Toby kicked a rusted gear into the weeds, entirely unbothered by the fact we were currently ruining our lives.
"You are actually vibrating," Toby said. He didn't look back at me. He just kept walking, his skateboard tucked under his right arm, the grip tape wearing a hole into the side of his faded black t-shirt.
"I am not vibrating," I said. I was vibrating. My kneecaps felt loose. The back of my neck was slick with a very specific, terrified kind of sweat. "I am calculating. There is a difference."
"Calculating what? The exact angle of your own pathetic demise?" Toby hopped over a downed birch branch. The bark peeled off in white, papery ribbons.
"Calculating the exact number of minutes before Principal Garris notices we aren't in the gymnasium," I snapped, stumbling over the same branch. My sneaker caught the wood. I pitched forward, catching myself on a mossy rock. The rock was slick, coating my palm in a layer of green slime. I wiped it frantically on my jeans. "We are missing the walkthrough. The literal walkthrough of how to walk. You have to practice walking across a stage, Toby. There are tape marks."
"Tape marks," Toby repeated. He stopped and finally turned around. His sunglasses were scratched right down the middle of the left lens. "Tape marks, Norm. Do you hear yourself? You are terrified of missing a tutorial on how to put one foot in front of the other. You have been walking for seventeen years."
"It is a symbolic walk."
"It is a capitalist scam," Toby said, turning back toward the tree line. "The whole thing. The robes. The poly-blend gowns that trap body heat until you pass out. The handshake. The piece of paper that says 'Congratulations, you may now enter the debt machine'. It is completely mid. We are skipping it."
"We are ruining our futures," I said to his back.
"We are going to the MacMillan mill," Toby countered.
The sun beat down through the canopy. The leaves overhead were a violent, saturated green, filtering the light into sharp, geometric patches on the dirt path. It was ninety degrees. The air didn't move. It just sat on my shoulders, heavy and suffocating. A mosquito landed on my wrist. I smacked it, leaving a small smear of red on my skin.
"I still haven't picked a major," I blurted out. The thought had been chewing at the back of my skull since breakfast.
Toby let out a harsh laugh. "Bro. You are literally hiking through a forest. Look at a tree. Stop thinking about the portal."
"The portal closes at midnight on the fifteenth. If I don't select a major, I go in undeclared. If I go in undeclared, I lose priority registration for the core seminars. If I lose priority registration, I graduate in five years instead of four. If I graduate in five years, my parents will physically disintegrate from the financial stress."
"Then major in business," Toby said, swatting a low-hanging fern out of his way.
"I don't care about business! I don't even know what business is. It's just a word people use when they want to wear a tie and lie to people."
"Then major in art."
"I can't draw, Toby. I drew a horse yesterday and my mom asked if it was a diagram of a broken bicycle."
"Then major in nothing. Just drop out. Come work at the tire shop with me. We can rotate tires until our spines fuse together."
"You aren't helping!"
"I am trying to show you that the stakes are entirely made up," Toby said. He stopped at the edge of the riverbank. The water was low, exposing a jagged spine of gray river rocks. The current ripped around the stones, kicking up white foam. "Look at this. This is real. Water. Rocks. Dirt. The FAFSA is not real. It is a digital hallucination."
"My anxiety is very real," I muttered, staring at the rushing water. "How are we crossing this?"
"We hop the rocks," Toby said, already stepping onto the first one. His battered Vans gripped the wet stone. "It's shallow. Just don't fall."
I stared at the gap between the shore and the first rock. It was a two-foot jump. My legs felt like lead. "I'm going to fall."
"You're not going to fall."
I stepped onto the first rock. My shoe slipped a fraction of an inch. My stomach dropped. I threw my arms out, pinwheeling for balance. "I'm slipping!"
"You slipped an eighth of an inch, Norm. Calm down."
I took a breath. I looked up.
About twenty yards upstream, the water was pooling in a slow, dark eddy. Something was moving in it. A dark, massive shape breaking the surface.
