I only heard the sound in movies right before something bad was going to happen. I thought the sound was in my mind at first, but my nightmares slowly morphed into reality at that moment.

Why did my parents do this to me? Why did my parents dump me here instead of home? I couldn’t believe that my parents thought this would be a fun experience. Everyday, something bad would always happen. However, during this day at the Canadian canoe trip camp, I felt like something different would happen. Something told me that this day was going to be unusually great.

Two more days of my ten day canoe trip remained in the cool, clear lakes of the Temagami region of Canada. Even though my camping group had to endure two kilometer-long portages (when you have to walk from one lake to another while carrying heavy loads on your head) which seemed like death marches, I was still optimistic about how the day would go. Our camp group arrived at a very beautiful place to stay for the night. On one side of the lake, there was a flat landscape of tall, hardy trees, and on the other side, a behemoth rocky mountain loomed over us.

After we ate dinner, we decided to climb the mountain. As we started to climb, all the loose, big rocks that made up the mountain made it seem like it was a miracle that the mountain could hold itself together. The camp counselors were contemplating what the camp director would furiously say if he figured out we were doing this. Right before we reached the top, we had to go up a really steep part filled with a myriad of loose stones.
When we finally reached the peak of the mountain, the view was astonishing. We could see an uncountable amount of lakes and trees. The campsite looked like a small toy since we were so high up. The view deserved to be on the front page of the National Geographic magazine. But sadly, we had to go back down.

The steep part was no problem while going down the mountain, so it seemed like rest of the climbing would be the easiest thing ever. Thinking this, as I was descending the delicate mountain, I heard a low rumble that chilled my bones.

The rumble was accompanied by a gasp from one of the camp counselors that was behind me. I looked back, and I saw a boulder half my size coming towards me. My gut dropped like a stone. I tried to jump away, but before I could, the boulder had stopped and caught my feet. My camp counselor immediately jumped to action when he saw what happened. Simultaneously, I realized how lucky I was, and I realized what could have happened. It could have crushed my whole foot if I wasn’t careful. I managed to wiggle my right foot away from the boulder, but my left foot stayed put.

I felt a lot of pain as I tried to pull my left foot away, as if someone was trying to drag a knife into it. The adrenaline coursing through my veins omitted my vocabulary to grunts and swear words. However, after a painstaking minute of this, my counselor blatantly realized that I could simply untie my shoe and get my foot out of it. Thankfully, it worked, and I was able to get my shoe back, too. The boulder had no mercy as it made blisters on my feet like I got a souvenir. I felt even more pain jolting up my leg as I saw red streaks of blood on my feet. The boulder cut into my seemingly unrippable wool left sock, too.

After carefully descending the last part of the mountain, my adrenaline settled as I got back to the campsite. I got some band-aids, and I got my sock stitched back up, too. I was really happy that I was okay and that the counselors were there for me. Without them, I would probably still be stuck on that godforsaken boulder. Still, I was happy for those few inches that left my feet uncrushed.