"The Watcher on Mt. Stringer":
It was a beautiful summer evening in North Carolina, the kind where the golden light lingers just a little longer and the air is warm but soft with the promise of cooler mountain air. I was leading a group of eight middle school kids on a week-long camping trip as part of an outdoor adventure program. Our destination that night was the summit of Mt. Stringer, a quiet, lesser-known peak nestled deep in the western part of the state. The hike had taken most of the afternoon—steep inclines, uneven switchbacks, and rocky outcroppings that challenged even the more athletic kids—but they were tougher than they looked. They grumbled, sure, but they didn’t quit. I was proud of them for that.
We reached the top just as the sun was dipping below the ridgeline, casting everything in deep orange and pink hues. The sky seemed to burn, the clouds streaked with crimson light, and the view stretched for miles—layers upon layers of forested hills rolling away into the haze, like a vast green ocean frozen in time. There was no cell service up here, no hum of cars or power lines, just the whispering wind and the excited chatter of kids who had earned their view. It felt like we were standing on the edge of the world.
We set up camp in a clearing just below the summit, ringed by firs and thick underbrush. There were five tents in all—two for the boys, two for the girls, and one for me and my co-instructor, Sarah. She and I had worked together on a few trips before, and she was calm, dependable, and had a great way with the kids. After pitching the tents and settling in, we built a small fire in a stone ring left by other hikers. Dinner was simple: fire-roasted hot dogs, followed by the inevitable, gooey mess of s’mores. The kids were loud, telling stories and laughing, mouths sticky with marshmallow and chocolate, but that kind of joy is contagious, and we didn’t mind.
As darkness fell, the forest grew quiet again. One by one, the kids yawned and drifted off to their tents. Sarah and I made the rounds, checking zippers, handing out extra socks, making sure everyone had water nearby. By the time the camp was silent, it was close to 10 p.m. Sarah said she was heading to bed, and I told her I’d stay up a little longer. I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the peace yet.
The sky was unbelievably clear, the stars like pinpricks punched through black velvet. A full moon hung over the mountains, glowing bright enough to cast shadows. It was almost like daytime, but quieter, more still. I slung my hammock between two trees a little ways off from the tents, close enough to hear if anyone needed me, but far enough that I could enjoy a bit of solitude. I pulled out my flashlight and my paperback thriller, something about a detective tracking a killer through the woods—maybe not the best choice, in hindsight.
The hammock swayed gently as I read, cocooned in the sounds of the night—crickets, owls, the distant cry of a fox. The scent of pine needles and faint smoke lingered in the air. It was peaceful in a way that made the rest of the world feel distant and unreal. I stayed like that for over an hour, flipping pages, until my eyes started getting heavy.
Around 10:30 p.m., I switched off my headlamp and nestled deeper into the hammock, letting the moonlight wash over me. I had just closed my eyes when something on the trail below caught my attention. Movement. A figure.
At first, I assumed it was an animal—maybe a deer or a bear. Black bears are common in this area, and I mentally rehearsed what I’d do if one wandered too close. I sat up slowly, watching carefully. But the way it moved wasn’t right for an animal. It was too upright. Too slow and deliberate.
As it came closer, I realized it was a man. Alone. Walking up the steep trail in the dark. He wasn’t carrying a flashlight or wearing reflective gear—just a dark silhouette slowly ascending the last incline toward the summit. The moonlight glinted faintly off his shoulders, revealing that he had no backpack, no visible supplies. Just clothes and boots, like someone out for a stroll. But this wasn’t a place you casually strolled to—not at this hour, not without gear.
I stayed perfectly still, barely breathing, as he reached the top and came to a stop. He stood motionless, looking in our direction. From my spot in the hammock, tucked in shadow, I had a clear view of the clearing and the tents. He had one too.
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just stood there.
Every instinct in me tensed. The forest, so welcoming moments ago, suddenly felt vast and vulnerable. I strained my eyes to make out more, but the details were lost in the dark. He was just a dark shape against silver moonlight, but I could feel his attention fixed on us, like a weight pressing against my chest.
