Endurance // M. Taylor

ix. psychosis

The deer were stalking us like we were food. My legs were quivering and my heart was beating like a drum. Everything was happening way too fast.

"Matt...what are you going to do?" Emily says, breathing heavily. We were both terrified and extremely worried about the whole situation. Leaving me wishing I hadn't come back up here after last year.

"Stay calm, relax. They're just deer." Matt attempts to calm us both down. I manage to get myself and my emotions under control. Emily, however, isn't able to do that as easily.

"N-no, they're going to hurt us." Emily says, still breathing heavily and holding herself to keep warm. It was possibly one of the coldest nights in Calgary, so it's no wonder why the weather is so bad tonight. Plus, it doesn't help that we are on a huge mountain hundreds of feet off the regular ground.

Matt takes control of the situation and begins to slowly maneuver through the horde. I watch very carefully as Em and I follow suit right behind him. There was one deer in the center who was just looking directly at Matt. I didn't know if he was going to just keep walking past it, or if he was going to hit it. I had hoped that he would just leave it alone and keep going towards the fire tower.

He continues to walk slowly through the horde, making it safe for the two of us to follow him. Emily and I follow Matt and we start to run away from the horde. We all, somehow, made it out of there completely unscathed.

I could see how upset Emily was at the whole situation, but we had to keep going if we were going to get anything done. So, we continued our journey to the fire tower.

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"So..." Emily breaks the awkward silence after ten minuets of walking, "if we do manage to get someone on the radio, we tell them we need help. Right?" I look over at her, and nod. Is that even a question? Of course! That's literally the reason we're headed up the mountain.

"Yes." I say, I see that we're getting closer to the tower. So, I try to think very positive thoughts and give off a positive vibe, even though I was utterly terrified.

"What do we do while we wait?" Emily asks me, and I think about it for a second. What is the best option? We can't just stay in the tower forever. We have to leave at some point.

"We could head back to the lodge and get everyone together." Matt suggests, but Emily completely disagrees. This chick is too damn hard to deal with. I can't help but think about Josh. He didn't deserve to die like they did. It was horrible and cruel.

"Oh God, not the lodge. Shouldn't we just stay here in case whoever it is needs to get back in touch with us?" I just keep walking, because I don't know the answer. I don't know how to solve my own problems.

"Hey, are you listening to me? What's going on with you, Rose?" Emily asks me, and I look at her. I thought about just smiling and brushing it off, but it was something that I knew that people would find out sooner or later. I was still in love with Matt.

"Yeah, sorry. Just...thinking about Josh." I say, as we finally reach the tower. Before we can get too close, a bright light shines down from above us. It was so bright, I could feel some heat coming off of it. It was radiating.

"Ugh, that's freaking bright!" Emily yells, trying to shield her eyes from the blinding light. I attempt at doing the same thing. Matt didn't seem so affected.

"It's a motion sensor light, I think. Or...I hope." Matt says, looking at the two of us. We start to walk towards the tower and begin the climb up. It was a very long, drawn out climb. The higher up we got, the more windy and chilly it got.