It won’t be long for me now. I’ve been drifting in and out of consciousness for minutes? hours? days? I’m hallucinating. My brain and body are dying and the only things keeping me alive are the constant flow of blood in a tube going straight into my heart and the non-stop vibrating on my skull from the transcranial magnetic stimulator adhered there. I barely feel anything. Being pulled by my bound wrists above me. The strain of my shoulders. There is nothing left of me below the rib cage being dragged ceaselessly over an oval track of steel blades. If you saw me from above, you would see a motorcycle jacket, head barely visible, and a steady stream of blood from the jacket’s razor-torn hem. Soon, soon…
It’s a clear, sunny day as I find myself on the highway riding my motorcycle. Traffic flows around me, not heavy, not light. I have no destination in mind, only cruising. Vehicles ahead look denser and I see blue lights from police cars on the right side of the highway, along with firetruck and ambulance lights. A wreck. A big wreck when I notice between vehicles blue lights in my lane. We will all be shifted into the leftmost lane. That’s fine. I check around me and speed up into the left lane behind a box truck. We eventually slow down as the traffic catches up to the wreck.
My assailants are well coordinated. The highway serves as a major thoroughfare with a mix of cars, commercial vans, and big rigs. As I slow behind the box truck, I glance around to see a semi with a long trailer pull alongside to my right. In my mirrors, I see a truck behind me, closing faster than I like. Do they see a motorcycle ahead? I don’t want to be pancaked into the box truck in front. I get closer to the box truck and drift to the left side of my lane. We come to a stop.
I fail to notice the trailer beside me is riding on the lane markers encroaching my lane. What I do see is a door on the side of the trailer, like on a car hauler. You would drive a car into the trailer from the rear, pull forward, and this side door allows you to exit the car and trailer easily. Mirrors. The truck behind has slowed down and is closer than I like. I think about using the small left shoulder to avoid being blocked in—
As on cue, the box truck’s rear door slides up and the long trailer’s side door slides back. Three large men, and I mean large because they all had to be well over six feet tall, broad, and muscular, jump down from the box truck. Through the side of my visor I see people on my right but I don’t know how many. I turn the handlebars to the left and start the gun the throttle when I hear a crack and my head jerks sideways. Someone must have hit my helmet with a bat. Everything goes quiet but for a ringing all around me, no, inside my head. My head rocks as the bat makes contact a second time. Stars enter my vision and I stagger, my bike leaning precariously. I can’t hold the bike up and I drag my leg across the seat as it falls to the road. Can I make it to the guardrail? I black out briefly as a third blow strikes my helmet. I come to as I land on my knees but can’t see. I feel pressure under my chin as the helmet strap is unlatched. My helmet is ripped from my head and I register a wave of pain from the side of my head. My eyes tear up and heat enters my nostrils as I smell the pepper spray used on me. I scream and sob from the pain in my eyes, nose, and head. My vision comes back but a veil of tears prevents me from seeing anything other than light and dark. I feel myself being lifted and tossed bodily into a truck. My head bounces off the floor as I land on my back. I’m probably in the box truck.
Why me? How? I’m literally nobody, just a girl riding a bike on a spring day. I would never learn why, never know the identities of the men who took me. Am I an opportune target? Because I am a woman? Riding a motorcycle? Yes, the motorcycle bit seemed to be part of the plan. Would a man on a bike be captured? Probably. I could not imagine anyone taking three blows to the head, helmet or not, then fighting at least three burly men. I’m fit, but average height; I would not pose a real threat to any of them. Was today somehow staged, carefully planned? Or was this lucky happenstance and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time? These questions and answers jaggedly flash through my mind as I lay on the floor. I struggle to breathe after the impact. My eyes and face burn. My head pounds from multiple bat strikes. I feel like I’m going to throw up.
I hear a thud as I think my helmet lands in the truck near me. I try to locate it to grab and use it as a weapon. It must have rolled because I don’t find it. Boots pound on the floor bed behind me, then one of my arms is pulled beind me. I feel the ziiip of a cuff cinching tight around my wrist. I am helpless, blind from crying, snot running down my face, head in pain as my other arm is pulled behind me and the ziiip of the other cuff restraining me. I barely feel the prick of a needle and the burn in my neck as a sedative pumps into me. Pain fades as darkness descends.
Unknown to me, the four men in the car hauler picked up my bike and put it in the trailer. Then the box truck and the truck that was behind me made room for the car hauler to enter the left lane. No one saw my abduction.
How I am captured differs every time I have this recurring nightmare. But this next part is so familiar. I awaken on a metal table or slide. My wrists are bound to a bar above me, a motorized winch that will drag me around an oval of steel blades. Those steel blades will cut away my clothes, then my skin, then fat and muscles, and finally organs and limbs. My legs will rip off as fewer muscles and tendons hold them together. Everything below my ribcage will be slowly ripped from me by the drag of the blades left, straight, right, straight, over and over slicing me to nothing. My nerves will tear away but not before overwhelming my brain and shutting it down. What keeps me alive is a constant flow of blood from a tube implanted directly in my heart and fed from an unseen supply above, a drug cocktail mixed in with the blood, and a net of magnets glued to my shaved head to reactivate areas of my brain after it tries to shut down. My lungs will stop functioning but oxygenated blood artificially pumped into my heart will feed my brain. But the body has limits. Mine will be exceeded soon as my heart beats slower and slower. I will be in oblivion and no amount of drugs, blood, or magnet clicks can stop it. My dream heart will stop beating and I will wake up screaming.
Copyright © 2026 Hanna Goodbar.