The Hiker and the Stranger
It's all just... too much.
How long before anyone notices if I run away?
How far can my feet carry me before I collapse?
These thoughts were bitter as they ran across Charlie's mind, but she was powerless to stop them. It had been an endless stream all week, yet there was no denying that it had been building for years. She tried to immerse herself back in her surroundings. That was why she had gone for a hike, it was supposed to be relieving her mind of these struggles.
Charlie soundlessly begged the world around her to save her from these destructive thoughts. At first she focused on the steady, crunching rhythm her hiking boots made on the hard surface of trodden down dirt that was the path she followed. It was a tan ribbon ahead of her, snaking up into the rocks of the next grade she would have to propel herself up. Her eyes followed the route as she watched it switchback into the smooth, granite rocks that littered the pass that was the final gateway to her destination. A light breeze came at her from behind, rustling the pine needles in the trees and sending a group of errant, aspen leaves, bright yellow and spotted with brown, skating across her path. Charlie's body pumped with the heat of a hike that thus far had been uphill, but she could still feel the chill that came with that wind. Autumn was here, and winter was on its way. Storms that would bring clouds fat with snow were already in the forecast. Enough cold storms had already come through. For the town it had been rain, though in some parts it had been sleet. The clouds over the area she was currently in, however, had been more ominous. She wouldn't be surprised if she were to see patches of snow on the final stretch of this adventure. This would be the last hike of the season.
The pine trees that towered above her on either side of the trail had branches laden with pine cones. Every so often, a squirrel would jostle one enough that it was shaken from its perch. It would come down in a clatter, making a large "crack" with each branch it hit. The pine cone would be accompanied by a small shower of pine seeds flying down like baby helicopters after it until it hit the ground and exploded. Charlie stopped to watch as one pine cone did this off to her right. She had looked up just in time to see a squirrel give it its send-off. The wind chose this moment to return, this time with a stronger blast. The cold air cut through Charlie's layers and threatened to knock off her hat. She rubbed at her arms to spark some heat before she adjusted her headpiece and forced her feet to start moving once more.
Nature was her symphony as she traveled on. She had left her music behind on purpose this time. Some days, she found a soundtrack to a good adventure or fantasy movie could enhance a hike, but others, it only took away from the experience. Those were the days she usually wanted to think more, the days that she needed the comfort of nature in all its glory. She hadn't heard many birds besides a few indistinct calls far off. Each pass of the wind through the trees was like the soft white noise of waves. If Charlie didn't know better, she would have thought she was traveling beside a river, raging with swift, dangerous waters. There was not a human sound to be heard aside from the echo of her own feet that traveled farther than usual due to her isolation. The sky above was the clear, crystal blue that seemed to always make an autumn day that much colder. Patches of the path and several boulders she had passed had glittered with a thin film of frost.
This will be the last hike of the season, she assured herself once more.
She felt odd as she thought it. It was normal for her to feel sad at the prospect. It seemed disappearing into the mountains for a day was the only way to bring her mind the true peace it needed. It was her meditation, her worship even. There was no church that could truly ease her soul. Only the majesty of pure, untouched nature could bring her close to true spiritual connection - though she would be the first to admit that she was nowhere near enlightened at the time being. Still, this time the prospect of retiring her hiking boots until late the following Spring instilled a different feeling in her. It was a knot in her stomach that was unfamiliar. There was something off this time. Something had changed.
It was that little voice that had been following her. That terrible source of soundless advice that kept telling her she was worthless, that her life was pointless and there was no fixing it; she might as well disappear and never be heard from again. That voice hurt her heart and made her legs heavy. It tried to take this opportunity to sneak back in, to tell her that there was so much ahead of her if only she would abandon her worldly woes behind her and give herself over to the unknown ahead.
She laughed it away. There was no joy in the sound. It carried more fear than amusement. "I'm not running off to starve and freeze in the back-country." She spoke to the air, sure enough in her loneliness not to check to see if anyone else was around to hear her. Where had this urge to run away come from? Sure, she had felt it before in times of stress, but never this strong, never with such nagging. Deep down, did she really want to run away that much? Was she that desperate? She diverted her attention from the thought.
