Two years ago, a bunch of my friends and I went on a school sponsored trip to Alaska set up by the Pursuit Institute. I was placed in a group with nine, no, ten other students, and two adult chaperones. Another group was also made up of similar numbers, and each group would start at one location and then we would switch places halfway through. The trip would consist mostly of hiking and backpacking in Denali where we would camp in tents and then hiking near the Kenai Peninsula where we would stay in a cabin.
We arrived in Anchorage at about 2:00 in the morning, but it was still light out as Alaska never really got dark that time of year. Our groups parted ways after claiming our baggage, and my group began our trip by driving to Denali National Park where we would be spending the next several days. We all had a great time and before we knew it, it was time to meet up with the other group and trade places for the second half of our trip.
We converged in front of a supermarket and the two groups swapped stories and shared some laughs. It was all fun, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was . . . wrong with the other group. Their stories would be incredibly vague or they would just stop halfway through as if they caught themselves from mentioning something without even realizing it.
It was all incredibly eerie but no one but me seemed to notice. When I tried to question them further or go into detail about their trip they would simply become dazed and say that it was really all just a blur. Then, getting defensive, they would ask me details about our trip so far. I scoffed and tried to remember a specific event only to find that . . . I really didn’t remember much either. In fact, as I began listening to my groups own stories, we were being just as vague as them! It was all so strange that no one, not even I, immediately noticed that the other group was short one kid.
Suddenly though, it hit me.
“Where’s Josh?” I asked the group. Everyone turned to face me, their eyes seemed glazed and cloudy as their faces reflected my own confusion right back at me. What they said next made my blood run cold.
With such genuine seriousness that it couldn’t have possibly been a joke, one by one, they asked, “Who the hell is Josh?” Even the adults looked puzzled.
Giving a nervous laugh, I turned to my own group for support only to see that they were looking at me with the same expressions. Confusion was plastered across every one of their faces, looking at me with blank eyes. Then, suddenly, confusion turned to laughter as if they realized that I had been joking.
“Haha! Nice man! You had me goin’ for a second there!” Matt said as the mood quickly lightened back up. I laughed with them and pretended that it had been a joke, but all I felt was a horrible sickness rising up inside me.
That’s when a kid from the other group said, “Haha, but seriously, what’s with YOUR group? You guys are acting all weird and . . . where is Sarah?”
“Haha, very funny.”
“Yeah real original.” Members of both groups snapped back at him, almost in unison. No one named Sarah had even been in our group, and even I was pissed that he was making fun of me. That is, until I saw the look on his face.
When no one took him seriously, his appearance was bleached to a deathly pale tone and his eyes widened, shifting from side to side nervously. Then he looked at me. Our eyes met and we both knew that something was horribly wrong. Although we couldn’t really be sure that the other was telling the truth, we both seemingly knew someone who was now forgotten. We simply stood there for what felt like forever, staring at each other.
He looked horrified, I’m sure I did too. Before I got a chance to talk to him however, we were shoved into our separate cars and were on our way to our new destinations, their group to Denali, ours to the Cabin. I doubted talking to him would’ve done any good anyway though. What could either of us have said? He didn’t remember Josh and I sure as hell didn’t know anyone named Sarah.