After several minutes, he turned and walked slowly to a large pine tree near the edge of our clearing and sat down, his back against the trunk, legs stretched out in front of him. He was still facing the tents.
I felt a rising dread that I couldn’t shake. I knew this wasn’t normal. Hikers don’t appear out of nowhere in the middle of the night, climb to remote summits without gear, and sit watching a group of sleeping kids. My first thought was to wake Sarah, but I hesitated. If I left, he might get closer. Or worse, do something before I could get back. I didn’t want to spook him—or make a mistake I couldn’t take back. So I waited.
The minutes crawled by like hours. The air turned colder. I pulled my sleeping bag tighter around me, but it wasn’t the cold that made me shiver. He didn’t move. Didn’t sleep. Just sat there like some ancient statue, staring in silence. My mind started spiraling with possibilities. Was he lost? On drugs? Mentally ill? Or was it something darker?
At one point I gripped the handle of my tiny pocket knife and realized how utterly useless it felt. I imagined confronting him, imagined him standing up, imagined what he might say—or do. None of the outcomes were good. My heart thudded in my chest for hours, every leaf rustle sending a jolt through me.
Then, just after 3:00 a.m., he stirred. Slowly, like something waking from a long sleep, he stood and stretched his arms wide, his silhouette stark against the pale glow. For a second, he looked straight toward me—or maybe just the tents behind me—and took two slow steps in our direction.
I froze.
But then, without a word or sound, he turned and walked away, back down the trail the same way he had come. His form gradually melted into the trees, swallowed by the darkness. I didn’t hear a single footstep.
Even then, I didn’t sleep. Not a wink. I lay there, wide-eyed, scanning the edge of the forest until the sky began to lighten. When the sun finally rose, I felt like I had survived something I couldn’t name.
When Sarah emerged from her tent, stretching and yawning, I told her everything. Her face changed in an instant, concern hardening into something like anger. “You should have woken me,” she said.
“I didn’t want to panic you,” I told her, my voice rough. “I wasn’t sure what it was.”
“We can’t take chances like that,” she said. “Not with the kids.”
She was right. We agreed right there to take shifts the next night, just in case. We didn’t tell the kids—there was no need to scare them unless something actually happened—but I could tell I wasn’t the only one feeling off. The kids were more subdued that morning, as if the mountain itself had whispered something unsettling into their dreams.
On our last morning, as we broke camp, one of the boys came up to me holding something in his hand. “Hey, look what I found,” he said, grinning.
It was a small wooden carving, about five inches tall, shaped like a faceless person—no eyes, no mouth, no features at all. Just a blank head on a crude, human-shaped body. The surface was rough, like it had been carved with a knife, maybe even recently.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“Over by that tree,” he said, pointing—to the same tree where the man had sat.
A cold pulse of fear went through me, like ice trickling down my spine. I turned the figure over in my hand. It felt heavy despite its size. Primitive. Wrong, somehow.
I told the boy it was probably just something another camper had left behind, thanked him, and tucked it into my pack without saying anything more. But the unease lingered. As we hiked back down the mountain, I found myself checking behind us more than once, convinced I might catch a glimpse of that same dark figure watching from the trees.
We made it home without incident. But even now, years later, I still have that carved figure tucked in a box at the back of a drawer. I’ve thought about throwing it away, but something stops me every time. Maybe I want the reminder. Or maybe, deep down, I’m still trying to understand what happened that night—what I saw, who he was, and what his presence meant. I don’t think I’ll ever have those answers. But I’ll never forget that feeling, either.
The feeling of being watched in the middle of the wilderness, and knowing—without a doubt—that whoever was out there didn’t come in peace.
"Into the Pines: A Night of Fire and Fear in Manistee":
It was early June, the air just starting to warm and the trees thick with new green. My friends and I had been planning a getaway for weeks—something off the grid, something that would let us disconnect from the noise of city life. The destination we chose was Manistee National Forest in northern Michigan, a stretch of rugged wilderness with rivers, deep woods, and plenty of isolation. We were chasing solitude—just us, the river, and miles of untouched forest. We wanted to fish, kayak, and sit around a fire without the sound of car engines or cell phones breaking the silence.
