The Trail (MAJOR EDITING IN PROGRESS)

Part 1: Fall (Edited)

I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

There's Algebra homework to finish up, English grammar, and a new chapter to study in American History. That's a lot to do, and there's not a lot of time to do it. I thought as I grabbed my Macbook Air from under the bed.

I opened up Safari and confirmed that private browsing was on. Now the fun could begin.

I immediately typed 'Pike's Trail deaths' into Google. A lot of ads for the 'Pike's Peak Haunted Trail' came up, but not much for the trail I was looking for. After scrolling to the bottom of the page and clicking page seven, the best place to hide a body mind you, I found a link to 4chan, the scum and intellect of the western hemisphere. Laughing to myself, I clicked the link and found myself on an obsolete thread of weird paranormal happenings.

As I skimmed the pages and glanced at posted pictures, one of the stories caught my eye. There was a part of the Rocky Mountains that several dozen people had gone missing on. The thread post listed a link to a historical site, and there I began reading.

As it turned out, more than one hundred people had gone missing in the area since the early 1800s. The police couldn't search the area because of its unpredictable weather and dangerous hiking areas. Five years previous to then, a man went missing and his wife soon after. A search was called but an avalanche on the mountain made them turn back. A year later when they tried again, there was a torrential rain." A bag was found belonging to the wife after the flash flood, and it was believed that she was killed by an animal due to some shredding on the back of it.

I'd been waiting my entire life for something creepy and paranormal to happen, and there it had been, handed to me on a platter, but I ran.

I was scared that it would ruin my beliefs in God, and I so I began to see him differently. Not surprisingly, I broke up with him shortly after.(Reader needs some context here. Perhaps dedicate a paragraph or two to really exploring this.)

I shook the thoughts away and scrolled through some pictures of the landscape and those who had gone missing. There is a picture of the woman and her husband; she had medium length black hair, warm green eyes, and very white skin. He had shaggy brown hair with a mischievous smile and an imposing composure. He was certainly a hiker before he died, his entire posture screams, "look at me, I'm an outdoorsman!" It was a horrible thing to have happened, I can only imagine how the woman felt as she desperately tried to find her husband.

What did she think about right before she died? Was she focused on finding him at all costs, was she worried about herself, or, was she afraid for the both of them? I wondered as I scrolled through the article.

I already knew the answer though, it had been all of the above.

Another story was about a group of three teenage girls who went out hiking with their boyfriends. A lot of girls would never go out into a forest, but these girls had. They must have been some sort of outdoor enthusiasts, or at least have done some hiking or climbing. People didn't just go down a trail like that without experience.

Did they lose their virginity there? That would've been horrible; to go from complete happiness to terror must've been the worst feeling in the world. I wondered as my thoughts continued, were they separated? Or did they die together, in each other's arms? I couldn't even imagine what I would've done if I was in their situation, and was separated from Holland.

I inspected the bottom page for links to the sources the creators of the webpage might've used. Curiously, I saw none. Why hadn't there been any other sources? I understood that this that was a local webpage and all, but shouldn't they have mentioned where they got the information?