Deadly Rabbit Hole

I should have never gone down that rabbit hole. The never-ending hole filled with betrayal and death.

It all began when my brother was kidnapped here in Juarez.

We where both beginning our careers in journalism, even against all the horror stories we often heard of Mexican journalists getting assassinated every day.

Being a journalist, meant having a target placed on your back.

It meant that not only you where in danger, but you placed all of your closest friends in family in danger too.

That was no easy choice for anyone to make. However my brother and I where aware of this, and in our minds, we always thought that if for any reason one of us was killed in the line of duty, it was a honor at its highest grade. We would often fantasize about what it meant to have an honorable death. Dying for a cause greater than our own. Every journalist held the most deepest respect for anyone that died on duty. Although it brought great pain to the loved ones, for us, the journalists in Mexico, it was a badge of Honor.

That was before.

Before Abraham was gone.

He had vanished from thin air, as if he had some sort of magical powers to teleport to a different dimension.

He was last seen leaving his office, and after that, no one knows what happened. Nobody saw anything, or perhaps maybe there was someone that just happened to be there, maybe he saw just a glimpse. Maybe he saw what kind of car it was. Maybe he saw how many men had snatched my brother.

Nobody was going to come forward. I already knew that. If there had been any kind of witnesses, fear had already payed them a visit, and they where now aware of what would happen if anyone dared come forward.

I knew the police was not going to open or do any sort of investigating. I knew that they where only going to implement a pretend search, maybe run a little campaign just so they could look good in the public’s eyes, or just to cover their butts just in case.

Then the threats began arriving at my home even more consistent than the daily newspaper. One after another. ‘If you want to happen to you, what happened to your brother keep investigating’ one read. The others where the same, some more aggressive than others but with the same message ‘ We are coming for you and your family’

I would pretend to be unafraid. Even though i had endless nightmares of my brother. Was he dead?? Was he buried in the mountains of Juarez? Or did they dismember him like they have all the others? They idea of him being tortured would keep me up all night.

For whatever reason, I couldn’t let this go. The rest of my family had been granted asylum in El Paso and I had too, but I chose to stay. I couldn’t leave.

He was my brother. I know if I had been the one that had been kidnapped my brother wouldn’t have let me just rot out there in the desert like a dead animal. He would do anything to find me, he would not rest until he found my remains.

And now i had to the same for him. I was going to find him. Even if it meant that the only way i could identify him was through DNA analysis, i would find him. He was out there somewhere.

I began by offering my personal money for any information. Maybe if i got lucky i could find a good lead. Someone that could point me in the right direction.

I received a phone call that stating that they knew where my brother was and that he was alive. I couldn’t trust the source, but what other choice did i have? I had two options, One, i could play it safe and not trust whoever was on the other end of that line, after all he could possibly be the same killer.

Two: i could risk it and possible find my brother.

I agreed to meet with him, in the middle of the day, in a heavily populated parking lot, in case anything bad should happen, there was plenty of witnesses.

I was waiting when a black 90’s van came screeching to a halt, the side door swung wide open and two men rushed out, grabbed me and threw me inside the van.

Someone was already waiting inside the van as soon as my body was slammed inside. A dark head cover was rapidly placed on my head and some i could hear the zip ties closing as my hands began getting tighter behind my back.

I didn’t think anything would happen. It was broad daylight! There was hundreds of people walking outside! And yet here i was, inside a van, my hands zip tied behind my back and being taken to a safe house to get tortured and then killed.

I was never going to find my brother.

And now my family was never going to find me either.

I should have left, i should have listened to everyone that told me to run away, that these men where evil and that they would never stop.

I should have never gone down this rabbit hole.

José Pablo Carrillo 12/8/21