The former owner of my car called, desperately asking to recover something he had left under the seat — when I found it, I turned pale

When Samira buys a secondhand car at a dealership, she thinks it a victory because it was something she had done all by herself. But the next morning, the mysterious previous owner of the car calls her, claiming that he left something “alive” under the seat of the car. Will Samira meet him or uncover the secret package by herself?

When I first bought my car, it was supposed to be a small victory. I had left my corporate job to take time off to write my collection of short stories. So, I didn’t want to splurge my savings until something big came my way financially.

It was nothing fancy, just a used Toyota Corolla from the local dealership. The thrill of owning it was enough to make me overlook any thoughts about its previous owner. Whoever they were, they were in my past, and I was cruising straight into my future.

Or so I thought.

But then came that random phone call which changed everything.

It was early, around 7 a.m., and I was in the middle of making my morning coffee when my phone buzzed with an unknown number.

Normally, I’d ignore it, but something about early morning and late-night unknown calls made me answer. I didn’t know if someone needed me.

“Hello?” I said, yawning.

“Hi, is this the new owner of the Toyota Corolla?” a man asked, anxiety in his voice.

“Yes, this is her. Who’s speaking?” I asked, suddenly feeling uneasy.

He took a deep breath.

“Oh, thank goodness! I’m so sorry to bother you, but I need your help. I was the previous owner of the car, and I left something under the seat of the car when I gave it in yesterday morning. You picked it up yesterday, yes?”

“Yes,” I replied, confused about what he was getting at.

“Okay. Good,” he paused. “I need to get my hands on what I left behind. It’s really important. It’s urgent, really.”

What on earth could be so important that he would track me down like this? Was the dealership even allowed to give out personal information?

“What did you leave?” I asked, trying to stay calm.

“It’s something… alive,” he stammered. “Please, ma’am, I need to come and get it as soon as possible. I promise you, I’ll explain when I see you.”

I remained silent for a moment.

Alive? The word echoed loudly in my mind. Was this man serious? What alive thing could possibly be in the car? My mind raced between a baby to a dog to even a package of narcotics that he was brushing off as something alive.

But I knew that I would have noticed something like that.

“Do you want to meet me somewhere or give me your address?” he continued.

I should have probably said no to all of the above. But there was something about him and the panic in his voice that made me hesitate to say no.

“Okay,” I finally said, my voice more firm than I felt. “Come over to my neighborhood. There’s a park not too far away from where I live. I’ll meet you there. I’ll send the address to this number.”

“That’s perfect,” he said, sighing in relief. “Don’t worry, it’s contained for now.”

I hung up and stared at my phone.

“What are you doing, Samira?” I asked myself. “Are you really going to meet a random person?”

But, what would be alive under my seat? My thoughts darted to worse-case scenarios again. What if it was a dangerous animal?

I had no idea what to expect, and that’s what made me nervous.

Twenty minutes later, I was standing next to the Corolla in the cool morning air, waiting for the mysterious stranger to show up.

The neighborhood was still quiet, and I imagined everyone in their homes slowly waking up or making breakfast for their families.

Finally, a man pulled up in an old pickup truck, just as he had texted me to say he would. His eyes scanned the area nervously before landing on me.

“I’m Ben,” he said. “Thank you for letting me come.”

He was younger than I imagined, and probably in his late twenties like myself, with dark hair that looked like he’d run his hands through it one too many times.

There was something endearing about his disheveled appearance, though I could tell he was genuinely worried.

Stop it, Samira, I told myself. This isn’t one of your romantic comedy stories. This isn’t a meet-cute.

“No problem,” I replied. “I’m Samira. So, what exactly did you leave under the seat?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he opened the driver’s door and dropped to his knees beside the car and reached under the seat. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, Ben pulled out a small, sealed box with tiny air holes punched into the top. My stomach did a flip as I imagined a tarantula inside the box.

“I’m really sorry to bother you like this,” he said, standing up and holding the box.

“What’s in there?” I asked, almost amused.

“I have a pet gecko at home, and I feed it live insects every day. Yesterday, I stopped at the pet store to pick up some food, including mealworms and roaches, but I must have left the box under the seat when I was unloading the car.”

It took a moment for his words to register with me.

“You left a box of live insects under the seat?” I asked.

“Not by choice,” he replied sheepishly. “I was late to hand over the car as well. So the moment I unloaded everything else at home, I rushed over to the dealership to leave the car… for you.”

“You’re lucky that they didn’t escape,” I said.

Suddenly, a laugh bubbled up inside me before I could stop it, and once it started, it was hard to stop.

He looked at me, confused for a second, before a grin spread across his face.

“I know, it’s ridiculous, right?” he said. “I was so freaked out that I couldn’t even sleep. I kept imagining them crawling around your car, and I just…”

“My goodness,” I exclaimed. “That would have been quite the surprise.”

The thought of driving around with a box full of escaped bugs lurking somewhere under the seat was both horrifying and hilarious.

“I’m really sorry, Samira,” he said, his grin fading into something more genuine. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just didn’t know what else to do. The gecko, Samson, is actually my little brother’s pet. And as wacky as it is, that kid loves it.”

“No judgment here,” I replied. “I had a pet frog for a solid two weeks as a kid until my mother found it bouncing around my room.”

That was enough to set us both off again. We laughed until tears ran down our faces.

“Let me make it up to you,” he blurted out suddenly. “How about I take you out for a coffee? As an apology for the… bug thing?”