The path ahead began to steepen significantly. After about ten feet, it transformed into rock steps that seemed to grow out of the dirt itself, though she knew that it was the handiwork of a trail maintenance crew that had made the stone staircase appear. She had been on the trail enough times to know that it would be this steep from here on out.
She stopped just in front of them for a moment, staring up at the climb ahead of her. For now, she could see nothing but the one, long stretch. The switchbacks she had spied before hid somewhere up above, just behind the trees that towered around her for the moment. She knew they would be wholly visible again once she reached the top of the stairs and turned the bend. She took a deep breath and whispered, "Here we go, Feet."
The first few steps weren't so bad, but as she continued, a slow burn began to awaken in her thighs and calves. Though she had not overstuffed her backpack, each step made it seem heavier. Her back began to ache and the will to move upwards became harder to sustain. She tried to think of other things to ignore the pain. A sweat had broken out on her forehead, making her hat-band chafe. Another breeze hit her, but it wasn't enough to bring relief. There was too much warmth built up under her layers.
She began to hum to herself. It was some broken song she couldn't remember the name of, only a few words and a jumbled tune. It could have been something she had made up for all she knew. It wasn't long before the sound faded away to the labored puffing that had become her breathing. She leaned forward - the incline had become enough that she was practically crawling up anyway - and grabbed at the stairs for support. Her pack made her feel unbalanced, like she would be pitched backwards any moment, somersaulting head over heels until she fell broken at the bottom... The flash of disaster was gone as fast as it came, though the picture of the possibility burned bright in her memory for the time it did last. It was the feeling of dread that lingered.
This was the gateway all those terrible feelings she had been trying to escape were waiting for. All at once, they flooded her memory, bringing broken pictures of moments that had led to the final breaking point. A super-cut of everything that had ever gone wrong.
Grandma's funeral - a casket being paraded into the church. A soft powder blue that had once been a comforting sight, but now made it all too final... She shook her head, but the images bombarded her anyway. A similar funeral, a year before. Grandpa. It had been the first time she had seen her father cry, and the only strong show of emotion he had given for many years.
Time continued to move backwards in her mind, as it did, Charlie felt herself slip faster and faster from reality. There was her sister, waving before she drove away from the inn to head off to college. She was leaving Charlie behind to do what Charlie herself had been too afraid to do. As for what Charlie was scared to do, her memories took her further back still, to her own senior year as she made her own choices for her life. Her father was a constant stream of candid advice that she should stay and work with the family, that it was smarter, that it was safer. He said it enough that he became a whisper in the back of her mind, even when she was alone. Her own body screamed with a desperate itch to see the world, but the fear of the unknown when it came to money and getting by on her dreams proved too much, and she crumbled to her father's will in the end.
Still, time rolled backward to the first fissure, that moment where everything had changed forever. That dreaded phone call. She could still see her father when he picked up the receiver, how his smiling expression had melted into disbelief and then utter dread. By the time the conversation was over, his voice was a husky monotone, his face blank. He sounded like a robot when he announced that cousin Shane had gone missing. That day her father's walls were laid around his heart, an impenetrable fortress that let out little warmth and only knew love through over-protection. He delved himself into constant work at the inn, strayed on less adventures, and lost hope in many institutions. Stay, we must stay together, became his desperate motto. What could she have been if she had defied him? Maybe just as miserable as she was now, or perhaps - happy? What was happiness? She wasn't sure anymore. She had glimpses of it, but in moments like this they receded into the darkness and it seemed like there was no reason to go on any longer. Why work so hard just to feel so empty and lonely? Why work so hard to feel like nothing?
It was the tears streaming down her cheeks that brought her back to the present. She had stopped at the summit of the stone staircase and was attempting to hold them back, though they managed to find their way down her face anyway. Had she not snapped out of the trance her thoughts had brought her to, she may have begun wailing with sobs at any moment. Alone or not, she was thankful she was able to keep it together. She wiped at her eyes and turned to look around her.
