You Have 86,400 Seconds To Find Me

7:00pm (86,400 Seconds Remaining)

  I turned to look down at the watch on my wrist, the one I had put there about an hour ago. I happened to come across it while I was pacing anxiously around my room, throwing micellaneous items into my backpack. What did one bring on a scavenger hunt to save their best friend before they commited suicide? I had no fucking clue. So I had settled for a change of clothes, a sweatshirt, a few bottles of water and, just in case, I had thrown my cell phone charger, my car adaptor and a few lunchables (one ham, cheese and crackers and the other one nachos). I had no idea how long this was going to take. Obviously, I wouldn't be back until after seven tomorrow night. Who knows how long it was going to take me to find Macy, let alone get her back home. Was she even still in the state?

   I wrestled with myself for a whole hour on whether or not I should inform Macy's mother about what was going on. I even contemplated calling the police. Surely they could find Macy, right? They were, after all, professionals when it came to finding people. But. then I got to thinking that these had not been Macy's directions. She wanted me to physically come and find her myself, not just call up the Feds and have them do all the work. No, she wanted me to find her. What if I did call the cops? Or what if I told Macy's mother and she called the cops and somehow Macy found out? Would she just kill herself right then and there? Before they could find her? That was a risk I wouldn't take. At least not now, not when I knew I had at least twenty four hours to find her. If I got desperate later on, I would have my cell on me. But for right now, it was up to me. I would have to find Macy, on my own.

   According to my watch, it was 6:57pm. Which meant that I only had three minutes, 180 seconds, until the first video arrived.

   God help me, I thought as I put the note I had written for my mother on the kitchen counter and began lugging all my stuff into the backseat of my car. 

   How the hell was I going to do this? How could she be doing this to me? I couldn't handle this pressure. What if I couldn't find her? Then I would have to go the rest of my life knowing that if only I'd been quicker, if only I had known where to go and where to look, I could have saved her. Did she really want me to live with that guilt for the rest of my life? I looked down at the clock again, just as it turned to 6:59pm.

   60.

   59.

   58.

   57.

   56.

   55.

   54.

   I began counting, staring at the screen on my phone, waiting for the message to pop up on the screen. 

   36.

   35.

   34.

   33.

   What if the message didn't come? What if I never received any clue? Then what? How would I find Macy? Where the hell would I start?

   21.

   20.

   19.

   Ugh, I felt as though I was going to be sick. Breathe, Max.

   5.

   4.

   3.

   2.

   Bing. Just like Macy had said, the message had been preprogramed to arrive at 7pm, sharp. 

   I turned around in the front seat of my beat up Toyota and looked out the windows, making sure no one was standing around watching me. Then, I took a deep breath and pressed play.