"Toby," I whispered.
"What?"
"There is a bear in the water."
Toby stopped on the third rock and squinted upstream. "That is not a bear."
"It is brown. It is huge. It is a bear. We are going to be eaten by a bear on the day we were supposed to get our diplomas."
Suddenly, the shape reared up. A heavy, flat, leathery appendage lifted out of the water.
Smack.
The sound was deafening. It echoed off the trees like a gunshot, a sharp, violent crack of flesh against water. The spray shot ten feet into the air.
"That is a beaver," Toby said, his voice dropping a register.
"Why is it so big?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Why is it looking at us?"
"I think we are near its dam."
Smack.
The beaver slammed its tail again. The water erupted. The creature didn't retreat. It paddled aggressively in our direction, its dark eyes locked entirely on Toby.
"Go," Toby said.
"What?"
"Move your feet, Norm! Go!"
I scrambled across the rocks, all my previous hesitation evaporating. I didn't care about slipping. I didn't care about the mud. I just cared about the fifty-pound semi-aquatic rodent that was currently enforcing a strict territorial boundary. I lunged for the opposite bank, my hands sinking deep into the wet, freezing mud. I scrambled up the incline, my fingernails scraping against exposed tree roots.
Toby landed right behind me, chest heaving. He threw his skateboard onto the grass.
We both turned around. The beaver was swimming circles near the rocks we had just crossed, slapping its tail a third time.
Smack.
"I thought beavers were supposed to be cute," I gasped, wiping mud on my jeans.
"That thing is a dinosaur," Toby said, staring at the water. He let out a breathless laugh. "See? That's what I'm talking about. You were worried about a spreadsheet ten minutes ago. Now you're just happy you didn't get mauled by a wood-chipper with teeth."
"I am not happy," I said, though my heart was hammering a frantic, alive rhythm against my ribs. "I am deeply traumatized."
"You're alive," Toby corrected. He grabbed his board. "Come on. The mill is just over the ridge."
The MacMillan lumber mill hadn't processed a single tree since 2011. It sat at the bottom of a steep ravine, a sprawling cathedral of rusted corrugated metal and shattered fiberglass windows. The sun beat down on the massive steel roof, creating a visible distortion in the air above it, a shimmering curtain of heat.
We approached the main loading bay. The concrete ramp was cracked, green weeds bursting violently through the fissures. The sheer scale of the place was oppressive. Towering silos loomed in the background, their sides streaked with orange rust that looked like dried blood.
"How are we getting in?" I asked, my voice hushed. I didn't want to speak loudly. The silence here felt deliberate.
"Office entrance," Toby said. He didn't hesitate. He walked directly to a heavy steel door on the side of the main administrative annex.
I jogged to catch up. "Toby, look at this door. It's bolted shut. There's a padlock the size of my fist on it."
Toby reached into his pocket. He pulled out a heavy, brass key. The metal was dull and scratched.
I stared at it. "Where did you get that?"
"Found it," he said, sliding the key into the padlock. It turned with a heavy, satisfying click.
"You don't just find a key to an abandoned industrial complex," I said, my anxiety spiking again. "Did you steal that?"
"I permanently borrowed it," Toby said, ripping the padlock off the hasp. He pushed the heavy door. It shrieked on its hinges, a high, metallic wail that made my teeth ache.
We stepped inside. The air in the office was instantly cooler, trapped in the shadows. The floor was covered in a thick layer of dust that kicked up in small gray clouds around our ankles. Desks were overturned. Ancient, yellowed paperwork was scattered everywhere, curling at the edges. A waterlogged calendar on the wall was permanently stuck on October 2011.
I stood in the center of the room, looking at a broken swivel chair. "Okay. We are exploring. We have explored. It is sad and dusty. Can we go back to the highway now?"
Toby didn't answer. He was already moving toward the back corner of the room. He dropped his skateboard, knelt down on the floor, and reached into his backpack.
He pulled out a crowbar.