Just five feet ahead, the path took a turn around a large boulder. She followed it and the last leg of her hike - not counting the walk home - lay before her. The trees spread apart to reveal a small lake, the water low after a dry summer. The path followed around the side of its shores for a little bit before the switchbacks began. She could see them more clearly now. This time she could see the pass as well, from which she would be able to see what she was really walking to - a lake three times the size of the one she looked upon now, whether the summer was a drought or not. Despite the fact that she now faced a hill to match the difficulty of the one she had just crested, she couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. She was close now. Soon she would be resting on the shores of Mirror Lake. There, she could stare out at the deep blue waters that from the right angle seemed to go on forever, framed by the mountains that loomed off in the distance. The trail could take her further than that lake, perhaps even as far as those mountains in the distance; she only had to set her feet upon it.
Once again, she tried to shake away the itch of running from her problems, especially in extreme circumstances. I'm just going to sit by the lake. Nature always helps me reset. I'll be able to face the night at home, but I have to face it at home. She urged her legs to keep moving forward.
By the time Charlie reached Mirror Lake, her back was sticky and uncomfortable where the sweat had drenched her bottom layer where her back met her pack. Beads dripped down her forehead, and it was hard to swipe them all away before they crept into her eyes with a burning and stinging that would blind her and halt her progress for several minutes. She had tossed her hat back, hastily smoothing away the errant hairs that had been pulled from her braids. A breeze coursed across her bare head, the chill enhanced by her damp scalp and she shivered as she hastened to find a spot to stop for a while. The prospect didn't take much effort.
The pack came off instantly. In one swift movement, she had swung it off her shoulder and practically chucked it at the ground. It let out a "clunk" in protest as all the contents shifted. She decided to sit down, stretching her legs out as she propped her back against a rock. Her backpack was in reaching distance and she pulled it towards her. It took a few minutes of rummaging before she produced the clear, plastic bag that housed her fuel - a sandwich. She kept it in the bag, pulling it down a little at a time so she wouldn't have to touch her food with her hands that were covered in dirt at this point. Her body - deficit of calories after all the exertion - pined for her to scarf down the food, but Charlie managed to take her time.
The faint sound of the waves lapping on the shore of the lake helped hypnotize her into a meditative state. She stared off into the distance, where the mountains seemed to grow out of the water itself. She sat like that long after her sandwich was gone. It was as if she were dozing with her eyes open. A calmness had enveloped her entire body and her thoughts were at peace for the first time in a long time. None of her other hikes over the summer had taken her this far. She felt like she was floating and she let herself drift like this for what felt like forever. Her eyelids fluttered closed and she watched the pale light of day shining through her eyelids, a soft, sunset pink. She let herself drift into the ether.
#
The air was dry and still in the scorching heat, sun rays having baked deep into the hard, silver rock through much of the day. Over the expanse of plateaus, mesas, and columns glittering silver in the clear day, nothing moved. Nothing was there. The world was like a cutting by some skilled artisan, who had molded a precious gem into this exquisite landscape. A crack like a burst of sudden gunfire fractured the silence. From around a stone pillar came a thread of twitching light, darting back and forth along an old path that seemed worn down into the earth. The true origin of that trail had been lost to a time long forgotten.
The bolt of light did not stray from it's route, buzzing like electricity as it whirred along. It stretched out ten feet long, and following behind was a woman. She walked at an easy pace, leaving a distance of several feet between herself and the phenomenon she pursued. Her long cloak billowed around her, moving like water as it sparkled in an ever changing array of blues, purples, silvers, and blacks. She was like a piece of the night sky, standing starkly against the sterling panorama. Her hood was thrown back, her curly, black hair pulled into a small ponytail bouncing high at the rear of her head. Her skin was a warm caramel color and her almond shaped eyes were bright as they stood focused on her quarry. One of her eyes was a dark, chocolate while the other was electric blue.
