"Hey, Evan. Yeah, I won't be coming after all. My manager was forced to put me on the schedule; it's late August, so..."
"Ahh, makes sense—it is that time of year, huh." Evan paused for a second and said with a dramatic, overly deep baritone voice, "the Mass Exodus of High Schoolers has begun." The two shared a good chuckle through the phone. "You ever think about quitting? They've done that almost every year, and your manager does nothing about it."
"Well," David replied, "usually by the third hour of my shift I think about making like a high schooler myself and leaving without so much as a day's notice right alongside them..." There was a pause for a few seconds before he finished with a shrug and a sigh, "but, I guess it's really not so bad—I get a temporary bump in pay as a floater whenever this sort of thing happens; just enough to make it barely worth it. Regardless though, if I quit I think my manager might suffer a coronary—literally."
The two talked for a while, laughing about funny work anecdotes and looking back on their own memories from high school. In Evan's apartment, the setting evening sun shone through the window as they conversed. The sun painted a soft, dappled mural of light on the cream-colored walls. The trees it shone through gently swayed with the occasional light summer breeze, making the mural dance on the wall like a vacillating kaleidoscope of light and shadow. A soft, orange hue filled the living space turning the room a warm, orange-gold hue.
"Well, I guess I'll get packed. Turns out Mitch and Mike won't be able to make it either, so I figure I'll just go alone."
"You-you're going alone? Are you sure?" David suddenly sat up from his couch.
"Yeah, I'll be alright." Evan replied with a slight laugh. "Honestly, it's so funny how often you guys can sound like my parents. I appreciate your care, but it's not like I'll get flown away by a sudden gust of wind, so don't worry. Work has had me on the ropes, so a little time on my own could do me some good. Should be nice—pop a novel, play a game, maybe go on a walk, or whatever. You know how I am." Evan cracked open a can of soda and sat down on the kitchen's cool floor. Evan wore grey gym shorts, a loose, black t-shirt featuring a white-framed drawing of some manga-style dragon, and a pair of thin, silver-framed glasses. His body was thin and lanky, as if it was just a little too long, but he seemed quite comfortable in his skin regardless.
"Well okay, just be safe, alright?"
"Mm, will do," Evan absently nodded before taking a sip of his cokie-coler.
The two closed the call and Evan went to go pack his things.
--.—.--
The next morning, Evan had his bags packed, and his trunk fully loaded. Soon, he was off to the mountains. At first, from the city, the mountains appeared as barely visible bumps on the horizon. Yet, as time passed, the road gradually became far more hilly, and the distant bumps grew into full-fledged mountains; after a few more hours of driving, Evan was driving up the mountain's winding roads quickly flashing between forty to only five miles per hour, depending on the turn.
Just twenty more minutes and Evan pulled off the road into a long, gravel access road that ended in a parking lot. His car was a small, dark green Honga SUV from 2005, something his parents got him for his sweet sixteen. "Seven years, and she still purrs." Evan patted the hood affectionately before heading up the trail. It was more a rasp really—or maybe a wheeze. But, it did still run.
Looking for a good spot to pitch his tent along the trail, he couldn't help but sigh in appreciation of the nature around him. The warm sunlight filtered through the trees, painting the trail a shade of green; the entire forest floor was covered by a thicket of a long, green grass crowned with golden seed heads.
I'm gonna miss this, Evan sighed. Intermingled with that regal green that signed the end of summer were all kinds of flowers. Some were pink, some orange, and some blue, but all thin-stemmed, towering a full foot higher than the other flora, and showing slight signs of decay.
Where there were gaps in the trees, Evan noticed how the gold of the grass glowed in the sun like little beacons. After finding a good spot, setting up camp, and popping open his camping chair, Evan sat down and sighed in satisfaction. I really needed this, Evan thought to himself.
Today, Evan was wearing black hiking boots, a mustard yellow T-shirt that complemented a pair of brown cargo pants. Each pocket was filled to the brim with snacks, a handful of camping tools, and a hand-held Game-Station 1 emulator. It was his tried and true—his ride or die, as he puts it so often. Which, it did. Die, that is—within the hour of him turning it on.
"Why'd I have to forget my portable charger..." After grieving his loss, Evan got up. Evan Walker—yes, that Evan Walker—was going touch some grass.
It was something he inherited from his mom, he figured; Evan enjoyed nature like he enjoyed the zoo—he enjoyed the scenery, but he kept his distance. He preferred to sit down and read a book as he passively enjoyed the scenery, rather than dive into a lake, or try his hand at making a fire. He had seen Mike do it enough times though, so Evan was pretty sure he could pull it off if he needed to. Anyway, so Evan going out and doing something for once? Foreign. Unusual. Unheard of. What will happen?
Walking up the steep trail, he followed it, picking up sticks to tie in a bundle as he went along, until he made it to a rocky outcropping with a cliff about twenty feet (6m) in front of him. Being roughly 3,000 feet (900m) up, the view was quite vast. With a deep breath and a sigh, Evan walked to the cliff edge and sat down a few feet away, setting his bundle of sticks to the side.
The outcropping was shaded by trees, so the smooth, stone ground felt nice and cool to the touch. Full miles out, he could see another mountain, smaller than the one he was on, but still quite huge. He could see how the flowing trails turned to roads and wound down and around the mountain, then out through the forested and hilly terrain, and towards the horizon in various directions. Clouds floated by, casting shadows over the vast hilly land as they went. Most of it was forested, but alongside a distant mountain range he could see a quaint little town, where some farm animals were kept in the fields above, sitting on the side of the mountains.
