Collateral - Writer's Cramp - 1/21

A simple mistake turns ominous.

Collateral

          The plane touched down just before midnight, and I felt older already. Seven hours, three stopovers, and a fellow passenger's cloying rose perfume had aged me a decade. My flight attendant's smile cracked as I trudged through the terminal, my limbs leaden, my thoughts a static buzz. All I wanted was coffee and the soft, unremarkable safety of my apartment.

          The luggage carousel hummed like a dying beast. I leaned against the wall, watching the suitcases go round, drab, utilitarian things, mostly. Mine was black, borrowed from my mother's closet, and zipped haphazardly.

          I grabbed the first black suitcase I saw. It was slightly lighter than mine, but fatigue numbed my critical thinking. I slung the strap over my shoulder, stumbled to the caf and downed a double espresso that tasted like burnt regret. My panic spike at the thought of missing my car rental had subsided by the time I unlocked my apartment door.

          Home. My sanctuary. I dropped the suitcase by the bed, kicked off my shoes, and let the shower scald my shoulders. In the steam, I imagined myself evaporating into nothingness, a trick my therapist said to try during panic attacks. You're not real enough to notice, I told myself, the same mantra that had carried me through high school, through crushing subway commutes, through life. And maybe that was why, later, when I tugged that suitcase open, I couldn't immediately recall when I'd zipped it.

          The bags hit me first. Twenty of them, sealed and brimming with a powdery white substance. My stomach churned. Not mine. Not mine. A nervous laugh escaped me, high and brittle. I must've taken someone else's.

          Then I saw the box. Small, rectangular, and taped with a zigzag of transparent plastic. A note lay atop it, printed in jagged block letters: Collateral. My fingers trembled as I peeled back the tape. The cotton balls inside were damp and ominously stained.

          I dropped one. It landed with a wet plop.

          The eyeball was still intact.

          A scream lodged in my throat. I staggered back, knocking over a lamp. The finger, a human finger, rolled toward the door, blood glinting in the lamplight. My breath came in wet gasps, my chest tightening, the walls narrowing. Panicked, I scanned the room for a phone, for a glove, for anything. But my hands only found the suitcase handle, cold and accusatory.

          Who had mine? And why did this one belong to someone so... careful? The way the bags were stacked, the box nestled between them was methodical. Professional. This wasn't some drunk tourist's forgotten luggage. This was a package. And I'd just become its new courier.

          I Googled "Collateral" later, my cursor flickering over the screen. The results were cryptic: loan shark forums, ransomware schemes, a single Reddit thread about a man who'd found a dead mouse in his Amazon delivery. Nothing. Whoever had lost this suitcase, my suitcase now, had taken care to leave no trail.

          By 2 a.m., my panic had curdled into something colder. I'm not a special person. I don't have the bravery of movie protagonists, the smarts of detective novels. But I knew fear. I'd lived with it, cowering in its shadow. Now it had a name: Collateral.

          I packed the eyeball back into its box with clumsy hands, my tears soaking the cotton. The powder in the bags was probably worth a fortune. Or maybe it was something worse. I couldn't call the police officers. They'd ask questions, and I had none. No one had seen me take it. I was just Stacie Vry, forgettable and floundering, now holding the body parts of someone else's nightmare.

          When the doorknob rattled at 3:17 a.m., I froze. My landlord? A burglar? Or someone who'd just realized their suitcase was missing?

          I pressed my ear to the door. A muffled voice, then the sound of footsteps fading down the hall. Relief? No. Just another layer to the trap.

          I'd return it. Somehow. But first, I'd need to disappear.

          Because in the wrong hands, forgettable could be deadly.

          And now, I was carrying their secrets.

Word Count: 683

Prompt: You picked up the wrong suitcase after your flight.