The hike

I stood there, paralyzed, he had died. But his body was never found. Yet I was looking at his gravesite, his picture on top. He was smiling, a vibrant contrast to the fear chiseled on his face as he fell.

My knees felt weak suddenly, my vision blurred, and soon I realized I was sobbing. Tears were flowing down my face like a waterfall. I couldn't stop, my knees buckled, and I fell onto my ass. I let my head fall forward as I continued to sob. I don't know if I was quiet, or if I was loud. Then again, I didn't really care much.

I was asked what had happened by the cops 2 weeks before this, before I saw an empty grave, an empty grave with a photo to remember him by. Just a fucking photo. The thought made me cry harder. What if he was forgotten. After I die would he be remembered?

I sobbed more, wailing loudly, holding the grass tightly. I started remembering the climb we had endured, the mountain we hiked.

It was vacation, we wanted to climb and hike up a mountain, I don't know why we decided to do this, neither of us had ever done climbing before, but we decided to tackle a nearby mountain, I forgot the name, and to be honest, I don't want to remember.

We started the hike in the spring, june 1, I left my house at around 9:30 A.M, the sun was shining brightly, the air smelled crisp and clean. My friend was parked in front of my house, waving through the window, I ran up and practically jumped in the car.

He had all the supplies, the water, the food, the snacks, the gas, the tiny tent in case we got lost, and two thin sleeping bags. all in two big backpacks. He drove off quickly, veering down the road, cackling wildly. I was sure he had an extra coffee.

After around 30 minutes, we had arrived at the base of the mountain, It seemed much bigger in person, and my gut twisted. "Alright, let's go, dude!" My friend, threw my backpack at me, I caught it, just in time. I stumbled backwards from the impact, "Ok then!" I responded enthusiastically.

We walked to the mountain, and we looked up, seeing a sign. [Beware, falling rocks and loose holds. Climb at your own risk!] I saw another sign, it showed a sort of map, of what the journey up would look like, Climbing a bit, then hiking, then climbing again. From what it looked there was more hiking than climbing.

It looked like the climbing was for beginners, and that there was only short heights to climb. Which was good, at least for us. "Huh, well this looks easy enough, maybe it'll get harder the further up we go?" I nod, and reply "Maybe, who knows? Guess we will just have to find out."

He grinned and started climbing, I called out "Be careful of loose holds though! Don't wanna get hurt this early do ya?" He merely chuckled in amusement, I grabbed a hold, and another and hoisted myself up a bit, put my foot on another hold, and climbed, Surely you don't need an explanation. When we got to the top, which was only around 20 feet high, I was already half out of breath.

"Shoot, man is this gonna be this hard the entire time?" He chuckled as he looked at me, "Of course! its climbing, did you think it would be easy?" I nodded, "Yeah, I can climb, but its not like I just climb on random stuff, maybe its these backpacks." He chuckled, "Yeah, its the backpacks, don't worry you didn't just randomly gain 20 pounds overnight if that's what you're worried about."

I chuckled, and we kept walking forward, after around an hour, we stopped and rested, we had climbed 4 other ledges, and walked around 2.5 miles in the least, "Oof, dude this is tiring." He said to me, I nodded and took a deep breath in, smelling the oncoming rain, "Shit." I said, he looked at me in confusion, "Woah there dude, why the cursing?" I looked at him, as if he was insane. "Do you not smell the oncoming rain?" He sniffed, and then he grinned.

"What? You scared of a little rain? Scared of a challenge?" I shook my head sighing, "You know rocks and grass, and pretty much everything gets slippery when wet right?" His grin faltered for a moment, then he said, "Ah, who cares? We'll be fine!" I shrug, and offer to keep going, we keep going.

After around 10 minutes, the rain started falling, slow at first, but what we didn't know was that it was about to become much more heavy of rainfall. In another 10 minutes, the rain turns into a pour.. "Well snap, this is sorta bad." I scoff, "What about a little challenge huh?" He grumbles under his breath, I chuckle, "Lets keep going, I want to finish this." He mutters a little bit before sighing, saying "Fine, lets go"

We continue, but then we come across a ledge, but this one was different, it was over a drop, the ground wasn't there and the wall to the right of it, was what you were supposed to climb past it with. My stomach twisted, and my friend cackled. "Some real challenge! CLIMB OR DIE!" I turned to him, he was enjoying this whole thing way too much.

"Hey, it's raining, the rocks are slippery, and down there is literally nothing. that's a 100 foot drop and then at least 300 of rolling down. This isn't safe, this is stupid." He scoffed, "Yeah sure, whatever. You can stay here if you want, but I'm going." I tried to stop him, but at this point, nothing was changing his mind.

I sighed, "Please don't die, dude." he chuckled, saying, "no promises." I watched as he jumped onto the wall, telling me to wish him luck. My stomach swirled with butterflies and bugs of all sorts.

My stomach hurt from the anxiety of it all, and then I heard a scream, "NO NO NO!" He cried as he slipped. I looked at him, all I saw was his face, stained with rain, his eyes wide, mouth open, a scream coming forth. His arms were reaching for the sky. His hair was stuck to his forehead, he screamed and fell out of my view. I ran to the edge of the hike trail.

I never heard him scream past that, and I never heard his body hit the ground, I never saw his body with my flashlight.

I stood up, my knees almost buckling again, I looked at his grave. I took a deep breath and wiped my tears away, I turned around. seeing only one person, they wore something that covered their face and said.

"You're crying again, this happened years ago. You gotta move on."