Chapter 3 - Autumn
My legs don't start shaking until I'm completely out of sight of the garage.
Then they turn to jelly.
I have to grab onto a tree trunk to keep myself upright, my breath coming in short gasps that have nothing to do with exertion. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat, in my fingertips, in my temples.
"Holy shit," I whisper to the empty forest. "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit."
He's enormous. I knew that from yesterday, but somehow in the daylight, in that garage with his shirt soaked through with sweat and his muscles moving under scarred skin as he worked, the reality of his size hit me all over again. He could have snapped me in half without breaking a sweat.
And I just walked right up to him. Brought him snacks. Made him share an orange with me like we were friends.
What is wrong with me?
But even as my survival instinct screams that I'm an idiot, another part of me, the part that's been driving my whole life, the part that never learned to be satisfied with safe and ordinary, is thrilled.
He talked to me. Actually talked to me, told me things about himself. Not much, barely anything really, but more than yesterday's growled threats and demands that I leave.
"Two years," I say out loud, testing the words. Two years of teaching himself blacksmithing in a garage he built himself on a mountain where no one would bother him. Two years of making beautiful things in complete isolation.
What was he doing the three years before that? He said he's been up here five years total. What does someone do alone on a mountain for three years before deciding to become a blacksmith?
And what brought him here in the first place?
The questions chase each other through my mind as I start walking again, following the trail back toward town. My legs have mostly stopped shaking, but my heart rate hasn't quite normalized.
I can't believe I deleted that footage. I never delete footage. Every moment is potential content, potential story, potential connection with my followers. But the words came out of his mouth—*delete whatever footage you just took*—and I'd done it without thinking twice.
Something about him made me want to protect him, even from myself.
I pull out my phone as I walk, checking the battery. Seventy-three percent, and still no service. Won't get bars until I'm at least another mile down the mountain.
The smart thing would be to head straight back to town. Edit yesterday's footage, the parts I kept, anyway. Plan out the rest of the week's content. Check in with my mom, who's probably already texted me fifteen times asking if I'm alive.
But when I reach the fork on the trail, I stop. The left path leads back to town. Two hours, maybe less, all downhill.
The right path leads deeper into the mountains, following a ridge line I haven't explored yet. According to the map I studied last night at the ranger station, it eventually loops back around to connect with the main trail, but it's longer. More isolated.
Better views, though. Better content.
And if I'm honest with myself, I'm not ready to go back yet. Not ready to return to civilization and the version of myself that has to answer questions and be responsible.
Up here, I'm just Autumn. Not Auty the travel vlogger, not the daughter my father doesn't understand, not the chubby girl who made peace with herself after years of struggling. Just me, the mountain, and the trail ahead.
I turn right.
The trail is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. The kind of scenery that makes my chest ache with the vastness of it all.
I'm filming as I walk, narrating the landscape. "So, this is the Ridgeline Trail, which literally no one talks about. Everyone goes to the falls, which, don't get me wrong, are gorgeous, but this? This is where you come if you want the mountain all to yourself."
The path winds along the ridge, offering sweeping views of the valley below. I can see Blackwater Falls from here, the town looking like a toy village tucked into the trees. Beyond it, more mountains roll away to the horizon in shades of blue and purple.
"The elevation gain isn't too bad," I continue, slightly breathless as I climb over a rocky outcropping. "Maybe fifteen hundred feet total? But it's spread out over—"
Thunder rumbles in the distance.
I pause, looking up. The sky has changed since I started this trail an hour ago. What was bright blue and scattered with friendly white clouds is now gray and churning.
"Okay, that's not ideal," I tell the camera. "But I've got rain gear, and I'm not that far from the loop that heads back down. Should be fine."
Famous last words.
The rain starts ten minutes later. Not gradually, not a gentle warning sprinkle. One moment I'm dry, the next I'm being pelted by drops the size of quarters.
"Shit!" I fumble for my pack, trying to get to my rain jacket. The camera is getting soaked. I quickly zip it into the waterproof pocket and yank on my jacket, pulling the hood tight.
But the rain just keeps coming. Harder, heavier, until it's a solid sheet of water pouring from the sky.
The trail, which was clear and obvious five minutes ago, is already turning into a stream. Water rushes downhill, turning dirt to mud, making the rocks slippery and treacherous.
I keep walking because stopping seems worse. My boots squelch with every step, water seeping in through the laces. The jacket keeps my torso mostly dry, but my pants are soaked through, heavy and clinging to my legs.
Thunder cracks overhead, close enough that I feel it in my chest.
"This is bad," I mutter. "This is really bad."
I should have turned back when I saw the clouds. Should have headed straight to town this morning instead of visiting him. Should have stayed on the main trail instead of getting ambitious.
The visibility is getting worse. The rain is so thick I can barely see ten feet ahead. I'm following what I think is the trail, but it's getting harder to tell. Everything looks the same—gray water, dark trees, slick rocks.
My foot catches on a root I don't see and I go down hard, hands shooting out to catch myself. Pain flares through my palms as they scrape against stone. My knee hits something sharp.
"Fuck!" The word comes out as a sob.
I push myself up, rain streaming down my face, and try to orient myself. The trail should be right here. It was just here a second ago.
But I can't find it.
I turn in a slow circle, panic rising in my throat. Trees, rocks, rain. No clear path. No markers. Nothing I recognize.
How did I lose the trail? How is that even possible?