There were four of us: me, my longtime friend Tom, his girlfriend Sarah, and our buddy Mike. Tom had a reliable old F-150 that we loaded with all our gear—tents, sleeping bags, cooking supplies, portable coolers packed with food and drinks, and our kayaks strapped tightly on top. We brought extra propane tanks, water jugs, and even a small solar-powered lantern in case our flashlights gave out. We'd done trips like this before, but this time felt different. We were heading farther out, relying on offline maps and our instincts to guide us to a spot few people knew about.
The drive from Chicago took about six hours, winding north through farmland that slowly gave way to denser woods. Cell reception grew spottier the farther we went, and that was exactly what we wanted. As we crossed into the national forest, the paved roads turned to gravel and then to dirt, narrow and rutted, the forest pressing in close on both sides. We had to drive slowly, dodging branches and potholes, but eventually we came to a clearing near the river that looked like something out of a dream.
Tom pulled the truck into a small flat area shaded by tall pines. The river glimmered just beyond the tree line, wide and slow-moving, its surface broken occasionally by fish jumping or a breeze rustling across it. The air was thick with the smell of pine needles and fresh water. The ground was soft but not soggy, ideal for pitching tents. A blackened ring of rocks near the river indicated a fire pit used by campers before us.
“This is perfect,” Tom said as he cut the engine. He opened his door and stepped out, stretching. “Look at that view.”
We all stood there for a moment, taking it in—the ripple of water against the banks, the sound of wind through the trees, and the distant trill of birds calling across the canopy. It felt untouched, sacred even. No other cars, no trailheads, no signs. Just forest and river.
We unloaded the truck, making a small base camp with the two tents spaced out for a bit of privacy. Mike and I worked quickly to get the tents up while Tom and Sarah gathered dry wood from nearby. I could hear them laughing as they broke off dead branches and carried armloads back. By the time we had the tents staked and our gear organized, the sun was sinking low, turning the sky a soft orange and casting long shadows across the forest floor.
We built a fire and cooked dinner—thick steaks grilled over open flame, foil-wrapped potatoes roasted in the coals, and corn on the cob that we basted with butter. We passed around beers and paper plates, eating hungrily after the long drive and all the setup. The meal tasted better than anything you’d find in a restaurant, made richer by the setting and the shared effort.
As night settled over the forest, the fire crackled louder in the stillness. One by one, the stars blinked into view, until the sky was flooded with them. Without city lights to wash them out, we could see the Milky Way stretching from horizon to horizon, a hazy ribbon of stars like smoke drifting through the sky. Sarah lay back on a blanket, her head resting on Tom’s chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many stars,” she whispered.
We lay there for over an hour, pointing out constellations, debating whether one streak of light was a shooting star or a satellite. The sounds of the forest at night—crickets, frogs, the occasional rustle of something small in the underbrush—felt comforting. Everything was peaceful. No one had looked at their phones in hours.
Eventually, the fire began to die down. We doused it carefully with water, stirring the ashes until we were certain no embers remained. Tom and Sarah zipped into one tent, Mike and I into the other. I lay on my back in the sleeping bag, tired and content. The ground was cool beneath the tent floor, but not uncomfortable. I could hear the river flowing softly in the distance and the last few pops of firewood settling.
At some point in the night, I woke up. No dream, no movement—just a strange feeling that something was… off. The air felt heavy, still. I blinked in the darkness, unsure what had roused me, until I heard it—a low, rhythmic sound, faint but distinct. Chanting. It was distant, almost carried on the wind, but the tone was unmistakable. It was human, ritualistic, and getting louder.
I sat up and strained to listen. The pattern was deliberate, voices rising and falling in unison. Then I noticed a faint orange glow filtering through the tent fabric. My stomach clenched. I crawled over to the zipper and eased it open just enough to look out.
Across the river, maybe 300 yards away, a large wooden cross burned with intense flames. The fire climbed high, sparks drifting upward into the dark. Figures moved around it—shadowy, indistinct—but unmistakably human. The chanting continued, louder now, joined by the occasional hoot or shout. My mind tried to rationalize what I was seeing, but there was no mistaking it. A burning cross. A rally. The Ku Klux Klan.
