I’ve always been careful. All my life. I always lock my door. I never drive when I’m tired. I don’t leave the house  by myself when it’s dark out. It’s things like that, that show how paranoid I am. I’ve always been careful.

Until I wasn’t.

One. Single. Time. Who would’ve thought that I would end up like this. I will end like this. My life will end like this. Because of one careless step.

I look up to the sky, watching the pink of the sunset slowly fade into a purple-grey. Soon it will be black. And no one will find me.

I’m laying in a crevice, between the cold unforgiving rocks, where I fell about an hour ago. Underneath me are old leafs and dirt. But I can’t feel them. I really can’t feel anything, not even the crack in my spine I heard earlier.

Holy hell, this is it.

Suddenly I start panicking. I will never get out of here again. I will starve or get eaten by a mountain lion or freeze to death. I will die.

I can’t get up. I can’t run away. I can’t even move my hands to wipe away the tears that are blurring  out the branches rocking above me. I try to scream for help, but my voice is drowned in fear. The more I try to make a sound, the more my hope gets swallowed by the silence around me that is only anticipating my end.

Maybe I can fall asleep. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be awake any longer, only to wait for that light tunnel and the blackout.

I close my eyes. But the dead silence is literally killing me. I try to sing to myself, a lullaby from when I was a kid. One that my mom would always sing to me. “Fall asleep, covered in roses. Tomorrow morn, if God wills, you’ll wake once again.” Seems like God doesn’t want me to wake up tomorrow, huh?

I keep singing it to myself, hours pass, and now all the song consists of are voice cracks choked on tears.

A piece of my hair fell in my face. I can’t even move my hands to get it off. I don’t really care. I feel my body getting tired now. My eyelids get heavier, until I just keep them closed.

I think I give up.

Is it even giving up, when there’s nothing else you can do? It doesn’t matter. I feel myself drifting off to sleep. I know that I probably won’t ever wake up again. I will never see the sun again. I will never see my family again. I will never live again. And all just because of one careless step.