The mountains set, and what I mean is they went out, slowly.  They dimmed behind themselves, like a dancing crowd following a holy thought.  I watched with my pack next to me, across the lake perched halfway down the face.  The boulders around me turned over and went to sleep.  The sky that had seemed depthless in the blue day closed in hollowly.  I could hear the muffled sound of my movements.  I was in a closet and not the open air, and my body panicked.  

I snatched my pack from a sleeping rock and tore down the mountainside.  Rivers of stones scattered down ahead of me; the blood pounded in my ears.  In the blackness, my only sense was gravity.  The descent was miles long; I tumbled and felt the wetness of blood in my hair.

Water.  I huddled on the shore, trembling.

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