“Mike,” I hissed, shaking him. “Mike, wake up.”
He groaned, disoriented. “What’s going on?”
“Get up. Look outside.”
He leaned over and peered through the flap. His breath caught. “Is that a cross?” he whispered.
“Yeah. A big one. And there’s people around it. They’re chanting.”
Then came the sound that made my blood run cold—gunshots. Not a single shot, but several, in quick succession. It echoed across the water, sharp and violent. We both ducked instinctively, hearts racing.
“They’re shooting,” Mike said, his voice tight with fear. “What the hell is happening?”
“We need to get out of here.” I scrambled out of the tent and jogged to Tom and Sarah’s. I shook the tent and whispered urgently, “Tom, Sarah—wake up. Now. Something’s going on across the river.”
Tom’s groggy face appeared. “What’s the matter?”
“There’s a cross burning. People chanting. They’re shooting guns.”
Sarah sat up beside him. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. We have to go. Now.”
We didn’t take time to pack. Just grabbed the essentials—wallets, phones, keys. We left the tents, the cooler, even the kayaks behind. The four of us moved quickly but quietly through the dark, every crack of a twig underfoot feeling like a gunshot. The chanting and gunfire continued across the water, muffled slightly by the trees but still terrifying.
Tom got the truck started on the first try, and we pulled out onto the dirt road, headlights carving a narrow path through the woods. Nobody spoke for a while. I kept checking the rearview mirror, expecting headlights or something worse to appear behind us. But nothing did.
An hour later, we reached a small town with a gas station and a 24-hour diner. We parked and went inside, still dazed. The fluorescent lights and clatter of dishes felt surreal after what we’d just experienced. We ordered coffee and sat in silence for a few minutes before anyone spoke.
“I can’t believe we stumbled onto a Klan rally,” Sarah finally said, staring into her mug.
“I thought that kind of thing was ancient history,” I said. “Like… something from the '60s. Not in the middle of the forest in Michigan.”
Mike shook his head slowly. “Apparently it’s not. And we were way too close for comfort.”
Tom exhaled hard. “If they’d known we were there…”
We all knew what he meant. There was no need to finish the sentence.
After calming down and finishing our coffee, we found a small motel and booked two rooms for the night. None of us slept well. I kept waking up, heart racing, replaying the sounds of that night—those voices, the fire, the gunshots.
The next morning, under gray skies and with a sense of dread, we drove back to retrieve our gear. We approached cautiously, half-expecting to find damage, or worse. But the area across the river was deserted. No cross, no figures, no sound. Just trees and the flowing river. It was as if the night before had never happened.
Our camp was untouched. Tents still pitched, coolers unopened. We packed everything quickly and left, glancing over our shoulders more than once.
Even now, I think about that night sometimes. The way something so peaceful can flip into something so dangerous, so quickly. It was a sobering reminder that the wilderness isn’t just home to bears and coyotes. Sometimes the real threats are human, and they’re much harder to predict. That night in Manistee changed the way I think about the woods. I still camp, still love the outdoors, but I always stay more alert. Because no matter how remote or serene a place may seem, you never really know what—or who—is out there.
"The Boy in the Dark":
It happened back in 2004, when I was camping with my buddy Jake in the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas. We were just looking for a quiet weekend away from everything—no cell phones, no traffic, no obligations. Just us, a couple of sleeping bags, and the kind of silence you don’t realize you’ve missed until you’re out in the middle of it. But what we ended up with was something else entirely—an experience that would leave a deep mark on both of us. No ghosts, no monsters. Just something real, something human. And somehow, that made it scarier. I’ll tell it like it happened, every moment, every sound, every sick twist in my gut, so you can feel it like I did.
