Micah

We spun around, but the path behind us no longer looked like the path we just walked.

The slope dipped downward into a cluster of trees that shouldn't have been there.

It was wrong.

All wrong.

All wrong.

We tried another direction, moving quickly, hoping to break the pattern, but every switchback, every rise...

Every drop led us right back to him, always waiting at the next curve at one point.

I squeezed my eyes shut and kept walking, telling myself that if I didn't look, he'd disappear.

When I finally opened them again, I nearly tripped he was closer.

The next bend was only a few yards away and there he was tilted slightly, as if he'd been watching me walk blind.

That was it.

We snapped.

We tore off the trail.

Crashing through underbrush, branches clotted our arms.

Roots snagged our boots.

I nearly fell three times, my pack slamming against my shoulders with every desperate step, care where we went.

We just needed to be anywhere that wasn't winding back toward another bend.

It felt endless.

The woods closed in.

Each tree blending into the next.