The woman was quickly progressing through her labor and the mother and baby were doing fine with good vitals. Before Natalie and the mother knew it, the baby was starting to crown. The ranger, seeing, that Natalie had the situation under control, let them be and he climbed back in his truck to check on the arrival of the ambulance from the nearby town. As the ambulance arrived the tired woman was holding a healthy six-pound baby girl.
Once the woman was on her way to the hospital with her new daughter, she sat with the Ranger completing her notes for her formal report. She learned that the woman was driving to Maine but tried to ignore some cramping blaming morning sickness and the baby moving as she entered Virginia. However, the cramps grew ever more intense as she got near the Mountains leading to her having to pull over near the park when her water finally broke. When Natalie finished her report and provided her information to the Ranger to complete his own report, she finally made her way back to the cabin to see the sun start to set on the horizon.
When Natalie got back to her cabin, she decided to toss her leftover soggy sandwich and decided to make herself a bowl a cereal. After eating, Natalie quickly showered and trashed her ruined shirt, before crawling into her bed for a much-needed nap. The rest of the week passed rather quickly and before she knew it the seasons passed, and it was spring once again. Natalie was struggling staying in her empty cabin, so she did her best to stay busy. Natalie worked hard in the clinic during the week and filled her weekends with rescues in the park or teaching the locals in Evergreen First Aid and CPR classes. She also managed to keep in regular contact with her brother once he had finished training for his promotion. She was excited that he had thrived in his new day-job and Natalie could not help but wish that he would finally stop and create a family for himself now that he had settled down.
When spring-break rolled around the town filled with vacationers and many college students looking for an adventurous spring break traversing the forest. She was busier than ever between vacationers getting in accidents and crowding the local clinic along with the adventurous young kid getting injured or lost in the park. Despite all the excitement busying the month she managed to do something other than work or sit at home in her pajamas on her rare day off. Natalie normally spent her rare days off work and volunteering unfortunately going on blind dates. The ladies in town had made it their personal mission to set Natalie up with every eligible bachelor in the county. After Natalie protested for the better part of a year, after the anniversary of her father’s death she finally gave in and went on a few dates. However, she always found the men to be rude, or conceited, being more concerned with their own looks and interests than her own.
After a long Friday at the Clinic triaging a variety of cuts and sprains from the usual drunken partygoer and leftover College Frat-boy. She only managed a two-hour nap when she was awoken by the rumbling thunder and flashes of lighting through the window when she heard the radio on the table in the corner come to life. She turned her head to see the panel on the radio light up and hear the buzzing as she quickly stood up and made her way to receive the message. Natalie quickly learned that the message storm had caused flooding and felled a few trees stranding hikers in the forest. She quickly accepted the call before quickly running to her room to change into the first pair of jeans, and warm sweatshirt she could find. On her way through the front door, she put on her rain gear, strapped on a bowie knife from her father, and grabbed the satellite phone along with her medical/survival pack. Within ten minutes she was halfway to the ranger station on her beaten-up ATV.
Natalie waved to the Ranger as she pulled up to the station long enough to meet the boy faced young Ranger they had recently hired and received the location and details of the stranded hikers. She was not shocked to discover they were looking for a young couple that had headed up the trail to the Evergreen-forest Mountain early that morning. Natalie and the recruit she learned was named Thomas did their best to travel as far up the trail as they could get before abandoning their ATV’s, as the fallen trees and heavy mud began to make it harder for them to continue.
An hour into their exhausting trek they managed to find a drenched couple under a crude shelter made from a sapling and a few branches. Natalie was pleased to find the girl slightly bruised and with deep cuts on her hands. After the girl was questioned and they found out that she had fallen off the nearby rock trying to get a good angle for a picture of her boyfriend posing from a branch in a tree. The boyfriend had fallen from the branch when the rain started to receive a dislocated shoulder and shattered pelvis. As they waited for a chopper to airlift the couple, they learned that the couple were hiking to the mountain in hopes of getting pictures for the girl’s social media and the guy’s travel blog. Obviously, this information was only met by blank stares from her and vaguely concealed anger from the young Ranger as he explained how dangerous this situation had become.
As they waited for the chopper the storm started to worsen, and the lightening seemed to get closer. They received contact form the rescue service just as the light from the chopper became visible. After Natalie and the Ranger safely got the young couple loaded onto the copter the storm drew too close and the copter left in a hurry. Natalie and Thomas were let to travel back to their ATVs on foot back own the trail as the unstable ground and close lightning was too dangerous.
They managed to make it half an hour back towards the ranger station using the Ranger’s satellite GPS and trail markers to make their way through the storm before their path was blocked. Just as Natalie was starting to relax with the lightning rain overhead the trail ended abruptly with large trees felled in the storm blocking the trail. They were forced to use their lights and GPS to take an alternate route back to their vehicles. When Natalie and Thomas finally had the vehicles and light from the station in sight the ground dipped suddenly and the two carefully stepped back from the unstable ground. Natalie swung her light to her right to see a deep chasm left by mudslides.
In response Natalie and the Ranger stuck close to each other as they carefully made their way to their ATV’s. Natalie was starting to feel the fatigue from the long her long day and the cold began seeping into her clothes when she suddenly lost her footing. The ground gave way under her feet when the boy-face Ranger, Thomas, turned around to help her over another log in their path only to meet her eyes as she fell into the chasm. Natalie stumbled as she fell trying to regain her footing, but she only managed to knock her headlight off her head before she followed just after it over the edge. She watched as her headlight fell off her head and smashed into rocks below, the light went out suddenly. As she tried to calm herself and get her bearings, she felt a sharp pain in her neck along with a loud crack. Not long after the darkness enclosed, and her vision quickly darkened with her closing eyes.
Suddenly pins and needles in her fingers and toes woke her up and when she opened her eyes a bright light made her close them again. After blinking a few times and wiggling her fingers and toes she was able to see her surroundings. Around her she could see a white space that seemingly had no end and no discernable source for the light. She continues to move her fingers and stretch their limbs until she was able to move them with ease. She slowly got to her feet to investigate the area further.
When she turned around, she came across two doors that seemed to float in the air by themselves. Once she investigated further, she could find nothing in the space other than the doors. The left door was a wooden door that seemed heavy, and hand carved with a tarnished metal handle, this instantly reminded her of the door or her room back in the family cabin. The other door in contrast seemed to be made of metal and covered with intricate metalwork creating creeping vines that climbed across the surface of the door creating a curved handle and stopping just under the stained-glass window. The window on the door seemed to change to every color of the rainbow and glowed with an internal light or shadows that changed based on her viewpoint.
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