond woman running down the path towards me shouting at me in a french accent.

"Please, 'elp me! My fiancé 'as fainted! I s'ink he is ill!" She run right up to me, grabbed my hand and started to drag me off the bench. "Come quick! Please, 'elp us!"

At first I was so startled to have a frantic Frenchwoman running at me that it took me a minute to register what she was saying to me. She was truly one of the prettiest girls I had seen in my life. She was around my age and she looked like one of those airbrushed models from magazine ad had stepped off the page and was standing in front of me. She has long, silky, silver-blond hair and perfect skin.

It took me a few seconds to recover from my surprise at her dragging me along with her but as soon as I grasped the idea of her sick fiancé, I began to run beside her willingly. She didn't need to drag me anymore but she kept a hold of my wrist anyway.

She led me into a clump of trees just down the path from my bench. It didn't occur to me to be suspicious until I had run straight into the clump with this stranger. My pace faltered a bit as doubt crept into my mind and I think she noticed. Her grip tightened and she spoke again.

"I s'ink he is very ill, come quick!" She wouldn't look at me; she kept her eyes focused straight ahead.

It only took a few seconds before I could see the form of someone lying on the ground in front of us.

He was sprawled out as though he really had just collapsed out of the blue, I noticed with relief. At least he wasn't waiting to ambush me with a baseball bat and a body bag.

As we got closer, I took in his rather distinctive appearance. He, too, was a similar age to me and very good looking, that was immediately very obvious, but he had a massive scar on one side of his face. His flaming red hair was long, it probably went past his shoulders but he had it tied in a low ponytail so I couldn't really tell. He also had an earring with what looked like a huge animal tooth on it. He put me in mind of people I'd seen at rock concerts.

I reached him first and dropped to my knees at his side. His beautiful fiancé stood a little behind me, watching. I shook his shoulder and tried to talk to him but he wasn't replying. I was no medical expert but all of my experience with tv programs told me that unresponsiveness was definitely not good.

I was convinced that we needed an ambulance. I turned to say this to the blond girl when I saw him move in the corner of my eye. I whipped my head back around to look at him but I wasn't quick enough.

I felt his fingers clamp on my wrist and I barely saw him flick a wooden stick before the weirdest sensation came over me. The trees and the park vanished, as well as the air around me. I felt like a giant hand had wrapped around my entire body and was squeezing the life out of me, smothering me. I was only barely aware of the man that was still clasping my wrist as I was being squeezed.

I wondered if I was having a heart attack or something crazy. Maybe he had poked me with a needle and I hadn't noticed and he's pumped me full of drugs! With that thought, I became convinced that I had just been abducted by two junkies and I would now be sold into sex trafficking. This day had not started out well.

Then, almost as soon as it had begun, it had stopped. I felt air rush back in to fill my empty lungs and my mind was mercifully clear. I opened my eyes to confront these two strangers and get away as quickly as I could- except what I saw was not the trees of the park. Instead, I was kneeling in a shabby kitchen beside the redhaired man, surrounded by three more redheaded strangers.

I swore internally as I realised that I had just been kidnapped.