Evan stayed there a while drinking water, eating granola bars, and making small talk with the other people enjoying the view. Time passed until eventually, he was the only one there. The sun began to set, so he got back up, walked back to his camp, and relaxed in his tent, totally forgetting his firewood at the cliff.
Around about four in the morning, it began to rain and thunder, waking Evan up. He wouldn't get wet, but it was really coming down. The sound of wind gales moving the trees above shook at his heart a bit.
Is this going to be alright? I don't want to leave yet, but...
The rain kept hammering down on the tent as Evan sat thinking about his next moves, until a tree only about fifty feet (15m) away was struck by lightning. A blinding light filled the tent as the deafening crack of lightning boomed throughout the forest.
"Nope!" Evan yelled to himself. "Screw this, I'm out, I'm done, goodbye!" Flashlight in hand, he looked up from out of the tent at the violently shaking canopy above as he opened the zipper. Walking briskly down the winding path, rain poured onto the land like a waterfall, soaking his clothes until they stuck to his skin like rubber.
Evan ran down the trail, around the bend and then suddenly—another strike of lighting, this time just a few feet away. Evan was knocked to the side from the crash, and the tree split, making a loud creaking and crunching as it fell down like a hammer on Evan. A sharp, broken branch impaled the left side of his abdomen as he let out an agonized scream. His mind was in overdrive as he screamed for help, and flailed wildly. The weight of the tree pinned him down, his breaths were short. This wasn't a camping ground—no one was likely to come to the rescue. Not that he was really confident that someone could really do too much—the tree was pretty big. But still, he screamed and groaned in pain as every breath and movement made the searing pain sharpen...
--.--.
Water on the golden grass and towering flowers glinted in the morning sunshine as blinding scintillations that dotted the forest floor. The branches of towering trees softly swayed and creaked from the gentle, cool morning breeze, their tops slowly gilded by the sun as it rose. The various birds chirped and warbled, and a small ladybug could be seen flying toward a ripe dew drop which sat on the precipice of a flower's petal.
Looking down from the serene scene, though, a ghastly view broke the serenity before him: viscous maroon splattered on the rocky, dirt trail. Red crust on pallid skin; disheveled clothes shredded, torn, covered in dried mud, and stained in a deep vermilion; chunks of half-digested food scattered in front of his mouth, which smelled so strongly of bile it was just about the only thing that kept him awake for so long; and worst of it all: a tree laying over him with a large branch piercing his abdomen.
Evan did his best to stretch out his fingers. They twitched for a moment and returned to an unmovable stillness. Inner demons, deepest fears, and final wishes had all created a violent storm of desperation in his mind, but slowly, he could feel that even his mind was beginning to slip from him.
I'm dying aren't I... No, I don't... I can't...
Evan soon found himself scraping at the shrinking boundaries of his mind for even the most basic words. Fear was fixed on his face as his mind dissolved. His emotions were screaming, but the thoughts that haunted him were gone, at least.
Then, from some unknown corner of his subconscious images, sensations, smells, and emotions silently spewed out in his mind like a flood. The memories drowned what was left of his mind; some he had entirely forgotten, while others were unforgettable. Shock, wonder, joy, and grief overwhelmed him all at once. But after the images faded, a most discomforting tranquility ensued along with a disturbing blindness.
It was dark, but it wasn't dark either. Trying to look around felt akin to trying to turn on the TV when the power is out. And he couldn't feel anything that grounded him in where he was, but instead, just some strange, painful itchiness that gave him something of a loose idea of his physical boundaries.
What is this, He asked himself. He sensed in his inner voice an eerie flatness—there was a sort of uncanny calmness, and with it a strange frame of mind. It felt like he had become lucid from within a dream.
He tried to reach out with his arm to try and get up, or at the very least, feel around for his immediate surroundings, but even that felt like something was missing: as he reached out, he couldn't feel any coldness or warmth, nor any air currents around him nor any of his clothes sliding across his skin; and from trying to clench his hand, he immediately noticed that he couldn't even feel the surface of his fingers on his palm, nor anything else—just an itchiness which flared into flames at the attempt to move his body. It seemed to keep him stuck in the broken posture he wore in the moments before death, and it hurt.
Phantom pain, he realized, feeling a small pang of fear break away that unnatural stillness. Then continued, half confirming things and half just trying to break away at that flat apathy which kept him calm despite the pain irradiating from every part of his being: phantom pain—blindness—deafness... He tried to breathe in through his nose, finding that he could not feel his torso expanding, nor the air flowing through his nostrils, nor anything else at all. The realization made him feel like he was suffocating.
I can't even breathe...
The cold, icy mental state cracked under the pressure of his new understanding of his boundaries. Dread began to seep into his mind in the form of sporadic, wayward thoughts, expanding and widening it until it submerged him in a messy torrent of emotions.
What is this—where am I?! Is anyone, can anyone even hear me right now?
Suddenly, something touched him. Not his arm, or his face—but in the deepest sense, him. It was like something was touching the very essence of his soul, the center and core of his being. At the touch, the phantom pain fled like smoke in the wind, and it was replaced by a body that could breathe, move, hear, smell, and see.
He flinched and his eyes snapped opens as each one of his senses absorbed the room around him, and his emptied lungs were filled with air. Every surface was pearly white and had incredibly intricate patterns and a slight iridescent sheen. The man sitting in front of him calmly sat with his legs crossed. He wore a suit and tie and his frame was thin, but not frail. He had slightly greyed hair, and a pretty fancy mustache to boot.
"Want a pop?"