I decided to run. I took an old vehicle 1400 miles from home to explore the terrain. I needed out; this wasn’t just a split second decision. If I were to just take off with no plan I would probably find myself in an even worse situation than I started in. No, I saved up the money, quit my job, waited until my apartment lease was up, and prepared with supplies and training. The wilderness is daunting, so a national park would have resources for me to use. Yellowstone in Wyoming: my parents had taken me there as a kid, and it’s a big place. I see a waterfall surrounded by beautiful cliffs made of actual yellow stone. Atop the cliff is land and mountains for miles. What if I just took a map and started a trail? I could walk and find plants to eat based off the “plant identification guide” I got from my friend. There’s a couple hours till sundown, and I should be able to find a place to camp out with the tarp in my backpack. As I walk, the trees are beautiful. As the sunlight glimmers through them, I watch the path: dirt brown, covered in leaves and roots. Actually, the roots look funny, like they’re leading towards somewhere. “Huh,” I think. “I guess I should follow them. What have I got to lose?” The second I took a step in the direction of the roots, an angry spirit appeared and flipped the world upside down. “How did you get here?” It says. “Do u want to go down this path?” I think and think. “Why not?” Another spirit shows up. “WARNING!” He says. This can lead to a place that you can’t come back from. “What kind of place could that be?” I thought. They now lead devious smiles at me. “You want to know?”They said. Come with us. Chanting glided into my ears and surrounded me as my body fell limp. They dragged me to a dark place, what seemed to be the middle of the earth. They showed me another version of myself behind a barrier, blissed out of my mind, literally. In this version, I was so happy that my family was terrified for my being, and I felt so much bliss that I couldn’t move my body. I wasn’t even worried enough to get up to go to the bathroom. I would sit there, soiled, with not a care in the world. I also had no capacity to understand language. I had to choose; Is this kind of happiness worth the loss of my family? Is it worth the loss of myself? Will the people I care about not matter in the same way? This seemed like the hardest thing on the world to face. Things kept coming to my mind: “Will I be able to survive?” “What about setting up my tarp?” “The sun is gonna be gone soon.” All of it seemed not to matter anymore in the place I’m in. All of these things were trivial. I wanted to run away, right? I don’t want my family, my friends, my apartment, my job. I want liberation, right? It’s so ingrained in me to care about these people, or care about what they think of me. I’m terrified of not coming back at this point. How would everyone feel? Well, I don’t know how everyone could manage this image of me, but I am curious to experience this bliss, even if just for a second. “Do u want to cross the barrier?” They said. I looked behind me, at the beautiful forest, the sun going down, the shadows increasing. When I turned to look back, I tripped. Immediately the light of bliss pulled me to the other side. I saw my body, my mind, my heart, all let go. I merged with this vegetable of a person I am, and understood where I was at. “I am gone,” I thought. My family will never know me again, and I can’t go back to normal. This is the worst thing that could happen to me, my biggest fear. Losing everyone, including myself, and living a life where I am practically dead. But I’m not dead; I am worse than dead. I am in a state of uncontrollable mind. Language has broken apart, and I don’t know who I am at all, I just know that I have found something. A light, a release of everything keeping me intact with this world. I am gone.