The Ozarks were everything we hoped for—rolling hills blanketed with oaks and hickories, hidden waterfalls, and that thick, green quiet that settles around you once you’re miles from the nearest road. We found a spot off an old forest service trail near a little stream, a clearing not more than twenty feet across, just enough space for the tent, a fire ring someone had built with river stones, and a couple of fallen logs we used as benches. There were no other campers anywhere nearby—at least none that we saw. The nearest ranger station was almost an hour’s drive back down the winding gravel road, and we hadn’t seen another car since we'd turned off the highway.
The day was perfect. We hiked, fished a little, and mostly just talked—reminisced about college, caught up on life, drank cheap beer. Jake had just gone through a rough breakup and needed the headspace. I just needed the quiet. By the time the sun dipped below the ridge and the trees turned black against the orange sky, we were sitting around a crackling fire, eating charred hot dogs off sharpened sticks and letting the cool night settle in. The stars overhead were so bright it felt like they might fall right out of the sky. I remember leaning back and saying, “You ever think about just… not going back?”
Jake chuckled. “Yeah. All the time.”
We talked like that for a while—philosophical, maybe a little buzzed. By ten, we’d zipped ourselves into the tent. I could still hear the stream gurgling nearby, the low drone of crickets, and the occasional rustle of wind through the trees. Everything felt right. Secure. I fell asleep fast, like a rock.
But sometime after 2 a.m., I shot awake. Not groggy, not drifting—just awake, heart pounding like a drumline in my chest. I didn’t know why at first. The tent was still, the forest outside was quiet. Then I heard it—this soft sound, like a tiny whimper. At first, I thought maybe I was dreaming, but then came another sound: a faint, rhythmic patting noise. Like fingers slapping gently against the nylon of the tent.
I held my breath.
The sound came again, and this time I was sure it wasn’t an animal. Raccoons don’t whimper like that. My gut twisted, and I sat up slowly, straining to listen.
“Jake,” I whispered, nudging his shoulder. “Jake. Wake up.”
He stirred, groaning. “What is it?” he mumbled, eyes still closed.
“Shh,” I hissed. “There’s something outside. Listen.”
He blinked and went still, his ears tuning in. Then he heard it too. The soft whimper. The patting. His expression changed immediately—no more sleep in his eyes. Just alert, tense awareness.
“What the hell is that?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” I said. My voice felt thin and dry.
The patting stopped. But the whimpering didn’t. It changed—grew louder. Sadder. More… human.
“Is that… a kid?” Jake said, half-whispered.
“That’s what it sounds like,” I said, feeling ice crawl up my spine.
Jake shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. Out here? In the middle of the goddamn forest?”
We were both frozen. Something about it didn’t sit right—not just the sound, but the wrongness of it. It was like hearing a child’s laughter in an abandoned house. Too innocent for the setting. Too misplaced.
I reached for the flashlight beside my sleeping bag and, with trembling fingers, slowly unzipped the front flap of the tent, just enough to poke the light through.
And there he was.
A tiny boy, maybe three years old, standing barefoot in the cold dirt. He was wearing nothing but a drooping diaper, streaked with mud. His face was pale, cheeks blotchy from crying. His lips trembled. He didn’t say a word, just looked at me with wide, glassy eyes, his little hands stretching toward the tent fabric again.
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed. “It is a kid.”
Jake leaned closer to the flap and saw him too. “What the hell…”
I slowly unzipped the flap all the way and stepped out, the cold biting at my skin through my long johns. The air smelled damp, earthy. The kind of chill that seeps into your bones. But all I could think about was the boy.
“Hey, buddy,” I said softly, crouching down a few feet away. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Where’s your mommy, huh?”
He didn’t answer. Just sobbed louder and waddled toward me with a clumsy, desperate gait. I felt this sudden mix of panic and protectiveness. I wanted to pick him up, shield him from the cold—but something held me back. Because how the hell did a three-year-old end up alone, in a forest like this, in the middle of the night?
“Jake,” I said over my shoulder, “grab my phone. We need to call someone. Now.”
He scrambled inside and came out seconds later, squinting at the screen. “I’ve got one bar. Maybe.”
He dialed and paced, voice tight and shaky. “Yeah, hi—uh, we’re camping in the Ozarks, near… I think near Devil’s Den. There’s a little kid here, toddler age, maybe three. No clothes, just a diaper. We don’t know where he came from.”
