Javier Trades Old Fears For New

Javier meets an unlikely figure in the woods.

Javier had never dry-heaved in such a beautiful place.

He wasn't sure why he'd felt the sudden need to overcome his immense fear of heights by traversing the high peaks of the Great Aspen Range. His girlfriend, Angelica, had thought he was having a quarter-life crisis. She might have been right.

The idea had struck him when he'd visited his hometown for his 26th birthday. He'd passed by the local church, and on the billboard just beside the old wooden door he'd spotted a cheesy looking flier for a beginner-friendly hiking class. Images of himself looking regal and confident on top of rocky mountaintops filled his mind, and he couldn't bring himself to shake the idea from his head.

Now, of course, all that filled Javier's mind was regret. The class had not prepared him for this. When had he allowed such delusional hubris enter his mind?

Javier had made it about seven miles into his hike when he'd made the ill-advised and foolish decision to get a little too close to the cliff's edge. He'd felt the blood drain from his face and panic set in. His legs began a violent shake as his hurriedly scrambled away from the rocky precipice, which brought him to where he is now: staring down at the half-digested remains of his lunch and trying not to cry.

When his traitorous stomach finally allowed him a moment's peace, he fell clumsily until his back was to a tree and took deep, heaving breaths to try to calm himself. Distracted by his nausea and self-pity, Javier didn't notice the figure approaching him. He did notice, however, when he opened his eyes to see a scraggly, furry, godforsaken bear.

"Lost, traveler?" the bear asked him, its lips curling back to pronounce the 'r' sound. Javier was assaulted with rotten-fish breath, limb-freezing terror, and world-shattering confusion.

Javier slammed his eyes shut and pinched himself on the arm. He had never willed himself harder to wake from a bad dream.

"I said, are you lost, traveler? Or are you deaf? I tried to learn to sign, but my paws don't exactly make it easy," the bear said casually, one side of it's gnarly mouth twisting up like a grin. It sat back on its haunches and stared at Javier, moving it's paws slowly in a poor imitation of ASL.

Javier, who had opened his eyes once more when he'd heard the bear begin to speak again, let free a terrified whimper.

"I'm losing my mind, aren't I? Or I fell and I hit my head on the hike and this is all some freaky coma dream. Bears don't talk. Bears don't talk," Javier was mumbling and pulling at his hair, grasping desperately for a reality that no longer seemed to exist. As Javier began his descent into insanity, the bear reached out an patted him on the arm.

"Ah, it's alright, bud," the beast's voice was gravelly and just a little inhuman, "Your kind is always freaking out like this. Like, the last guy? His eyes straight-up rolled back in his head and he hit the ground like a sack of potatoes." The bear let out a sound that must have been a laugh, and tossed his head back a little. The bear was laughing and using slang. Javier had certainly lost his mind.

"Bruno! The hell, man? We've talked about you chatting up humans so many times, dude," a different voice called a nearby clearing. Javier whipped his head toward the voice, and his last thought before he passed out was that the bear would be telling a silly anecdote about his delicate constitution to the next traveler that crossed his path.

- - -

When Javier awoke, he was propped up with his back against the trail entrance sign, and his gear was in a neat pile beside him. He stared down at his own body in immense confusion, spotting long brown hairs all over his athletic wear. And he could swear he smelled rotten fish in the air.

Javier's greatest fear was no longer heights.