It was a heavy, iron crowbar, chipped with red paint.
"Toby," I said, stepping forward. "What is that?"
"It's a crowbar, Norm. Don't be dense."
"I know what the object is! I am asking why you have it in your backpack!"
Toby wedged the flat edge of the crowbar into a seam between two warped wooden floorboards. He leaned his weight onto the iron bar. The wood groaned, fighting the leverage, before snapping with a loud crack. A rusted nail flew through the air and bounced off the drywall.
"Toby! Stop!" I yelled, my heart leaping into my throat. "You're vandalizing the place!"
"It's already vandalized," Toby grunted, jamming the crowbar into the next seam. He pushed down hard. His knuckles were white. The muscles in his forearms strained. Another board popped free. "I'm looking for something."
"Looking for what? Termites? Asbestos?"
He threw the second board aside. It clattered against an overturned filing cabinet. He stared down into the dark cavity between the joists. "It's not here."
"What is not here?"
Toby sat back on his heels. He wiped a streak of sweat from his forehead, leaving a smudge of dark dirt across his skin. He looked at me. His eyes were entirely flat. All the sarcastic, witty energy from the hike was gone.
"Cash," Toby said.
I blinked. The dust in the air suddenly felt suffocating. "What?"
"Cash, Norm. Money. Bills. Paper currency. My brother's stash."
"Derek?" I asked. "Derek hasn't lived in this state for three years."
"I know," Toby said, his voice tight. He stood up and moved to the next row of floorboards. He jammed the crowbar in again. "Before he left, he told me he hid an emergency fund. For me. He said if things ever got too bad with Mom, I should take the money and buy a bus ticket. He said he hid it under the floorboards in the old mill office. He gave me the key on my fourteenth birthday."
I stared at him. The reality of the situation crashed into me, heavy and suffocating. This wasn't a spontaneous rebellion. This wasn't about skipping graduation rehearsal because it was 'mid'.
"You're running away," I said. The words tasted like ash.
Toby leaned on the crowbar. The wood splintered. "I'm relocating. Vancouver. I have a buddy up there. He works on a ferry."
"You can't go to Vancouver! We graduate next week! You haven't even packed anything!"
"I have this backpack," Toby said, gesturing to the canvas bag on the floor. "I have three t-shirts. I have my board. I just need the cash."
"Toby, this is insane. Your mom will freak out."
"My mom won't even notice I'm gone until she needs someone to pay the electric bill," Toby snapped, his voice echoing sharply in the empty room. He yanked on the crowbar. The third board ripped free with a violent shriek of wood and metal. "She took my savings, Norm. Again. I had eight hundred dollars in a shoebox under my bed from the tire shop. It's gone. She took it to pay off her boyfriend's truck repairs. I am not staying in that house another night."
I didn't know what to say. My own problems—the FAFSA, the major selection, the fear of picking the wrong email format for a college application—suddenly felt incredibly small. They felt like a joke. I was standing next to a kid who was literally ripping up the floor of a decaying building to finance his own disappearance.
"Toby, I—"
The sound of crunching gravel cut me off.
It wasn't a small sound. It was heavy. Rhythmic. The loud, aggressive crunch of massive tires rolling slowly down the concrete ramp toward the loading bay.
Toby froze. The crowbar slipped from his hand, hitting the floor with a dull thud.
We both looked toward the cracked window.
A lifted, matte-black Ford F-250 pulled into view, stopping directly in front of the main doors. The engine idled loudly, a deep, rattling hum that vibrated through the floorboards beneath our feet.
The driver's door swung open. A heavy work boot hit the cracked concrete.
Three guys stepped out of the truck. They looked to be in their early twenties. The driver had a shaved head and a thick, tribal tattoo wrapping around his thick neck. The guy riding shotgun was holding a wooden baseball bat. The bat was wrapped in black electrical tape around the grip. The third guy, climbing out of the back seat, held a heavy metal chain draped casually over his shoulder.
"Oh, we are cooked," Toby whispered.
