I slam my car door. Anger. I walk through a small winding path. Going to this national park helps me think. The trees stir in a pattern from the wind. Everything is clean here; it’s unblemished and pure even. It’s cloudy, but hot. Lush overgrowth lines the forest path. There seems to be no one here. Strange, I think to myself, maybe it’s too hot for most. The heat doesn’t help my outrage. I focus on the surface floor of the forest while I walk exhaling heavily through my mouth. I’m trying not to trip on the roots. It seems like an hour or more has passed me by when I arrive in a clearing. I let out a deep breath, the clouds are now overcast, light raindrops dot my face. Damn, I should’ve checked the forecast before I came out. I look forward again. Someone in the far distance is approaching me. Peculiar, it’s wearing a hoodie, in this heat? Curiouser, it’s carrying something in its hand. I get a sickening jolt of fear and decide to return to my car, but wait, there are two paths, I didn’t notice it when I came out into the clearing. Left, or right? They seem so similar, I’ll go left. I was walking for so long, if this was the wrong way, I wouldn’t know it until too late. I stop walking and think, where am I? Just then, I hear footsteps behind me, so I hide behind some brush to the right within the thicket. The hooded figure walks by, is that a rabbit mask? Erie, it looks deformed. He holds a curved paint scraper. It looks sharper than it needs to be. He walks down the path and out of site. I must be out of my mind. I emerge from the foliage and walk in the opposite direction from the masked person. As I walk away, I hear slight shuffling, then I feel a searing pain on my right shoulder. I whip around and slam my arm into the attacker. It was the hooded figure. He loses his footing and tumbles off the path into a small gulch on the opposite side of the thicket. I feel for the weapon, it isn’t there, so I run back to the clearing and to the other path. I then see a map sticking up from the ground telling me where I am, there’s a rangers’ station. I run to where it’s marked. There’s no path linking it to where I am now, so I go through the forest. The tall grass slows me down, resisting my every move like tiny fingers pulling me towards the grave. The heat is still present, with the light rain it turns humid. I feel sticky, from sweat and my own blood. My adrenaline soars and I start to not notice the discomforts. I look at where my feet are going, don’t want to trip and fall. I barely look up in time to run directly into a tree, I stumble, then resume. I need to keep an eye out everywhere. Is he still following me? Is it a she? Who is it? I may never know. I leap across a tiny creek and misplace my foot on a rock, I recover. My breathing is heavy. There, I see the station, next to it is a metal lookout tower, possibly to keep an eye out for wildfires. Doesn’t matter, I’m nearing the station. I burst through the door. There’s a body on the floor, I see a hand, blood had seeped under the desk onto the wooden floor. Seems recent. I grab the radio—dead. Wait, my cellphone, of course! No reception, maybe the tower? I race outside and up its stairs. A clanking sounds each step I take. How many more flights? 5, 6, 7? I’m almost there, soon—soon. I reach the top, 911 is dialed on my phone, service at last. I make my desperate call and they answer, I’m saved, or am I? What’s that noise? Someone is racing up those same steps, I look into the lookout tower office, just a radio and a chair. It’s coming. Closer, closer, closer, here… He waves his weapon and he tells me I’m his, I think it’s a man. I tell him he can’t have me, and that I won’t be taken. He says I don’t have a choice. I tell him I have two. Stay, or jump… I choose the latter. I topple over backwards. My choice, still as pure as this forest. Why was I angry when I came here? I don’t know, but I’m at peace now, I see blue lights in the far off distance, flashing. Good. But I’m close now. Bound for a place out of this world. Closer, closer, closer, there…