I heard the dispatcher’s voice through the phone—calm but urgent.
I called out, “He’s not hurt. Just crying. Scared. Cold.”
Jake relayed it. The dispatcher told us to stay put, keep the boy warm, and not to move.
I ran into the tent and pulled out a blanket, wrapping it around the kid’s tiny shoulders. He was ice cold to the touch. His skin felt damp. He leaned into me, still crying, but a little quieter now.
Then Jake said something that turned my stomach.
“What if his parents aren’t out here?” he whispered. “What if this is… something else?”
I looked at him, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… what if someone left him here?”
The silence that followed was thicker than the night. The woods around us, once peaceful, now felt suffocating. Every snapping twig, every shift of the wind, sounded like someone creeping closer. I scanned the trees with my flashlight, feeling that invisible weight of being watched.
Then, from the darkness, a voice—female, panicked, calling out.
“Tommy! Tommy, where are you!?”
A flashlight beam bobbed through the trees. The voice got closer, frantic and raw with terror.
Jake and I both froze. I didn’t know whether to feel relief or more fear.
“Here!” I called out, standing up with the boy in my arms. “He’s here!”
A woman broke through the underbrush seconds later, breathless, face pale and smeared with tears. She was wearing pajama pants, a hoodie, and no shoes. Her flashlight shook in her hand as she saw us. When she spotted the child, she let out a sob and rushed forward, pulling him out of my arms.
“Oh my God. Tommy. Oh my God, baby, I’m so sorry.” She rocked him back and forth, whispering into his hair.
Jake and I stood back, still tense. Something about it didn’t fully add up. She hadn’t called his name more than once. No mention of a campsite. No flashlight until the last second.
“We called the cops,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “They’re on the way.”
“That’s okay,” she said, brushing tears away. “We’re just over the ridge. I must’ve left the tent unzipped. I woke up and he was gone.”
Jake shot me a look behind her back. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking it too: this didn’t feel right.
A few minutes later, we heard a vehicle crunching along the dirt road nearby. Two deputies showed up with floodlights and radios. They asked for IDs, talked to the woman, looked over the kid. She gave a name, a nearby trailhead, said her boyfriend was asleep when she realized the boy was missing.
After a few minutes of quiet questions and side-eyes, the officers seemed satisfied. “Just keep a better eye on him, ma’am,” one said. “These woods aren’t kind to wanderers.”
She thanked us again, and they escorted her back into the trees.
We got back into our tent, but neither of us even pretended to sleep. We sat up, backs against the nylon wall, flashlight between us, listening.
“That could’ve gone… very differently,” Jake said.
“Yeah,” I said. “It still might’ve.”
The next morning, we saw her across the ridge, breaking down her camp. She waved at us like nothing happened. Just a tired smile, like it had all been some unfortunate mishap. We waved back, but didn’t speak.
We left not long after.
The woods looked the same. Still beautiful. Still quiet. But something had shifted. The edge was there now—subtle, invisible, like a wire pulled taut beneath the leaves. I’ve camped a hundred times since then, but I never forgot that night. The sound of a child crying in the dark. The way fear bloomed in my chest like something alive. And the terrible feeling that not everything in the woods wants to be found.
“Five Feet Down”:
It was late summer when me and a couple of friends set out to canoe the Green River Canyon in Utah. The trip had been planned for months—a break from routine, from noise, from cell signals and endless scrolling. We wanted isolation, silence, and the kind of vast wilderness that makes you feel like time isn’t real anymore. The river gave us all that. For two days we paddled beneath towering red cliffs, with the sun baking our backs during the day and the stars crowding the sky so densely at night it almost felt like they were leaning in to listen.
By the second evening, we found this spot—secluded and dreamlike, a small sandy bank hidden under a bend in the canyon, with beach-like sand and a rock formation shaped like a horseshoe around a natural bowl-shaped pool. The pool looked carved by centuries of water and time. It was about six feet wide and five feet deep, crystal clear and just the right size to slip into and cool off. One edge of it hugged a rock wall that stood about five feet above the water. Smooth and sun-warmed, it felt like a place meant for rest, like nature had sculpted a perfect little hideout just for us.
