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We’ll go hiking, they’d said.
It’ll be fun, they’d said.
There’s not supposed to be any snowfall, they’d said.
Lies, all of it.
You shivered, pulling your jacket tighter around you. The wind was biting on your face, but you didn’t have anything but your jean jacket to protect you from the elements. Luckily you had a beanie, but it wasn’t one made for winter weather.
Four hours earlier, everything had actually been good. You and your college friends had decided to go on a mountain hiking adventure after midterms, celebrating passing grades on all your tests. While you’d checked the weather religiously, planning for a clear weekend, there was always a chance of something going awry.
And something had definitely gone awry.
Three hours earlier, a light snow had begun to fall.
“Fuck, guys! I thought it wasn’t supposed to snow!” you cried, looking up to the sky. You mentally checked what you’d packed, stopping for a minute to pull your jacket out of your bag and put it on over the flannel shirt you had on.
“It didn’t have snow on the radar as of this morning,” your friend Joe responded, looking around. “We should probably set up camp and get a fire going. Who wants to get firewood?”
“I will,” you said, knowing that the others wouldn’t know dry from wet wood. “You guys find a place to pitch a tent. We should probably all bunk together to keep warm, especially if this snow gets any heavier.”
You headed off into the trees to find firewood, and that’s the last you saw of Joe and the others.
You’d been very careful about keeping track of where you went into the trees as you gathered wood suitable for a fire. You were the one with the most hiking and camping experience out of the lot of them, so even though you weren’t prepared for a cold night, you knew you’d be able to get them through it.
When you returned to where you’d left the group, though, they were nowhere in sight.
“Joe!” you yelled, setting the wood down. “Archer! Rachel!”
No response sounded and looking around you noticed that the snow was setting on the ground. Leaving the firewood in a pile, you walked an ever-growing circle around where you’d left the group, yelling their names every few steps.
After ten minutes of no response and more snowfall, you began to panic.
You pulled your cell phone out, hoping that there would actually be service…nada. You put it back in your pocket, but it wasn’t soon enough to let yourself see the rock in front of you. You tripped, the slope of the mountain enough that the fall sent you rolling about twenty feet before a bush stopped you.
Pain in your ankle told you that things were only going to get worse from here.
You found a boulder nearby and stumbled toward it, each step on your rolled ankle sending jolts of pain up your leg. The snow was falling heavily now, so you sat with the boulder to your back and a bush on one side, gathering as much brush as you could find to keep the wind from your body.
If only you’d carried a tent in your pack, you might have been alright. But no…the guys insisted on carrying the heavy things, wanting to impress you and the other girls.
Now the sun had gone down and the snow was falling. You were out with no shelter, no warm clothing, and an injured ankle.
You stuck your hands in your armpits to keep your fingers warm, wiggling the toes of your uninjured foot. They were beginning to hurt, which you knew was not a good sign.
Unable to do anything else, you closed your eyes.
It was dark when you opened your eyes again, the moonlight illuminating the inch or so of snow that was on the ground and your legs. You unfolded your arms, brushing off what snow you could with your frozen fingers. Your feet were aching, the ankle that you’d hurt not able to decide if it wanted to burn from the pain or be frozen from the cold.
Something had woken you up, but you didn’t know what it was. You listened to the sounds around you, realizing that there was something big moving on the other side of the boulder. You sent a prayer to anyone who was listening that it wasn’t a wild animal – that was all you needed right now.
“Y/N!” you heard a man yell, and you realized that someone was looking for you.
“Over here!” you answered, shoving the brush away from your body so you could attempt to stand. You rolled onto all fours to try to lift yourself from the ground, but your feet didn’t want to work.
“Y/N?” the man asked again, following your voice and the sound of your struggle. A shadow came around the boulder just as you tried to get up. You cried from the pain and fell before you could even stand.
“Don’t stand, Y/N. What hurts?”
You didn’t know this person, but you realized that he had on a uniform. Your friends must have gotten to a ranger station, thank God.
“I rolled my ankle when I couldn’t find my group,” you said, motioning toward your foot. He immediately stretched your leg out, fingers feeling the swollen ankle. “I couldn’t do much, so I sat here and fell asleep…I’m really cold. My hands and feet are aching, I’m sure if I didn’t have this beanie my ears would have fallen off already.”
The ranger nodded, grabbing a pair of gloves from his jacket and giving them to you. “You’ve been out here for a while, and this injury isn’t helping the blood flow to your foot.”
His words made your heart beat a little faster. “What do you mean? What time is it?”
The ranger stood, grabbing your backpack and putting it on across his chest instead of his back. “It’s two o’clock in the morning. You were asleep for a long time. We need to get you warm, get that shoe off, and make sure you don’t lose any toes.”
He turned, motioning to his back. “Hop on, sweetheart.”
With his help, you were able to climb onto his back. He began walking, knowing exactly where he was going through the brush. “I’m Dean, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Dean. Thank you.”
Dean’s hands tightened on your legs as you held on tight, thankful he’d found you before it was too late.