Breath With In


Chapter 15 - Climbing the mountain

The next morning I woke up at five o'clock and got my bag ready. I headed out after I had double checked I had everything ready. Just a sleeping bag, and a few ready made foods to eat during the trip. I wore my heavy winter coat, warm pants, and a hat and headed for the door. I arrived at the bus stop at quarter to six and waited patiently to see if Yuuki would arrive. This day reminded me of when I went out and got ready for the trip except back then it was a warm sunny day and it's only one temperature during winter and that is cold. Five minutes to six minutes later I saw her walking along with a backpack and she stood next to me. The bus finally arrived. We get in and she takes the window seat while I sit next to her. After a few minutes she starts leans on my shoulder as her eyes close. I don't mind or blame her for falling asleep. She probably got no rest last night. She sleeps on my shoulder the rest of the way to the bottom of the mountain. When we arrive I wake her up and she seems a bit shaken at first but the energy starts kicking in and we get up and start the climb. I picked the easiest climb seeing that I might not be physically fit to climb up a hard section of the mountain. For the first twenty minutes we didn't speak. We quietly hiked up the mountain.

"So how do you feel," I asked desperate to break the silence.

"I'm doing fine, not tired yet," she replied.

"How was life growing up here?" I questioned.

"It was good, I never had anyone I was really close to. My life has been a bit difficult. My dad left my house when I was six so I was raised my mom. How about you?"

"Umm," I responded, "When I was back in the twenty-first century there were tons of people outside enjoying the sun. For me I was more interested in exploring than anything else. I made most of my friends by telling them my outrageous stories of my adventures. That is until a random hole appeared in the ground and I thought that it might lead to a new world to be explored. So I decided to go and jump."

"What about your family and friends?" She responded.

"I hated my parents and wasn't attached to my friends." I said bluntly.

"Well that's unfortunate," she said.

We climbed for the next two hours talking about school, life, future, and other random things that just popped in our heads. We stopped for lunch by an overlook. You could see the snow-covered town in its entirety. As we pushed on it was obvious that we were getting tired as we got slower and slower. For the next several hours we pushed through our sweat and tears to push up the mountain until we were a mile from the peak. At this point the sun was almost down and I started to think that we couldn't reach the top until nightfall.

"Do you think were close?" Yuuki said gasping for a breath of fresh air.

"I think," I replied.

"Are you sure?"

"No, not really but at least we made it this far," I said as my legs felt like they were about to fall apart. The last mile was the toughest. We barely spoke except the occasional "Are you ok?" For which she responded "I think so."

When we finally reached the top we were exhausted. We both wanted to curl up and die but, we made it. We took out our sleeping bags and watched the stars above.

"Hey, what do you think is out there?" I asked.

"I dunno, maybe there is nothing out there," she replied.

"I want to ask you something," she said quietly.

"What is it?" "Why did you come up here?"

"Well... honestly I wanted to see my past one more time," I exclaimed.

"What do you mean?"

"You see most of my outrageous stories were fake and made up by myself but, there is one exception to that. The only true story I told was climbing the mountain hundreds of years ago. I took the hardest trail in a hurricane. It was horrible. I felt as if I was going to die at any moment but then I came above the clouds and saw the night sky. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. It was if I were touching the atmosphere of the planet about to reach the stars. It was a tale of me, I guess. It was the first thing that sounded believable. The only thing was that people still didn't care. They didn't listen. I never had any real friends and that probably why."

"Well, do you consider me a friend?" She questioned.

"Yes," I immediately responded.

I looked over and smiled. She smiled back at me. It was as if I took a breath within. I looked up at the sky and fell asleep.