I feel myself sitting up—gasping for air like I’m drowning—before I’m conscious of anything else.

It’s pitch black. Silent.

I’m still for a few moments as my higher cognitive processes catch up to my primal brain. My eyes begin to adjust; My ears pick up subtle sounds.

I’m in my tent.

No worries, I tell myself, you’re supposed to be in here. “You’re camping, silly goose.” Releived, I lie back down, tuck my inflatable pillow back under my head, and close my eyes. The sleeping bag holds in my body heat, a cocoon of warmth against the cold night air.

My ears can’t help but struggle to make out something, anything. The gentle sound of water from the creek. An owl hoot bouncing off the canyon walls. The sharp snap of a small twig stepped on by nocturnal fauna. The still-new sounds—and silences-of camping prove less conducive to sleep than the constant drone of City Life.

Part of me wishes for more. More sounds. More light. More… everything. I’m consciously trying to be the quintessential “urbanite” spending more quality time with her kids. To do the things their father always promised but never delivered. (And was probably now promising to his new family.) I’d feel a lot better if an occasional car horn or siren blare would fill the gap left by all this nature. Maybe the soft blink of a reflected neon sign…?

It’s okay, though. It’s good for them, to get away from their devices, to be outside. It matters. And what kind of mom would I be if I didn’t love them enough to sleep in a bag on the ground in the middle of the high desert so they could finally see the stars?

And I do. Love them, that is. More than I thought I could love anyone or anything. They are my whole life. And I say that willingly, happily. They are my existence. Us against the world! Or at least against the greater Phoenix area!

I try to turn off my brain so I can drift back to sleep.

Then it hits me: The realization that I can’t hear them, either. They are never completely silent. Even at night, when dead asleep, they are still noisy. They breath and rustle and make little noises all night long.

I hear nothing.

I immediately sit back up, desperately, unsuccessfully trying to find my flashlight. My hands move along the floor in a panic, but all I feel is cold nylon. Where are their sleeping bags?

My phone!

I fish it out of my purse and click the Home Screen. The screen light is blinding, but I manage to push the “flashlight” button. The tent, fully illuminated, is completely empty, save for me and my small amount of things.

My children are gone.

“Boys!” The words are out before I can even form the thought. “Boys!” I repeat it, over and over. “If you can hear me you better say so, now! This isn’t funny!”

Nothing. I can’t get my shoes on fast enough so I forgo them altogether. The stupid door zipper mocks my frantic efforts, I end up grabbing both sides and yanking it open, pulling the teeth apart, ripping the fabric.

I’m barefoot and freezing in just my base layer, but I don’t care. The light on my phone is nowhere near powerful enough, but it manages to catch a glint off the real flashlight, left on our cooler. I grab it and click it on and the whole canyon becomes visible for a hundred feet in every direction, light bouncing off the rock walls and along the trickle of water traveling along the base of the canyon. What is normally beautiful—the very reason for taking the trip—becomes an eerie prison, suddenly claustrophobic, suffocating.

“Boys!”

Nothing.

The van! I bet they got scared and went to sleep in the van.

I run to where we parked, just around the bend. That has to be it; Where else could they be?

My feet feel each small rock and stick, sending bullets of pain into my brain that go unheeded as I run to find my babies.

I get around the rock wall and look to where we parked.

The van is gone.

Every possible scenario, every horrible thing that could have happened to my sons, collides in my mind to form a vortex of panic. I am at a loss. I don’t know what to do next but I need to do something.

I can’t move at all.

I stand, alone, in the cold-dark silence.

Laughter.

I hear voices.

Adults.

A man and woman.

Without thought I move quickly in the direction of the sounds, unsure of the how, but fully, one hundred percent committed to the what: I will kill these people if they hurt my children.

The glow of a small propane fire.

I approach, screaming at them, asking them what they did with my boys. My fists balled, ready to strike, I demand that they acknowledge me, answer my questions.

Nothing.

They don’t even blink.

“Doug said that he and Carla will be here soon.”

“Nice. He better not have bought that cheap-ass crap again.”

“Carla said he’s bringing Hop Valley. That good enough for you?”

I scream, all out, top-of-my-lungs scream, as I stalk around them like a pissed off lioness, getting in their eye-line. “I will kill you. You hear me? Give me my boys or I will end you!”

“That’s cool. Whatever. As long is it isn’t that garbage he brought when we were in Yosemite. What was it called?”

“I think it just said ‘beer.’”

The male laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. It just said ‘beer.’ What an ass.”

I am so far gone that I am no longer in control of myself as I take their lantern and hurl it a good fifteen feet away.

That did it. That got their attention.

“What they hell?”

The male stands, instinctively putting an arm between the lantern and his girlfriend, as though the lantern is the threat, not me.

“How did that happen?”

He looks around, like I’m not even there. I yell at him, calling him all kinds of unpleasant things. I hit him, slap his stupid face, but the strikes do nothing.

“I don’t know. That was weird. Wind?”

“You think the wind did that?”

“I don’t know! Something did.”

I’m exhausted. I want to cry and collapse and murder these two idiots all at once.

Really, all I want are my boys.

The silence is broken when the female’s phone chirps.

“It’s from Carla. She says we have to move. She sent me a link.”

“What? Why? What’s it say?”

Everything is silent. I can’t believe what is happening. How are they doing this? Why are they doing this? And where are my boys?!

“It’s an article. It says that back in twenty-sixteen a lady died here.”

“Here?”

“Yeah. Flash flood.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Oh, no, this is horrible. It says that she was camping with her two young sons. It rained like miles north of here, so she wouldn’t have had any idea.”

“Did the boys die?”

She reads silently.

“No. Thank God! It says that some park rangers found them, huddled on a small cliff in the wall, up higher than the waterline. They told the rangers that their mom pushed them up on the ledge but that there wasn’t enough room and she disappeared in the water. This is so sad. They found her body a mile and a half further down stream. It happened at night. The poor babies were in their pajamas, didn’t even have shoes on. Poor things.”

“Damn… Yeah. Okay. Let’s move.”

As I watched the two, without acknowledging me at all, packed up and left. They just left. My boys are missing and they just left?

I collapsed. Unable to take another step.

My last thought, before I passed out, was of my boys. I would find them.

I just needed to recharge, to rest my eyes…

For a few moments…

Then I would find…

I feel myself sitting up—gasping for air like I’m drowning—before I’m conscious of anything else.

It’s pitch black. Silent.

I’m still for a few moments as my higher cognitive processes catch up to my primal brain. My eyes begin to adjust; My ears pick up subtle sounds.

I’m in my tent.