I looked over the towering mountain that I climbed. It was a wonderful sight - beneath me were vast mountain tops, low valleys, lush forests, and distant sounds echoing across the landscape. Listening to meadowlarks, crows, and many other varieties of birds with the combination of the warm spring sun comforting my face, and the clean mountain top air that smelled of something sweet I couldn't discern calmed my heart.
Still admiring the atmosphere I stood on top of a few stacked boulders. Finally I could catch my breath. The edge of the mountain frightened me as I looked down the cliff in front of my feet. A part of the fragile cliffs edge broke off beneath my feet. I stumbled backward to safety and the rock hit the cliffs base and shattered into dozens of fragments. I'm a challenge taker, climber, backpacker, and all around athlete. The desire to achieve new things keeps me going. My only desire is to achieve new things and satisfy myself. I do not care for the approval of others. However it's all about the journey not the destination, man. It would be a sad existence only chasing the reward with no regard for enjoying yourself. So I do what I enjoy most, extreme challenges such as the journey I'm on now. The price I will pay to obtain this enjoyment and trophy is my life. But hopefully that won't happen anytime soon.
Everything had led up to the mountain top in all its glory. Scaling rocks without rope, staying away from the areas where predators roared, the extensive planning to increase my safety, and the tools I used to greatly improve it. For me times like these were usually great, what I live for, but short lasted followed by a curiosity of what's to come.
Like my mind had cheated me; as if my brain promised the reward would be better than it was. However this time was different. This satisfaction was lasting and potent. Perhaps it was because of the risk involved in what I had just achieved. The adrenaline from strategically avoiding the most dangerous foes and climbing unharnessed was unmatched. But adrenaline is a dangerous game. It only lasts so long until you need more to get the same high. But I wasn't so concerned back then.
A woman appeared in the distance, slashing her way through forest vines with a catana. She was bleeding from her hip. It looked as if something had clawed through her jeans and left shallow wounds, probably a bear. It must've been a narrow escape. She looked like Laura Croft, dirtied from the wild with her bow loaded and drawn back pointing at me and her catana strapped to her side as she approached further. Bow threatening me, she looked me up and down with suspicion. Why was she so hostile towards me?
"Who are you?" she asked aggressively.
"I'm just an adventurer," I said. She lowered her bow.
"Well, whatever the case, I guess my only choice is to trust you," she said. I glanced down to the bleeding then we looked at eachother understandingly.
"Don't worry I should be able to patch up the wounds" I said. The claw marks were deep, at this rate of bleeding she wouldn't have much longer to live. I unloaded my messy backpack to get bandages and disinfectant. She explained how a bear had attacked her but she dodged it just enough to avoid fatality and shot her arrow into its forehead. Badass, I had to admit. She asked about the scar on my nose and I told her it was from a fist fight. In reality I just fell on my face when I was a baby. She said her name was Karen. She really didn't seem like Karen.
Karen looked at me skeptically, "what kind of crazy person do you have to be to come out here just for fun" she exclaimed. I couldn't argue with that.
"You're looking for it too, aren't you?" she said. Could the legend be true? The tale goes that there once was an ancient civilization that called this place home. Supposedly they believed that if you placed your riches in a tomb they would carry on with you to the afterlife. So the whole civilization buried their tombs grouped together somewhere in this hundreds of miles long mountain range. At least that's what the legend says.
I responded to her "it may be a little crazy to venture out here but that's what I live for. Besides, everyone knows that the tombs are a myth. People have been searching for this treasure for centuries. Pirates from across the globe abandoned the sea to search for it. If it's not a myth, which it is, someone would have found it by now. What makes you so sure that you can find the treasure?" She explained how looking for it graduated from a hobby to an obsession and how it had taken a whole year but she thinks she knows where it is. A gang of treasure hunters stole her map and it shows where the treasure may be. Karen needed to beat them to the spot, and she may need to fight them, but she didn't want to fight alone. So she was willing to find the treasure with me if I proved I was decent at fighting and took only a 20% cut of the treasure.
She said "take my bow and shoot the highest apple on that tree, then show me what you can do with a catana and I'll tell you what I think." As she began to toss me her bow I couldn't help but notice how beautiful she looked with the valleys, rivers, and forests behind her on the lower ground and the sun shining across her brown hair and her slim but curvy frame and… The bow hit my hands and fell to the ground. She laughed at me as I picked up the bow.
"Think about how much you want to impress me and you'll hit that apple smack dab in the middle" she teased.
"Shut up" I said with a grin I was trying to hide, cowering in embarrassment. I drew back the bow and arrow and shot for the apple. The arrow whizzed past the apple half a foot away.
"Well we can work with that," she said.
"Now show me how you can swing my catana". She tossed it to me from the blade and I caught it.
"Congratulations you caught it," Karen said jokingly with a smile. I smirked back a little. While I had only practiced using a bow and arrow for a few years I'd been fencing my whole life. I felt the katana in my hand. It had a different weight compared to the fencing sticks I was used to which made it harder to adapt to. But soon I was swinging the catana every which way doing attacks, advances, advance lunges, and other fencing tactics. It was enough to impress her.
We walked down the mountain, through the forests, and through the vine cleared path that she had made previously. I heard a roar from behind me. As I turned around I noticed a shadow towering over me. The bear lunged and I dodged it rolling to the side. Karen shot at the bear with her bow and arrow but the arrow skimmed the side of the bear's head. The bear turned towards her and ran at full speed like a football player trying to tackle a member of the opposing team. She stood there fearlessly with her hair blowing in the wind holding her catana in an offensive stance as the bear moved closer. Luckily I had enough time to grab a survival tool from my backpack. I pressed the button on the speaker and it roared with a far deeper and louder roar than the bear could ever muster. Karen understood the purpose of the sound so she quickly sheathed her catana and dodged the bear.
Much to our surprise the bear hardly flinched and ran right back at us. In the heat of the moment I didn't consider that the bear was a grizzly bear, not a black bear. Grizzly bears are immune to sound intimidation. So we either had to run - which is a terrible idea during a grizzly bear attack - or kill it. We had to kill it. The grizzly bear came for me again, charging at me with the power of a dozen football players. I dodged to the side but the bear seemed to predict that this time. It ran at me slower than the last time so the bear could more quickly turn around to where I dodged and attempt another attack. Karen shot her arrow but it missed as she did not anticipate the bear's change in strategy.
I had rolled in front of the entrance of a massive burned hollowed out tree. As I was about to stand up from the roll I noticed the bear looming over me. It was blocking the entrance to the hollowed out tree. Without enough time to grab something useful out of my backpack, I swiftly crawled back into the hollowed out tree and leaned against the wood opposite to the entrance. I felt like staying small would make the bear less likely to attack me. I had nowhere to escape. Karen threw her (sheathed) catana to me. The bear, standing on its hind legs, lunged forward, pouncing on me ferociously, but I quickly unsheathed the catana, lifted my arms up and forced it through its skin, bones, and veins into its beating heart feeling the cracking of bone and the blood poor out onto me.