Congratulations on Saving Your Life Partner!

You’ll arrive at the park at 12:02 AM, where the terrorists will be standing around, looking chagrined. Carrie will be there too, suspended above the shark tank by some industrial strength nylon rope. When they see your Subaru blazing a path through the park, cresting hills with wild abandon and tearing up earth as you brake, they’ll look kind of relieved. That is, before you step out, gun in hand.

They’ll want to start talking.

“You will pay for-“ the lead terrorist (the one in a red head wrap, obviously) will begin, but he’ll be cut short when your nine millimeter round catches him in the throat, tearing out most of the valves and pipes that people take for granted in there. His friends will scatter, leaving Carrie bound and gagged, dangling above the shark tank. She’ll be mumbling and watching you as you stride towards the terrorists, gun in hand, firing round after round into them as they dive for cover.

You won’t take it easy or slow on them, and you won’t be shooting to wound the way you normally do. They made this personal when they brought Carrie into it, and you’ll want to make an example of them. You’ll want to show anyone who’s watching what happens when they try to bring your work back to your home.

Bullets will rain on them, catching men in the head and torso as they cower behind benches, struggling to chamber a round in AK-47s that seemed so easy to use a few hours earlier when they weren’t being shot at. You won’t miss with a single round, leveraging kill shot after kill shot in rapid succession. A dozen men will be scattered across the fields of the park when you stop shooting, dead or dying. Carrie will be watching you with wide eyes, her mouth straining against her gag. She’ll fall silent after the chaos subsides, content to stare at you as you stride up to the lead terrorist’s body and remove the machete from his belt.

He’ll still be alive when you take it, his breath sputtering with blood each time he exhales. His eyes will be wide and he’ll reach towards you as you step away from him, begging you to end it, but you won’t even look at him. You’ll just stride right past him, up to the shark tank, and jump in.

You’ll work with a quiet precision in the tank, slipping the machete around the shark’s teeth rather than into any particular part of them. Each motion will be clean, precise and instinctive. Carrie will catch the whole thing from her perch above you. Later on she’ll retell the story like she was watching you dance. She won’t mention the water stained red, the brain matter spilling out of the shark’s skulls. She won’t mention the stench of their bodies as they die. But she will mention when you threw the machete at the rope over her head like a boomerang, severing the rope and dropping her into your waiting arms.

She’ll tell it with a smile, just before she gets to the part where you took out her gag and asked her “Miss me?” before giving her the biggest kiss of either of your lives.

Congratulations on Saving Your Life Partner!