“My hours at work were cut back for the next few months, I can’t afford my house bills, but I need that amazon prime, and I can afford to pay my amazon prime bill. I did my researching on this new discovery and the only cons are that my family photos will sometimes become ads. It really doesn’t sound all that bad to me”  Daniel said with a face of hope

“Well I’m sorry to hear you will be leaving our complex” his landlord replied.

That night Daniel filed his paperwork for his brand new amazon house which took hours,

“I don’t understand, they are literally just asking personal questions about my life?” He mumbled to himself,

“Welcome to adulthood” he huffed and rolled his eyes. He thought to himself “I don’t understand why they are asking me anyway. As if they don’t already listen to and watch my every move, they at least know what I’m spending my money on.”

 

It’s moving day, I’m not sure why but for some reason I get nervous about moving, maybe it’s something about going to a whole new place. I had become dormant, so comfortable in my cozy little life. Maybe I needed this change, this might be the push I’ve been waiting for, this is my chance, my opportunity to get myself out there. This is a new beginning. Just as he finished his thoughts he looked up only to realize the cars in front of him were stopped, he slammed on his breaks causing a loud crud from the boxes in his car sliding forward.

“Crap!” He got off the nearest exit and pulled into a gas station to check his boxes, the lamp his grandma gave him was broken. Daniel was saddened by this, this was the last memory he had of his grandmother. In his sadness he went inside the gas station used the restroom and picked up some sketchy but yummy smelling taquitos. He sat down at a table to eat them. Daniel noticed another girl at a different table, she was pretty, just his type, he noticed she was also eating taquitos.

“Hey” she looked up, “these any good?” He picked up a taquito.

“The best. I specifically come here for them!”

“Where are you from?”

“Ooh, moving a little fast there aren’t we?” She laughed

“Oh sorry I didn’t mean to overstep my boundaries”

“No it’s okay, I don’t think you are gonna murder me, plus I can tell, you’re not from here.”

“That obvious?” She laughed again.

“Well I gotta get going it was good meeting you….?”

“Olivia, and you are?”

“Daniel”

“Safe drives.”

As I got back on the road it wasn’t long until I arrived at my destination: Primeville, my street Kindleton, I started unpacking by grabbing my boxes and carrying them inside. The house was nice, it was huge and the inside was white, granted the windows were fake, some kind of tv that depicted images of nature. I checked the settings. I can choose to make it look like my neighbor’s houses. When I finished unpacking, I decided to turn on the actual tv and see what was on.

“Ugh every commercial promotes Amazon, or something they sell, I’ll just skip” he clicked the skip button on the remote but it wouldn’t allow him to skip.

“Well what is the point of having a skip button if it doesn’t work!”

Just then a very loud speaker went off in his house, he let out a loud pitch scream,

“Jesus that scared me!”

“Please report to the kitchen window.” A calm robotic voice said over the speakers, repeating itself until he went to the kitchen window. There were instructions on the screen in the following order:

Sit

Put in the headphones (on the counter)

Buckle yourself into the seat.

He did all of the above in order. Just then the white screen turned into an Amazon ad. What is this? He thought to himself. I didn’t even want to watch the commercials on the tv, I’m not watching this, Daniel tried to stand up, but he couldn’t get out of the chair. The screen turned red and a message came across the screen “ALERT: you are not to leave the screening process. This is a breach of our terms of service” a loud voice blared through the house just then the screen returned to its normal white and another message came across that read, “please return to a sitting position.”

And Daniel did as it said. Daniel sat there for an hour just watching and listening.

 

“Thank God this is finally over I gotta get out of here!” Daniel stood up, got in his car and started the engine, an Amazon ad came on

“NOOOO GOD NO FOR THE LOVE OF ANY SANITY I HAVE LEFT PLEASE NO MORE!” He quickly turned off the radio.

“I just wanted to drive, just get my mind off this stupid ‘new beginning.’ Ugh!” He scoffed. At this time he was passing the exit for taquitos so he took the exit and went to that gas station, he saw the girl in there again, with taquitos, although this time she was leaving with them. Daniel stopped her

“Olivia!” She turned around

“Oh hey! How’s it going?”

“Uh you know it’s okay…”

“Uh oh! Trouble in paradise?”

“Well can I ask you a question?”

“Sure”

“Do you know the town of Primeville?”

“Course, I live there.”

“You do?!” He replied shocked.

