Aurora It was still dark outside when I started up the mountain. Stars twinkled merrily and the moon cast her soft glow, throwing dark shadows over the craggy landscape. These shadows danced with the movements of the clouds, adding to the already eerie atmosphere. I ignored this display and surged forward, pausing only to duck the fence designed to keep out the wild pigs. Some of the barbs caught in my sweatshirt, and I felt them graze my back. I managed to extricate myself without doing too much additional damage, both to myself and to my sweatshirt. I quickly ran my hand up my back, and it returned slightly sticky. This night was not off to an ideal start. I wiped my hand on the ground, then shifted the backpack I carried back into place. It was small, a composition of zippers and muted colors. It weighed almost nothing, and contained only a few, unimportant items. There was a water bottle attached to the bottom right corner by a small metal clip, and it bumped against my leg with every other step. I didn’t need it, really, the backpack or the water bottle, but they gave a certain kind of comfort and routine that I sorely needed. The crunching of gravel quickly gave way to the soft padding of careful feet on damp moss. Twigs and dead branches littered the path but I picked my way around them, almost unconsciously. The shrubbery quickly began to encroach from all sides. The first bushes I passed were at knee level, branches angular with green leaves poking off in random directions. They were clustered in groups, competing for the same scraps of dry dirt. I wished them the best of luck in their quest for survival. I moved on, and these bushes soon gave way to saplings, then fully formed trees. The weathered bark was chipped and scratched in some places, and entirely scraped off in others. A number of branches hung directly across the path, and I would 156
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