Thunder booms again, and lightning flashes, illuminating the forest in stark white for half a second. Not long enough to see anything useful, just long enough to realize how completely alone I am.
"Okay," I say out loud, trying to steady my breathing. "Okay, it's fine. The trail is here somewhere. I just need to calm down."
But looking is impossible in this downpour. I pick a direction that feels right and start walking, hoping I'll intersect with the trail again.
Five minutes later, I'm more lost than before.
The rain has turned the whole mountain into a waterfall. Streams that didn't exist an hour ago are rushing past my feet, carving new channels through the earth. My jacket is failing. Water drips down my collar, soaks through my shoulders.
I'm shivering now. Not just from cold but from fear. I pull out my phone with numb fingers, praying for a signal, but nothing. Just the emergency SOS option glowing at the top of the screen.
Should I use it? Call for rescue because I'm an idiot who got herself lost? I hesitate. Search and rescue is for real emergencies. Life or death situations. I'm just wet and lost and scared. I can still figure this one out.
Another bolt of lightning, this one striking close enough that I can smell the ozone. The thunder is instantaneous, deafening.
I need shelter. Right now. Before I get struck by lightning or succumb to hypothermia or fall off a cliff I can't see.
"Help!" I shout into the storm. My voice sounds small, pathetic, swallowed by the rain. "Someone help!"
Nothing. Just the roar of water and wind.
"HELP!" I scream louder, cupping my hands around my mouth. "PLEASE! SOMEONE!"
My throat is raw. Rain fills my mouth when I open it to yell again.
This is how people die in the mountains. I know this. I've read the stories, seen the statistics. Experienced hikers who made one wrong turn, one bad decision, and never made it home.
I can't be one of those stories.
I stumble forward, hands out in front of me, trying to find anything that could serve as shelter. A rocky overhang, a thick cluster of trees, anything.
My foot comes down on nothing.
The ground disappears and I'm falling, sliding down a slope I couldn't see, unable to stop. Branches whip at my face. My pack catches on something and jerks me sideways. I tumble, roll, slam into a tree trunk hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
For a moment, I just lie there in the mud, gasping for air, pain radiating through my ribs. Everything hurts. My hands, my knee, my side, my face. I can taste blood where I bit my tongue.
I need to get up, but I'm so tired. So cold. The rain is relentless, pounding down on me like fists. Maybe if I just rest for a minute. Just catch my breath.
No. That's what people think before they die of exposure. Rest is death.
I force myself to my hands and knees, then to my feet. My ankle protests but holds my weight. Not broken, just twisted. My ribs scream when I breathe deep, but I can breathe.
Nothing's broken. I'm hurt but functional.
"HELP!" I try again, but my voice cracks. I don't think I'm shouting anymore so much as crying. "Please, somebody! HELP!"
The forest swallows my words.
I need to move. Pick a direction and commit to it. Staying in one place means dying here. Downhill. Water flows downhill, and eventually water reaches civilization. That's basic survival knowledge.
I start walking in what I think is downhill, but the terrain is so chaotic I can't tell anymore. My foot slips and I catch myself against a tree. Take another step. Another.
The cold is seeping deeper now, into my bones, into my core. My fingers are so numb I can barely flex them. My jaw aches from clenching it to keep my teeth from chattering.
"Help," I whisper, because it's all I have left. "Please."
Lightning flashes again, and in that split second of illumination I see it, a darker shape among the trees. Something man-made. Straight lines where nature makes curves.
Building? Shelter? Hallucination? I stagger toward it, hope and desperation giving me strength I didn't know I had left.
It's a structure. Small, barely more than a shed, but definitely man-made. Some kind of old ranger outpost maybe, or hunter's shelter. The door is swollen with moisture, stuck. I throw my shoulder against it and it gives with a shriek of wood on wood.
Inside is dark and musty but blessedly dry. I collapse just past the threshold, water pooling around me, and let the door swing shut against the storm.
For a long moment I just lie there, shaking violently, trying to remember how to function.
Phone. I need my phone.
I dig it out with clumsy fingers. Still no signal, but the battery is at sixty percent. The waterproof case did its job. I pull up my GPS, waiting for it to load.
When it does, my stomach drops. I'm miles from where I thought I was. Miles from the Ridgeline Trail, from the main paths, from anything marked on the map.
I'm in the middle of nowhere, in a structure that probably no one knows exists, with a storm raging outside and the temperature dropping.
The shaking is getting worse. I need to get out of these wet clothes, need to get warm, but I have nothing dry in my pack. My emergency blanket is there, but it's designed to reflect heat, not generate it, and I'm not generating any heat to reflect.
This is really, really bad.
I curl into a ball on the floor, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to preserve whatever warmth is left in my core.
The rational part of my brain knows I should activate the SOS on my phone. This is an emergency. This is exactly what that function is for.
But my fingers won't cooperate. They're too cold, too numb. Everything is starting to blur at the edges. The shaking is subsiding, which I know is a bad sign. Your body stops shivering when it doesn't have energy left to burn.
I'm so tired.
"Mom," I whisper into the darkness. "I'm sorry."
Outside, the storm rages on.
Inside, I close my eyes.
Somewhere in the distance, I think I hear something. A sound that doesn't belong to the storm. A voice, maybe?
Or maybe it's just wishful thinking as everything fades to black.
The last thing I'm aware of is warmth. Sudden and overwhelming, like standing too close to a bonfire. And a smell that cuts through the rain and cold and fear.
Pine and smoke and musky.
Him.
But that can't be right.
Can it?