I stared at him, caught off guard by the sudden offer. I hadn’t expected any of this. But at the same time, I felt like I was in one of the romance stories that I wrote.

There was just something about the way he asked, something genuine and a little bit hopeful.

“I… um,” I started to say. “Sure, why not?”

“Great!” he said, his face lighting up. “I know a place not too far away from here. Would you like to go now?”

I laughed at his enthusiasm.

“How about you take me to a car wash to wash away any bugs and my paranoia, and then we can grab a coffee?” I asked, half-joking, half-serious.

“Actually, that’s the least I can do,” he said. “Come on.”

Ben put the box of insects in his truck and locked the door. I threw my keys at him, which he caught perfectly.

As we drove to the car wash, Ben told me all about his little brother, who was living with him.

“There’s a big age gap between us,” he said. “But there’s a really good school two roads away from me. So he’s enrolled there.”

“That’s wonderful,” I said, watching his hands on the steering wheel. “I wish I had a younger sibling to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

When we got to the car wash, Ben ensured that we would take the full package.

“Give her a good wash, guys,” he said.

We went for coffee while the car was being attended to.

And I wondered what was going to happen next…

What would you have done?

Heartbreaking Decision: Parents Forced to Pull the Plug on 13-Year-Old Daughter After Sleepover Nightmare!

Australia’s Ally Langdon couldn’t hide her sadness when she talked to a mom and dad who had to make the heartbreaking decision to end the life of their 13-year-old daughter.

Their daughter died because of a dangerous social media trend called chroming, and Langdon, who is also a mom, struggled to keep her tears in.

On A Current Affair, Ally Langdon spoke with Andrea and Paul Haynes about their daughter Esra’s tragic death. Esra died after trying a dangerous trend called chroming, where people inhale toxic chemicals to get high.

Esra was remembered as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she was co-captain. She was a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and helped her team win a national aerobics championship in Queensland.

Heartbreaking Decision: Parents Forced to Pull the Plug on 13-Year-Old Daughter After Sleepover Nightmare!

Australia’s Ally Langdon couldn’t hide her sadness when she talked to a mom and dad who had to make the heartbreaking decision to end the life of their 13-year-old daughter.

Their daughter died because of a dangerous social media trend called chroming, and Langdon, who is also a mom, struggled to keep her tears in.

On A Current Affair, Ally Langdon spoke with Andrea and Paul Haynes about their daughter Esra’s tragic death. Esra died after trying a dangerous trend called chroming, where people inhale toxic chemicals to get high.

Esra was remembered as “determined, fun, cheeky, and talented” by the Montrose Football Netball Club, where she was co-captain. She was a young athlete who raced BMX bikes with her brothers and helped her team win a national aerobics championship in Queensland.

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On March 31, Esra went to a friend’s house for a sleepover. Sadly, she tried a dangerous activity called chroming, where she sniffed a can of aerosol deodorant. This caused her to go into cardiac arrest and suffer serious brain damage.

“It was just a normal night for her, hanging out with friends,” Esra’s mom Andrea told Langdon in the interview. Her dad Paul added, “We always knew where she was and who she was with. It wasn’t anything unusual… But that night, we got a call no parent ever wants to get: ‘Come and get your daughter.’”

Langdon explains that Esra’s friends thought she was having a panic attack, but after inhaling the deodorant, her body started to shut down and she went into cardiac arrest. None of the friends knew what to do for a cardiac arrest.

When Andrea got to Esra, paramedics were trying to save her and told her that Esra had been chroming, which Andrea had never heard of before.

Esra was taken to the hospital, and her parents hoped she would recover since her heart and lungs were still strong.

After eight days on life support, Paul and Andrea were told that Esra’s brain was too damaged to be fixed, and they had to make the heart-wrenching decision to turn off the machines.

Struggling to find the words, her parents talked about how painful it was to end their daughter’s life.

Esra’s siblings and friends are now on a mission to warn others about the dangers of chroming, a dangerous trend that led to Esra’s death. Chroming involves inhaling things like deodorant to get high, and it caused Esra to go into cardiac arrest.

Esra’s dad said it was incredibly hard to bring family and friends to the hospital for their final goodbyes. “It was so hard to say goodbye to her,” he said. “We laid with her and hugged her until the end.”

Seeing the parents’ pain, Ally Langdon, who has two young kids of her own, couldn’t hold back her tears.

Since Esra’s death in early April, Paul says the family is completely “broken” and Esra’s siblings, Imogen, Seth, and Charlie, are all devastated. Paul said, “It’s been the hardest, most traumatic time for us. We haven’t been sleeping, eating, or smiling. It’s not just affected us, but the whole community.”

Paul and Andrea didn’t know about chroming before it took their daughter, but now they want to raise awareness about this dangerous trend. Chroming uses everyday products like deodorant, paint, or hairspray to get high, and it can cause serious health problems or death.

Paul wishes he had known about chroming so he could have warned Esra. “If we had known about it, we would have talked to her about it,” he said.

Paul plans to help other parents learn about chroming so they can talk to their kids about it and keep them safe. “Parents need to talk to their children about these dangers,” he said.

Since 2009, chroming has caused many deaths in Australia and around the world. It can lead to seizures, heart attacks, suffocation, and more.

Paul said, “We will always remember what we saw. It broke our hearts.”

Please share this story to help other parents learn about the dangers of chroming and protect their children.

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