THE ALPINE PATH
The wind rustled through the trees on the cool autumn night causing a slight whistling sound that was accompanied by the faint sounds of leaves crunching under foot in the distance. The shadows cast by the dim moonlight slithered and slid, snakelike, across the rarely traveled Alpine Path.
Nathan had been warned that the path was a dangerous place at night, but he had been planning this hiking trip for weeks. He wasn’t going to give up on it just because he had gotten caught in traffic on the way there. He stepped out of his black Subaru and relished in the cool breeze that washed over him. He hadn’t been out of the city in months. He needed this time away from the constant blaring horns and the ceaseless insanity that comes with an urban environment.
“Beautiful”, he remarked as he closed his car door behind him and stepped out into the wilderness. He felt a weight lift from his shoulders as he left all of his technology behind and walked out into the dense forested area that lay in front of him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was “unplugged”, so to speak. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath in. He felt free and unburdened in this new place. The Alpine Path was a hiking trail just outside of Candun City. It was widely overlooked by most people who chose to do their hiking on a treadmill instead of out in the real world. Nathan had been one of those people for so long, but his recent work related stress and his over all disillusion with life made him realize some time away from the rat race was necessary. He had heard about the trail from a old college room mate that he had run into outside of a bar a few days ago. Nathan was told the trail was long and difficult to traverse, but what lies at the end was beyond worth the work to get there. As mysterious as this description was, Nathan couldn’t help but be enticed. He imagined a beautiful mountain overlooking a glorious waterfall, or a natural untouched butterfly sanctuary, or a number of other incredible sights. He assumed his imagination would ultimately lead to his disappointment upon arriving at the end of the trail, but he decided anything real was worth it. He grabbed his backpack out of the backseat of his car and made sure he had plenty of water. He didn’t know how long the trail was, but he would rather be prepared for a long haul just in case. He took one last look back at his car and saw his phone lighting up in the passenger seat. The screen read “work”. He chose to ignore it and instead began his trek through the wilderness along the Alpine Path.
Nathan had been walking for what seemed like hours. His legs burned and his feet lunged forward taking steps like shaggy in those old Scooby Doo cartoons. He felt exhausted, but at the same time the idea of the possible sanctuary that lie ahead kept his body moving. The sun was beginning to drop further below the horizon and Nathan knew that soon he would be encompassed in a dark and dangerous wilderness, yet he kept marching forward. It was almost like he was being drawn to something. Pulled towards a destination that had been embedded in his mind by someone he hadn’t seen in nearly fifteen years. The idea of it was insane, but that didn’t keep Nathan from walking onward. Even as he thought of how crazy this all was, he kept going. Even as he thought of turning back he did not stop moving forward.
“It can’t be much further now”, he repeated aloud for the fifteenth time. That’s not counting all the times he had thought it to himself.
The moonlit path ahead of him was even more beautiful than he had imagined. Rocks glistened, reflecting what little light remained outwards and sparkling like stars.
“I can’t turn back now”, he said to himself, “just look at this place.”
The sentence was barely out of his mouth when a loud crash interrupted his stride.
“Shit!?” He slapping a hand over his face. He realized that if there was a large animal somewhere out in the trees he needed to be as invisible as possible, and screaming “shit” at a time like this could get him killed. He crouched down low and put his back up against a tree. He sat there listening to the forest for a while with no repeated sounds.
“Maybe it was just a tree falling”, he thought to himself. He began to feel slightly more relaxed as the minutes passed. Remembering that he had a utopia sitting just beyond the path comforted him. He continued his walk, much more alert now of all the noises that surrounded him. The crunching of the leaves beneath him, his labored breathing, the whizzing of mosquitoes as the flew by his ears. Nothing quite as jarring as the initial thud. Crouching low and walking heal to toe, he continued onward. Over the course of the next hour he seemed to relax more and more until his walking was back to normal, or as normals as it could be with the muscle aches he was now feeling.
“It can’t be much further now”, he repeated once more. “maybe I’ll get to see this beautiful sight under a sunrise”.
As his words tapered off he realized he was only speaking aloud to bring himself some comfort. Hearing a voice, even if it was just his own, brought him peace of mind. Realizing this, he suddenly stopped speaking aloud. He refused to take up such a foolish act. So he marched on in silence.
The trail had begun to look less and less beautiful as the night passed on. Nathan’s weary eyes and exhausted limbs began to experience a much different Alpine Path. The leaves that made up the forest floor were covered in mud and worms. The trees were dead and decayed lining the sides of the path. The rocks no longer glistened in the moonlight, in fact, there was barely any moonlight at all. All of his walking and all of his imagining had allowed him to overlook the fact that he had no idea how long he had been there. His compass was still pointed in the right direction. He was still going north and he was still on the path, but the moon no longer hung over head. Instead, when he looked up his eyes were met with a blank, starless, black sky. A void of all the beauty that had been there were hours ago.
“It must be my imagination”, he assured himself. Speaking aloud for the first time in hours.
“Maybe it’s time to turn back. I can try again next weekend when I have more light.” Nathan turned to head back down the trail towards his car, but he noticed something unexpected. His compass didn’t move. He spun in circles for a moment staring at the face of it, but the needle never even budged. It just pointed north no matter which direction he was facing.
“How strange”, he said in a faint whisper, “it’s fine. I’ll just follow the trail.”
As he spoke he heard the overbearing thud again. This time much closer. Panicked, he ran to the nearest tree and grabbed on to it. There he stood, his arms wrapped around the decaying carcass of a leafless birch tree. His eyes closed tight and his breath held within his lungs. Terrified and petrified by the idea that not only was he lost, he was not alone. He could feel eyes on him. Could hear whispers circling around him. His heart was beating hard enough to nearly drown out the other sounds, but not quite. His grip on the tree tightened as he slowly opened his eyes. There was nothing there. His grip relaxed as he began to catch his breath. Suddenly another thud shook the ground. He went back to grab the tree, but fell into the mud. The tree he had just been clinging to for dear life was gone. He looked around panicked and confused. Assuming he had just misjudged his distance to the birch, but upon examination he realized there were no trees near him. He had only taken a couple of steps away from the tree. He couldn’t have misjudged by that far. Another thud rocked him from this thought. He jumped to his feet and began sprinting down the trail. The thuds were coming more frequently. And each one was louder than the last. Whatever it was it was moving fast, and it was coming straight for him. He dodged between trees on the path and jumped over fallen logs. His backpack snagged on a branch and he yanked it off leaving it behind.
“The path is a dangerous place at night”, Nathan repeated in his head over and over again. Cursing himself for not heading that warning. He could have waited until morning. Or he could be jogging on a treadmill right now. As he jumped and dodged and zipped through the forest, he looked back for one single second to see what was chasing him. In that instance he felt the breath leave his body. His chest throbbed in pain. His arms and legs were burning from his struggle. He turned his head to see that he had run face first into a tree in the dead center of the path. He couldn’t breath, much less think. But he knew that tree had not been there before. Which meant either he was going in the wrong direction, or the tree had moved. He fell slowly to the ground writhing in pain. His face met the forest floor with a slight impact, but as soon as it did Nathan could feel it. Like tendrils moving around below the dirt he could feel the forest floor shifting. He placed his hands on the ground to lift himself up when the roots of the trees bursted through the ground and slithered around his wrists. He struggled, but couldn’t break free. The same happened shortly with his ankles. The roots then lifted him off of the ground and suspended him in the air as a vine fell from.
“Beautiful”, he heard a deep voice echo from somewhere beyond his line of sight. Suddenly, the branches dropped him. And all he could hear was the sound of the vine snapping his neck.