"Who are they?" I breathed, shrinking back from the window. My knees literally knocked together. It wasn't a metaphor. I felt the bone hit bone.
"Scrap guys," Toby muttered, grabbing his backpack and shoving the crowbar inside. "They come out here to strip copper wire and steel. They're aggressive. My brother used to fight with them."
"Fight them? With fists?"
"No, with strongly worded emails," Toby hissed. "Yes, with fists, Norm! Come on. We have to hide."
"Let's just leave! We can go out the back!"
"There is no back door to this office. The only way out is through the loading bay. We have to get into the main warehouse and get up high."
Toby grabbed my jacket sleeve and yanked me toward the interior door that led deeper into the mill. We slipped through it just as we heard the heavy, squealing sound of the main bay doors being forced open on rusted tracks.
"Hello?" a deep voice echoed from the front. "Whose padlock was on the office?"
We ran. The main warehouse was massive, a cavernous void of steel beams, massive dormant saw blades, and conveyor belts caked in decade-old sawdust. The sheer size of the room made every footstep echo.
"Up," Toby pointed to a rusted metal staircase that zigzagged up the side of the wall toward a catwalk suspended forty feet in the air.
I didn't argue. We scrambled up the metal grates. My hands gripped the railing. The metal was coarse, eating into my palms. The stairs rattled under our weight, a terrifying metallic clatter.
We reached the catwalk and threw ourselves flat against the grated floor. Below us, the main warehouse floor spread out like a concrete ocean.
The interior door banged open. The three guys walked in. The guy with the bat smacked it against a rusted oil drum.
Clang.
The sound was explosive. It vibrated in my chest.
"I know somebody's in here!" the driver yelled. "I see the fresh tire tracks from a skateboard out front! Come on out, kids!"
My chest seized. It wasn't just fear. It was a physical shutdown. My lungs forgot how to expand. The air in my throat felt like a solid block of ice. My vision began to tunnel, the edges of the warehouse blurring into static darkness.
I was having a panic attack.
I lay on the cold steel grate, my fingers curling inward. I couldn't breathe. The sound of my own heartbeat was deafening, a rapid, frantic drumming in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, focusing on the rough texture of the rust against my cheek.
Toby shifted next to me. He looked over, his eyes wide. He saw my face, pale and slick with sweat. He saw my chest hitching as I tried to pull air in.
"Norm," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the guys walking below.
I shook my head. I couldn't speak.
Toby looked down at the warehouse floor. The guys were splitting up. The guy with the chain was walking toward the base of our staircase. If he looked up, he would see us through the metal grating.
Toby looked back at me. He looked at his backpack. He looked at the floorboards in the office, back the way we came. The money. He was so close to the money.
Then, he reached out and grabbed my shoulder. His grip was tight. Grounding.
"Look at me," Toby breathed, leaning his face inches from mine.
I forced my eyes open. The tunnel vision was severe. All I could see was Toby's scratched sunglasses and the dirt smudged on his nose.
"Breathe in for four," he commanded, his voice utterly steady, devoid of all the sarcastic irony he usually wore like armor. "One. Two. Three. Four."
I tried. A ragged, pathetic gasp entered my lungs.
"Hold it," he whispered. "Now out. Slow."
Below us, the guy with the chain hit the first step of the metal staircase. Clang.
My eyes widened in pure terror.
Toby didn't look away from me. He didn't look at the stairs. He just kept his hand on my shoulder. "Keep looking at me. They are mid. They are NPCs. They aren't real. Just breathe."
Clang. The second step.
"Hey, Rick!" the guy with the bat yelled from the far side of the warehouse. "Over here! Someone forced open the electrical box! Fresh copper!"
The heavy footstep paused on the stairs.
"Coming!" the guy with the chain yelled back. He hopped off the stairs. His footsteps faded as he walked away toward his friends.
I exhaled. A long, shuddering breath that rattled my ribs.
"You're okay," Toby said quietly. He let go of my shoulder.
