Head back down the trail

The quiet of the woods is peaceful for a moment, save for the squelching of the damp earth beneath your boots. But as you pass a sharp bend below a sheer stone cliff face, the acoustic properties of the mountain ridge play a trick on the air. The sheer rock wall acts like a natural megaphone, bouncing the voices from the summit straight down to the lower trail with crystal clarity.

“Jax, seriously? We don’t have all day,” Skylar’s voice echoes down, her sharp tone completely stripped of its usual slow, bored vocal fry. She sounds deeply irritated. “The lighting is going to shift in like ten minutes. Just get hard so we can get this over with.”

“I’m trying, Skylar! Shut up!” Jaxson’s muffled, defensive roar bounces off the stone. He sounds incredibly stressed, his usual alpha-male bravado completely deflating. “It’s freezing out here, my feet are soaked in mud, and you screaming at me isn’t exactly helping the situation!”

“Oh my god, you’re pathetic,” Skylar shoots back, an aggressive scoff carrying perfectly down the cliffside. “You flex all day on the internet, but a little bit of nature completely breaks you? Paige, don’t look at him, turn the camera away until he can actually handle it.”

Hearing the big, tough crypto-bro gym-head getting utterly humiliated by his girlfriend over a textbook bout of stage fright, all while standing in ruined sneakers on top of a mountain, is bringing a smile to your face.

Then you hear Skylar blurt out, “It’s bad enough that the steroids are shrinking your balls, not you cock doesn’t work either.”

“Pfft... hahahaha.” You try to stifle it, but the chuckle escapes into the crisp air. Unfortunately, the exact same cliffside acoustics that brought their argument down to you instantly catch your laugh and carry it straight back up the rock wall, amplifying it into a clear, echoing boom right over the summit clearing.

The bickering at the top stops instantly. A heavy, dead silence hangs over the mountain for three agonizing seconds.

Then, a furious, booming roar explodes from the ridge.

“HEY! WHO THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Jaxson screams, his voice cracking with pure, unadulterated rage as his ego completely shatters. You hear the heavy thud of his muddy shoes scrambling toward the edge of the overlook. “IS THAT YOU, GUIDE BRO?! I HEAR YOU LAUGHING! YOU THINK THAT’S FUCKING FUNNY, YOU PERV?! I WILL COME DOWN THERE AND BEAT YOUR ASS! YOU’RE DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?! I’M GETTING YOU FIRED!”

Your laugh catches in your throat as his echoing threats ring out through the trees. He obviously can’t see you through the dense mist and pine branches, but he knows exactly who is down there.