“Yessir, new comer I believe?”

“Yes I just moved in yesterday, did they um… force you to watch ads?” Olivia covered his mouth with her hand

“Stop don’t say anymore. They’re watching. They can hear you. Come with me.”

Daniel didn’t say a word but followed Olivia out to her car. She drove them to a remote spot in the woods.

“Okay, you’re safe to talk here.”

“What’s going on? What is this, why are they doing this?”

“Honestly?”

He stared with wide eyes and shook his head

“People are broke, also dumb, some weren’t smart enough to play the system,”

“What do you mean play the system?” He interrupted.

“What, you actually sat through those ads for an hour?”

“Well… yeah I didn’t know any better, and by the time I did, it was, was too late.”

“Psh amateur listen, they will do the same thing at the same time tomorrow. Do you trust me?”

“I mean I guess, you were right about the taquitos so…”

“Okay, take me to your house.”

“Woahhh what happened to moving fast?” He tried to joke

“Okay fine, so I won’t help you.

“No please I can’t go through this again tomorrow!”

“That’s what I thought.”

 

Daniel gave Olivia his address, and when the time came, she was there.

“Oh I see you’re prepared”

“No duh, why else would I be here?”

“Well I thought maybe we had a connection,  but okay, don’t accept me.”

“Listen, Amazon is taking over, we have to stop them, if we’re too busy falling in love, that will never happen.”

“Fair enough”

Olivia pulled a dummie out of her bag and placed it in the chair, she waited for each step of directions and did them all carefully,

“Now the trick is you can’t move any thing in the house including the door. That is why you must leave it open.”

Daniel didn’t respond,

“You did leave the door open right?”

“Uh I think I did…”

“Imbecile” Olivia muttered, “One job, you had one job”

“No no! I know I did, I remember!”

Olivia let out a sigh of relief. As they were leaving they saw tall men dressed in all white getting out of a large white vehicle,

“Look at the fine print Daniel, what does it say?”

“Amazon.”

“We gotta get out of here! They’re coming!”

“I didn’t open any other doors!”

“DOES IT MATTER? WE’VE ALREADY BEEN CAUGHT!”

“Oh yeah you’re right” Daniel turned around to see Olivia running out of the back door. He ran to catch up with her

“What’s the plan after this? To just keep running?”

“No, we have to hide, quick get in the car”

“This is ridiculous what are they going to do?”

“Get in the car.”

“Got it.”

Olivia sped off, getting on the high way,

“Remember the woods I took you to earlier, when I said it was safe?”

“Yeah”

“That’s where we are going, I couldn’t tell you there because they could hear us.”

“Wow those dudes must have super hearing then.”

“No you idiot amazon sends out waves to pick up information, but they can only go so far to Primeville’s line of location.”

“Oh well that makes sense, then why can they hear us in the gas station?”

“It’s too close to the line to risk it. Anyway I have a cabin, in the woods there, it’s underground, if we can get there before they get to us they’ll never find us, we give it a year tops and we can move to California they’ll never find us.”

“Well what if I don’t want to move to California?!”

“Doesn’t look like you have an option now.”

“Ugh Olivia…”

“What”

“They’re behind us.”

“Okay in the glovebox there’s a gun…”

“A GUN WHAT!! WHY DO YOU HAVE A GUN!? They’re dangerous they’ve been banned! Are you an idiot?”

“No, they are only dangerous if you’re at the wrong end of it.”

“Not a great way to look at it”

“JUST GET OUT THE GUN.DO YOU WANT TO LIVE?”

“I’m not shooting anyone, forget it.”

“You don’t have to shoot anyone just shoot one of their tires.”

“And what if I can’t aim?! Then I’ve destroyed an innocent life!”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s not innocent. He works for Primeville police. He’s killed a few innocent people!”

“How are they innocent?”

“Oh, just look at us! We are innocent and they want to kill us!”

Olivia looked over and saw Daniel’s head hanging down. That’s weird he passed out..

“Daniel!”

She pushed him, his body limped over on the window,

“No!” She screamed looking in her rear view mirror. They were getting closer. She pulled over the car and got out, running, crying watching the blurry dirt, twigs, and leaves as she ran. All she could think was what did I do, what did I do…..then she heard it.

“We got her!”

Olivia looked up to see a tall man in all white with a gun pointed at her head and finger on the trigger

“Please! I can ex…”