The trail lead her up the side of an escarpment, steepening into what looked almost to be stairs cut into the rock until she reached the summit, a slab that was a flat expanse taller than the rest, from which she could see out for miles. What she had followed no longer resembled a strip of light, but was now an orb that hung in the air, pulsating at a spot near the edge of the cliff. The woman approached it tentatively. Though her body language emanated only a steady calmness, her movements slow, her mouth a neutral line; inside her nerves were on fire, her whole body screaming with excitement. She clenched and unclenched her hands, feeling how sweaty her palms had become. The pulsating thump of her heartbeat shook her whole body, reverberating through her ears so it was all she could hear. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. It took everything in her to will her legs to advance now. They had become like heavy stone themselves, difficult to lift. The world was hotter, a film of sweat breaking out on her forehead. It was the orb. From it radiated its own warmth.
Before she knew what had happened, a mere foot stood before herself and the light. She only had to reach out and her fingertips would make contact.
Her heartbeat was louder now, her body on fire with anticipation. "Come on Brielle," she whispered, her voice scratchy through her dry-mouth. "This is what you've been dreaming of for years." She took a deep breath and held it as she let her hand shoot forward and touch the orb. She felt nothing yet the light began to grow until it became so overwhelming that Brielle had to force her eyes shut against it. Still, a soft white burned against her eyelids for another few seconds before all at once, it was gone.
Brielle took her time in cracking her eyes open. When she was able to look around, she found that all trace of the orb was gone. On the ground below where it had been hovering was what really mattered. This was what Brielle had been searching for. What she followed had merely been her guide. Brielle looked down at what looked to be a hole in the ground. After only a few inches, it turned to utter blackness. It must have gone a long way down. There was something about this hole that was different, that didn't seem quite right. Something pulsed from it. A mysterious force that both made Brielle want to turn and run, and jump into it.
She was mesmerized and forgot the breathe. All her nerves had disappeared, her heart had settled down. The world around her had resolved back into silence. Brielle's face broke into a smile, her eyes brightening as she tossed her head back and laughed. She crossed her arms over her chest as she looked back at the hole. "Well, I'll be damned, Phillius. You were right about the spell." She looked around her as if she expected someone else to appear. There was only the whisper of an errant breeze. Brielle turned her attention back to the hole. "No use waiting any longer." She pinned her arms close to her sides and stepped forward.
Brielle plummeted. She used every ounce of her strength to keep her arms where they were, her cloak and gravity fighting against her. The world had plunged into darkness and she was blind to her surroundings, if they even existed anymore. Her stomach was in her throat and wind whistled in her ears. Faster and faster she fell until it felt like she was being squeezed. There was a crack and a sound like an explosion below her. She fell into a pool of light and as she did, a gust of wind came up behind her back, pushing her forward. She must have blacked out for a second, for the next thing she knew, Brielle was on her hands and knees in a pile of rubble. She coughed dust from her lungs as she pushed herself to her feet. Her joints popped in protest. A chill ran through her, the heat she had felt in her previous location having evaporated. This was when she remembered what her fall slipped from her mind - she was somewhere new.
Her breath was taken away once more as her eyes beheld a place vastly different from where she had been. The hot world of stone had been replaced by somewhere cooler. Mountains loomed around her, but they were not just silver, but deep reds and browns as well. They were not flat expanses, but jutted out of the ground, hard jagged masses that peaked out hundreds of feet above. Much of the world was a deep green, laced with hints of yellow and brown, but when she turned around, she was greeted by a body of deep blue water that stretched off into the distance until it dropped off the edge of the world. The lake was as far as she got, for when she noticed it, she observed the woman sitting beside it. She stood out because of her red hair, a beacon against the dark water. It was strung in two braids that hung long down to the middle of her back. She was staring at Brielle, her green eyes matched the green around her.
Before she knew she was really doing it, she began to step toward this person. Brielle hadn't known what she had expected to see when she entered a different Realm. She had expected to see a place she had never seen before - that had happened. What she hadn't counted on was a humanoid creature that looked to be so much like herself.
