My Bear Story
by Ezrah Trules
I have something dreadful to talk to you about today. This thing struck my close friends and I with repeated anguish and fear. I would’ve liked to rid myself of this memory, force it out and throw it into an unquenchable fire. Lucky for you I was unable to achieve this goal of mine and now I will take you into a place. A place inside my dark memories. Deep inside my cerebellum to be exact.
It was a dark night around 3 months ago. The wind rushed through the trees and the branches swayed in unison. My church retreat up in the forest had been going really well for the past few days. The worship set had just ended, and it was around 10:00 at night. The masses flocked back to their cabins, and I joined two of my friends as they got snacks before heading back. There was one bag of Doritos left, and my friend picked it up, but I wanted it, so I snatched it from him like taking candy from a small frail insignificant young little child. Once we finished, we started walking back. By now, everyone had gone back, and it was just us in the eerie night.
“Wow” I said, “It got dark fast.”
And indeed, it did. The darkness covered the forest like a thick blanket. Still, we didn’t want to go to sleep yet, so we went to a bonfire to hang out for a while. We called our other friends who had retired to their cabin, and they joined us in our circle shortly after. We hung out there for a couple hours until my friend said he needed to go to the bathroom. Ethan was his name, and Jonny, one of the others, tagged along with him, safety in numbers, right? They headed off and we went back to our conversation for about another twenty minutes.
“Go, Go!”
First Jonny galloped around the corner soon followed by Ethan. We jumped out of our seats and confronted them.
“There’s a bear” gasped Jonny.
Being the dumb kids that we were...
“Where?” I asked.
And being the dumb kids that we were…
“Follow us” they said.
We crept around a building which was the cafeteria during the day. I glanced inside, it was black as night and looked extremely frightening. Once we got to the edge of the corner we stopped.
“Here we go”
I poked my head around and saw the most frightening, the most gruesome, wild shadow of a lamppost. There was nothing there. Usually, we would’ve called them a liar and made fun of them for the next couple years, but we were bored and wanted something to do so we began looking for it. We ventured deeper and deeper into the forest, and as we heard more and more noises coming from bushes and shrubbery, we began to believe there was a bear. We spent a while searching but we eventually gave up. Once we got back to the corner, we turned it, and the bear was right there. The furry monster was smelling the floor furiously, and it luckily didn’t notice us. I want you guys to know, I was living a scene from an actual bear movie and the next part of this is going to sound made up and it is a free country so think whatever you want to think but I assure you and give you my word that it is not fake. We began to back up and as we did, Ryan, who was also with us, stepped on a twig. The bears ears pricked up and it lifted its bulky head off the floor. We backed up faster and once we got out of its peripheral vision we took off. Jonny and two others ran toward their cabin, but Ethan, Ryan, and my cabin was where the bear was. So, we ran to our other friend’s cabin where Val and Abby were. As we were almost there, we looked back to check if something big was coming from behind. Sure enough, the bear had been following us this whole time, not chasing fast, but still following us and gaining ground. We ran now and got to Abby’s cabin. We knocked frantically and I saw Abby’s head in the window. She looked confused on why we were banging on her door at 3 in the morning. The bear was coming closer and closer and somehow, she didn’t see it at all.
“Please open the door” we screamed.
Finally, she opened it, and we trampled over her to get to safety. Ethan, Ryan, and I collapsed on the floor due to utter exhaustion and fatigue. It took us about 5 minutes to fully regain consciousness.
“What is going on?” Abby asked us.
We told her about the bear and everything that had just happened. This took a while because, mind you, our lives had just flashed before our eyes and because of that, there were images of when I was 2 filtering through my head, so it was hard to stay on topic about the bear when we were relaying all of this information to her. We checked the window every few seconds and each time we did, the bear was still laying there. We couldn’t figure out why it wouldn’t leave. We couldn’t figure out why showing the bear our face every few seconds wasn’t making it want to leave. Eventually we stopped looking and waited for about twenty minutes before checking again. This time the bear was gone. This increased anxiety because now we lost the bear's location. We still had to go back to our cabin, and this made the job a thousand times harder. Abby eventually forced us out after telling us for the 10th time not to be babies. When we stepped outside, we turned back to her to ask if she wanted to help check the surroundings. When we turned around though, the door was already closed. We began walking towards the tunnel entrance which was the only way to get back to our cabin. We shone our phone flashlights on every single thing around us but saw nothing. Now you would think that we would be relieved, but the fact that there was no bear to be seen could only mean one thing. It meant that there was a 99.9999% chance that the bear had gone into the tunnel that we were about to venture in. I took the first step into the tunnel. There was a small puddle and Ethan slipped making a loud noise, followed by his startled yelp. Ryan and I jumped back startled as well and both of our legs were primed and ready to sprint away the fastest we've ever run. We were also mentally prepared that if Ethan fell and the bear was to gallivant around the corner at that time, we would not wait for Ethan. But, since the bear did not come around the corner, obviously we did not tell our plan. We made our way deeper into the tunnel and saw light at the end. This triggered in our minds a hope unlike anything we’d felt before and we took off toward the exit. We emerged panting like a dog after a brisk walk. We smiled at each other then glanced to the left. Not too far off, was the bear, sound asleep under a tree. Our eyes went wide, and we began to tiptoe the last little bit to get to our cabin. We reached the wooden stairs which led to the door of our cabin. I stepped on the first step, and it creaked. The creak probably was about as loud as an ant screaming, but to us, it sounded like the trumpet being blown to signify Jesus’s return. As soon as the creak happened, I launched my hand into my pocket and ripped out the keycard to get into the room. In my worth attempt to open the door, I dropped the card, and the others frantically scrambled to pick it up. They couldn’t seem to pick it up off the floor, it was like it had been glued. Finally, he got it and shoved it onto the reader. The light lit up green and I turned the door handle. I pushed but the door wouldn’t budge. We shoved really hard, but it wouldn’t open. We were desperate now because at any second the bear could blind side us and eat us all. I grabbed the keycard from Ethan and put it to the reader again, it lit up green once more. This time all of us shouldered the door at the same time and it opened. We ran inside and slammed the door. We looked out the window, and the bear was still sound asleep under the tree. After all of these events, we were done. We didn’t make it to the beds, we just fell asleep on the floor at around 7 in the morning and woke up to eat breakfast at around 7:30. I hope from this bear testimony I just gave you; you will know what not to do if this ever happens to you. Thank you.