We pulled our canoes onto the shore and set up camp. The moment our packs hit the ground, we made a beeline for the pool. That first plunge was shocking—the water cooler than the river, like it had been waiting in shadow all day to wake us up. We were laughing, splashing each other, letting the weight of the world slide off. It was the kind of moment you want to press between the pages of your memory and never let fade.
After a while, I climbed up onto the rock wall, perching above the pool with my feet dangling over the edge. Kyle swam toward me, reached up, and I instinctively leaned down to help him out. Our fingers locked, wet skin on wet skin, and I planted my feet to pull. He gave a little kick to boost himself up—but something went wrong. Maybe our hands were too slippery, or maybe I shifted my weight just a little too much. I remember the moment our hands separated like it happened in slow motion—his grip slipping out of mine, his body tilting backward.
Then came the sound. A sharp, sickening crack—like stone meeting bone.
From my vantage point above, it looked like his head had slammed right into the rock wall of the pool. The echo of that impact bounced around the canyon, exaggerated by the stillness, turning it into something monstrous. My breath caught. Everything inside me just… halted.
“Kyle!” I shouted, already scrambling to the edge. There were only bubbles, and then still water. No movement. No response.
Panic surged like a flood, so fast it left me shaking. We were days away from the nearest road, miles from any ranger station. No cell service. No satellite communicator. We were on our own. I shouted again, louder, the kind of sound that claws its way out of your chest and doesn’t care who hears.
Then, finally—after what felt like an eternity—a figure broke the surface. Kyle came up coughing, choking, blinking hard. He had both hands to his face, disoriented, sputtering. I practically dove off the wall into the pool to get to him.
His voice was hoarse, raspy. “I’m okay, I think—I think I just… hit something.”
“Where?” I asked, already checking him over, fingers trembling. “Your head? Are you dizzy? Nauseous? Look at me, man.”
He winced and pointed to his shoulder, his back. “I think it was my shoulder. I don’t know. It happened fast.”
We got him out of the water, laid him on one of the foam pads, and wrapped him in a towel. I watched him closely for the next few hours. Every blink. Every breath. I couldn’t stop imagining what could’ve happened—his head striking the stone, unconscious, slipping below the surface while we froze. If it had been two more seconds, three… If he hadn’t come up.
There was no blood, no obvious swelling on his head, no slurred speech. His shoulder was bruised, and later we’d see the massive purple blotch it turned into, but for now, he seemed… okay. Dazed but coherent. We ran through our wilderness first-aid protocol, not that it offered much comfort. We had ibuprofen, gauze, a half-used roll of tape, and the sinking knowledge that if he started showing signs of internal bleeding or concussion in the middle of the night, we wouldn’t be able to do anything but watch.
That night we didn’t talk much. The fire cracked, and Kyle dozed in his bag while I sat up, my back to a rock, eyes flicking from him to the river and back. My mind kept replaying it. The fall. The sound. The way he didn’t surface at first. I kept imagining an alternate version, one where we never saw him come up. One where I had to dive into that dark water to search for a body, pulling him up only to realize he was too far gone. Out there, no medics, no radio, just canyon walls and silence. I don’t think I slept more than ten minutes that night.
In the morning, Kyle was stiff and sore but alert. He joked that I “almost yeeted him into the void.” We all laughed, but the tension never really left. Something had shifted. We packed up and got back on the water, but our jokes were a little quieter, our paddling more focused. Every time we climbed over rocks or moved around the boat, we checked our footing twice. We didn’t say it out loud, but I think we all understood now—this place, as beautiful as it was, wasn’t just a backdrop for adventure. It was wild, ancient, indifferent. You could vanish here, and the canyon wouldn’t even blink.
Even weeks later, back home with warm beds and strong coffee, I’d close my eyes and hear that sound—the sharp crack of bone against rock, the breathless second after. And I’d remember the way the world can tip sideways in a heartbeat. One slip. One second. That’s all it takes.