A Weekend to Remember

An Abrupt Awakening

I awake to the ground briefly shaking, it does this for about a minute. I roll over out of my hammock, trying to rub the exhaustion out of my eyes. I see Alex stumble out of her tent. "What was that" she said, yawing. "I don't know, maybe an earth quake tremor." I say. We live In California and tremors are quite common here. So a small one like that is normal for us. She nods "Yea maybe. Sooo what do you got planned for us today Everett." "I was thinking we could go hike up stream and try to find something cool, like a cave or something"I say. "Alright sure, that sounds fun." we start getting ready for the hike, packing some basic supplies "We're only bringing what we need for the hike. The rest of the bulky supplies is gonna stay back at the camp." I say. "Alright" she says, throwing some water into her pack.
I grab a small med kit, along with a map. I strap my hunting knife to my side and throw my pack onto my pack. "Alex! Are you ready!" I shout, back towards the camp. "Yeah, coming" she says, she make her way to the trail head, where I'm standing. "Alright, lets go" I say "Woo hoo!" She shouts. I let out a laugh and huge smile.

I lead down the trail. For a while its just quiet as we walk. I decide to spark some conversation. "So how'd you sleep last night" I say, back towards Alex "Well other than the onslaught of mosquito's attacking me while I was trying to sleep, yeah slept like a baby." "Told you you should've worn the repellent I packed" "Naw, that makes too much sense." "Haha, for you I guess so" We both laugh, as we hop up onto a rock to rest. "How much further are we gonna go" Alex says to me, as she tries to wrestle a package of crackers open. "I don't know, lets just rest for a bit then I'll decide then" I say, taking a sip of my water. "Alright then" she says, stuffing a cracker into her mouth. I look around through the tree's seeing if I can spot any birds. There were plenty of birds around the other day.

It's strange, the forest is silent. I hear nothing. "Alex" I whisper "what" she says. "Do you hear that" "hear what" "exactly, usually we'd be hearing the birds" We pause for a second in silence. *crack* We hear a stick breaking in the distance ahead of us. Alex goes to say "what is tha-" *Snap*
Alex appears to be hit right in the chest. The force knocks her backwards off the rock. All of a sudden bullets start snapping all around me. I dive behind the rock. Alex is there screaming in agony. Upon closer examination I notice she was hit the shoulder. "Don't worry Alex I'm gonna help you." I say, bullets still flying by, snapping and striking the rock we hide behind. "Now listen, this is gonna hurt try not to move" I say, trying to keep my head down. She nods to me. I pour water on her wound, then rip a piece of cloth off my shirt and wrap it around her shoulder. As I pull it tight, I see her gritting her teeth, holding back her screams of pain. I sit her up against the rock. The bullets still pinging past us. "Are you able to run." I ask her. "Yes, I believe so" she says. "Alright here's the plan" I say, looking into her eyes for reassurance "I'm gonna run up the trail and try to get them to go after me. I need you to run that way back down to the camp. Ill meet you there." I say "Everett are you crazy!" She says to me " Alex please just trust me. I want you to run exactly 3 secs after I do. Do you understand" she nods. My Heart is pounding "3.." My are tunnel vision in the direction I'm gonna run. "2.." My muscles tense up "1.. go".
I run as fast as I can up the trail. I hear the bullets whizzing past my head. I stop for a second behind a tree to look back at Alex. She's gotten up and I see her escaping down the trail like I told her to do. Relief, but now I'm focusing on how I'm gonna get out of here. I take off from the tree I was behind. I'm scared for my life. I run down an embankment that leads to the river and dive in. My pack is too big so I let go of it. I take a huge breath of air and go under. The bullets begin to penetrate the surface of the water.
Just as my lungs are about to explode. The bullets stop. I take a few more seconds then surface. I pull my self up on to the opposite river bank. No more bullets whiz around my head. I'm safe, for now.
Because I had to ditch my pack I'm only left with just my knife. I stand up and start running down the river bank back to camp. I keep repeating "I need to get back to camp, I need to" to my self. As I approach the edge of my camp I hear voices. Not Alex's. I duck down into a bush and peer through to see who's in our camp. I see two men in camo holding large assault rifles. I notice that they both have North Korean flags stitched on they're shoulders "Holy crap, they were right." Instantly remembering the news, and discussing tensions between America and North Korea. I notice one of the men reach into the tent and grab someone by the arm. It's Alex. He starts screaming into her face. I have now idea what he's saying. Finally the soldier seems fed up. He pushes her to the ground and raises his rifle. I don't know what happened next, it must've been instinct. I leaped from the bushes with my knife and shove it into the soldiers back. The soldier screams and drops his gun. Then all of a sudden is pulled back onto the ground. The other soldier that was originally holding Alex puts me in a choke hold. I struggle for air. Then I feel his arm go limp and I'm free from his grip. I'm knelt down trying to catch my breath, then I turn around to see Alex standing above the soldier with a rock in her hand. I stand up and run over to her, wrapping my arms around her. "Are you ok?" I ask her. I hear her sob "yes, are you?" "Yeah, I'm fine" I say "Now lets get out of here." Alex grabs some water and throws it into her pack. I lean over the dead solider that I had killed with my knife. The knife still sticks out from his back. Its too much for me to bear for me to pull it lose. So I grab the one thats strapped to his leg in a sheath. Then I see he has a pistol on his side. I carefully take it off of the body and slide it into the back of my pants. "What are you doing with that" Alex says, pointing to the gun. "I'm taking it just in case" "In case of what!" she snaps. "You saw what happened back there on the trail, for Christ sakes look at you. Your shot. I'm not gonna take any risks" I can still feel my heart pounding and the adrenaline pumping through my body. "okay, I guess so. Just be careful with the damn thing." We finish grabbing basic supplies, water food, etc.. We leave the camp at around noon to head back to town. I take the lead. We can only imagine what might be there waiting for us.