Perfect day for a walk

Frank and Karen just moved here a couple months ago and this weekend they decided to explore the national park and it’s wooded trails with their 6 year old son Tommy. It was such a sunny spring day. The flowers were blooming, the trees so dense all around, birds chirping and just felt like the best day for a hike and a picnic. They’d just finished their sandwiches and had packed their backpacks up and started hitting the trails again. Young Tommy was chasing the most beautiful purple butterfly. Tommy got way ahead of his parents and then he couldn’t see them or hear them any more. He stopped and was looking all around and hollering Mom, Dad. But no sight of them. Tommy kept walking and came to a path that took him right back into town. He saw someone familiar, but he didn’t remember her name. Hello Tommy, your Mom and Dad had to attend to a very important matter and wanted you to come with me for a few hours, til they can get back to fetch you up. We’re going to the kid center, you can play with some other kids, toys and have snacks, Don’t worry they won’t be long.

Meanwhile, Frank and Karen are frantically searching for Tommy in the woods. They saw him chasing the butterfly and suddenly lost sight of him. They were screaming his name and looking all around, losing sight of each other. Then calling to each other, searching and screaming again and again, and no sight or sound of young Tommy. They had already walked about two hours into the woods, when they had stopped for their picnic. Frank said , get your phone and call the police Karen. There was no signal, after about another 30 minutes of searching and screaming his name, they decided they should walk back to the car and call the police, before it got too dark.

They ran as fast as they could back to the car and turned a two hour walk into an hour back. By this time Tommy had been missing for about two hours. They called the police, it didn’t take them long to arrive. They got a search party together, it seemed like a matter of minutes. There were about 50 people combing the woods, all in a row, hollering Tommy’s name. The first detective on the scene wouldn’t allow Frank or Karen to help with the search. The detective separated Frank and Karen and interviewed them as if they had something to do with Tommy’s disappearance. Frank was getting angrier by the hour and Karen was so distraught. She couldn’t quit sobbing. Daylight turned to dusk, dusk turned to way past midnight. That’s when the detective told them they could go home, but they were not to leave town. They searched for days, combed every inch of the woods, but no sign of Tommy was ever found. A task force was brought on and flyers were plastered all over town with Tommy’s picture, age, and date gone missing. Lots of people tried to help, they volunteered to search, take phone calls on the tip line, bring food to Karen and Frank. The detective wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t foul play. News got wind of the story and the detective’s opinion on it and swayed popular town opinion very quickly. The parents were now being preyed on by the media vultures. The town was turning on them.

The detective kept watching them and bringing them back in for questioning. It had been nearly two months now that Tommy had been missing and Karen felt like everyday had been the same, like she was living in a never ending mundane nightmare. Frank felt like he was losing his mind, at one point it seemed to him that the detective’s face was shifting, like a glitch. He was talking to Karen and trying to explain what had happened in his last interview, when Karen realized that she had seen the same people for at least the last three days now and wearing the exact same clothes. Frank and Karen decided to go back to the woods and look around again, they had no other options and they felt like they were losing their minds. The next morning they got up early and started hiking into the woods. They walked to the exact spot where they had had their picnic, which seemed like years ago now. They then started walking down the trail they took not to long ago when Tommy had started chasing the purple butterfly. That’s when they saw the butterfly again. It can’t be the same one, they chased the butterfly as Tommy had. They were running after the butterfly and ending up falling over a cliff. While falling they knew something wasn’t right, this was not here that day. Frank and Karen woke up in separate beds in a white room. Each being looked over by what seemed to be a doctor. They both felt very disoriented. Karen was the first to notice that Tommy was in another bed, setting up and drinking what looked to be a shake. Next she sees Frank is trying to exit his bed and security guards are being called in to take control of him. Now Karen remembers, she thinks my god what have we done. They have given Frank a sedative and Tommy is waving at her, smiling and telling her about all the kids he was playing with and the chocolate cake he had. That’s when Mr. Miller enters the room. They had seen a sign,  you can earn $10,000 for two hours of your time in a virtual reality test. Mr. Miller is telling Tommy that he just needs to talk to his Mom and Dad for a minute and then they can go home. A nurse takes Tommy from the room as Mr Miller makes his way to Karen , she says you told us it would only be for two hours, not two months. What have you done to us? Mr. Miller assures her that it has only been two hours and Tommy was perfectly safe the whole time and reminds her that she and Frank signed a non-disclosure agreement and signed on the dotted line to take part in this test. Frank is coming out again and Mr. Miller hands Karen the envelope with the money and tells her, I expect you to explain to Frank how this should go, so that Tommy doesn’t experience any trauma from your two hour excursion. Frank and Karen collect Tommy and head home. They will never be the same again, Tommy will be loved even more than he was before. Karen and Frank both know now that if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is, and neither of them will ever want to go for a walk in the woods again.