I lay there, staring at the dust motes dancing in a shaft of sunlight cutting through the ceiling. The panic was receding, leaving me hollow and exhausted.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"For what? Having a nervous system?" Toby asked, shifting his weight. "Don't apologize."
"I ruined your plan. You didn't get the money."
Toby looked toward the office doors. His jaw tightened. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded wad of bills. It was maybe fifty dollars in fives and tens.
"I got this from the first floorboard before they pulled up," he said softly. He stared at the crumpled paper. "It's not enough for a bus ticket. Not even close."
"You could have kept looking. I slowed you down."
"Norm," Toby said, turning back to me. "If I had kept looking, those guys would have walked in and cracked my skull with a baseball bat. You didn't slow me down. You probably saved my life by having a meltdown and forcing us to run."
I managed a weak smile. "You're welcome, I guess."
"We need a distraction," Toby said, peeking over the edge of the catwalk. The three guys were huddled around an electrical panel on the far wall, yanking thick cables out of the wall with a crowbar of their own. "We can't sneak back down the stairs. They'll hear us."
I looked around the catwalk. There wasn't much up here. Just empty space, dust, and an old, rusted metal cart loaded with heavy, iron gears left over from the mill's operation. On the wall next to the cart was a bright red emergency box.
I pointed at the box. "What is that?"
Toby squinted. "Industrial air horn. For evacuations."
I looked at the cart, heavy with iron. Then I looked down at the sloped metal track that ran from our catwalk down to the sorting floor on the opposite side of the warehouse from the scrap guys.
"Toby," I said, my voice steadying. The panic was gone, replaced by a sudden, jagged clarity. "How fast do you think that cart would roll down that track?"
Toby followed my gaze. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. "Fast enough to make a lot of noise."
We crept toward the heavy metal cart. The wheels were rusted, but when Toby leaned his shoulder against it, it gave way with a faint squeak. It was loaded with at least three hundred pounds of solid iron gears.
"On three," Toby whispered, positioning himself behind the cart.
I stood by the bright red emergency box on the wall. The glass was already broken. Inside was a heavy lever.
"One," Toby mouthed.
Down below, the scrap guys were shouting at each other, arguing over how to cut a thick gauge wire.
"Two."
I gripped the red lever.
"Three!"
Toby shoved the cart with everything he had. It tipped over the edge of the decline track. Gravity took it instantly. The cart accelerated, the rusted iron wheels shrieking against the metal track like a tortured animal.
At the exact same second, I yanked the red lever down.
The air horn was not a simple siren. It was a catastrophic, earth-shattering blast of compressed sound. It roared through the warehouse, a deafening, mechanical bellow that vibrated the fillings in my teeth.
Down on the floor, the three scrap guys jumped out of their skin. They spun around, weapons raised, completely disoriented by the noise.
Then, the heavy cart hit the bottom of the track. It slammed into a concrete retaining wall on the far side of the building. The impact sounded like a bomb going off. Iron gears launched into the air, crashing onto the concrete floor with deafening metallic clangs.
"What the hell was that?!" the driver screamed over the dying blast of the air horn, pointing toward the wreckage of the cart.
All three of them sprinted toward the far side of the warehouse.
"Go!" Toby yelled, grabbing my jacket.
We scrambled down the metal stairs, our sneakers hammering the grates. We didn't care about the noise now. The echoes of the crash were still bouncing off the walls. We hit the main floor and sprinted in the opposite direction, toward the office doors.
We burst through the office, kicking up clouds of dust, and slammed out the heavy steel exterior door.
The blinding afternoon sun hit my eyes like a physical blow. The heat was immense. We didn't stop. We sprinted past the idling black truck, our boots crunching loudly on the gravel, and dove straight into the dense tree line of the forest.
Branches whipped my face. Thorns tore at my jeans. I tripped, fell, rolled, and pushed myself back up without breaking stride. Adrenaline flooded my system, a pure, chemical fire that made my legs feel weightless.
