Mason
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
We set up in a hurry, keeping lights dim.
We didn't cook.
We ate dry food again.
We hung the food farther away than usual.
We tried to act like people who weren't afraid, even though our hands shook when we tied knots.
I told myself that the person in the clearing could have been a hiker who didn't want to interact.
Some people are strange.
Some people don't talk.
But the image of them standing behind the trunk and watching us wouldn't leave my head.
It wasn't the act itself that got me.
It was the stillness.
The way they didn't wave back, didn't call out, didn't step fully into view.
The way they chose concealment automatically, like it was habit.
That night, the whistle came again.
This time it was closer.
Two notes, a pause, two notes again, the same simple pattern.
Mason and I lay in our tents with our headlamps off, listening.
I could hear Mason's breathing through the thin fabric.
I could hear my own heartbeat.
The whistle came again, a little farther to the left.