We ran for ten straight minutes, tearing through the brush until my lungs felt like they were bleeding.
We burst out of the trees and hit the riverbank.
"Don't stop!" Toby yelled, splashing directly into the water. He didn't bother hopping the rocks this time. He just waded straight in. The water was waist-deep, freezing cold, and moving fast.
I plunged in after him. The cold shock hit my chest, stealing my breath. I pushed forward, the water dragging at my jeans like heavy hands.
Suddenly, the water ahead of us erupted.
Smack.
The beaver was back.
It surfaced ten feet away, its massive teeth bared, entirely furious that we had returned to violate its airspace. It slapped its tail against the water, sending a sheet of freezing spray directly into my face.
"I don't have time for you today, man!" Toby screamed at the beaver. He violently kicked a wave of water at the animal. "I'm having a terrible afternoon!"
The beaver hissed—a terrible, low sound—and dove under the surface.
"Move!" I yelled, terrified it was going to bite my ankles off underwater.
We scrambled out of the river and hit the muddy embankment on the far side. The incline was brutal, a forty-five-degree angle of slick, wet earth. I dug my fingers into the mud, pulling myself up by exposed roots. My shoes found zero traction. I slid back two feet for every three feet I gained.
Toby grabbed my collar and hauled me upward. We crested the top of the embankment and spilled out onto the shoulder of the paved highway, completely exhausted.
We collapsed onto the hot asphalt. The contrast between the freezing river water soaking my clothes and the baking heat of the blacktop was jarring.
I lay on my back, staring up at the blinding blue sky. My chest heaved. My hands were coated in thick, brown mud.
Toby sat up slowly. He pulled his knees to his chest. He reached into his soaked pocket and pulled out the small wad of cash he had grabbed from the floorboards. The paper was ruined, soaked through with muddy river water. The ink was bleeding.
He stared at it for a long time. The silence between us stretched out, broken only by the sound of our heavy breathing and the distant hum of wind in the pines.
"It wouldn't have worked anyway," Toby said softly.
"Vancouver?"
"Yeah." He dropped the wet money onto the asphalt. He didn't look at it anymore. "I can't leave her. My mom. She's a mess, and she steals my money, and her boyfriend is a loser. But if I leave, she has nobody. Derek left. I can't be the second one to walk out the door."
I sat up, wringing water out of my shirt hem. "You aren't a coward for staying, Toby. And you wouldn't be a coward for leaving. It's just a terrible situation."
"It's completely mid," Toby said, attempting a smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Yeah. It is."
I looked down at my hands. The mud was already drying in the heat, flaking off my skin in pale brown crusts. I thought about the FAFSA deadline. I thought about the graduation rehearsal we were currently missing. I thought about the perfectly aligned rows of folding chairs in the gymnasium.
None of it felt terrifying anymore.
"I think I'm going to major in history," I said suddenly.
Toby looked at me. "History? Why?"
"Because all those people are already dead," I said, a slow laugh building in my chest. "Nothing new can happen to them. It's safe. And maybe I just want to read about people who survived worse things than missing a portal deadline."
Toby threw his head back and laughed. It was a loud, genuine sound that echoed down the empty highway. "Bro. You are deeply weird."
"I am entirely weird," I agreed.
We stood up. Our clothes were ruined. Our shoes squelched with every step. We were covered in river mud, sweat, and rust dust.
"Garris is going to suspend us," Toby said, picking up his skateboard. The bearings were soaked, but the wheels spun.
"Let him," I said. I felt a strange, electric lightness in my chest. The world was chaotic. Beavers attacked. Scrap thieves wielded bats. Money got wet. You couldn't plan for any of it. You just had to survive the mud. "We'll walk the stage anyway."
We started walking down the shoulder of the road, back toward town, leaving the ruined bills drying on the hot asphalt behind us.
“I didn't look back at the money baking on the asphalt, but as we rounded the bend, the low, distant hum of a heavy truck engine started vibrating through the soles of my wet shoes.”
