Step one, hike down a zig-zagging mountain-side path. On one side of you, there is a wall of rock and green. On the other side of you, there is a plummeting drop. Beneath you is a dusty, rocky, steep slope of boulders and dirt and dried leaves and pine needles. Going down can be a bit slippery in the really dusty parts. But you'll make it.
Step two, have lunch by the oceanside at the bottom. This step is the most relaxing one. You must be completely unaware of what is about to happen. Foreknowledge of the events and their outcome will spoil everything. It just wouldn't be the same.
Step three, begin the trek back up the zig-zagging mountain path. You'll be out of breath by the end of the second zig, but not terribly so, so just keep going. You'll be determined to get to the top without be wussy about it.
Step four, get really annoyed by the person above you who keeps yelling. What they hell are they yelling for? Don't they know we're out in nature? Don't they know anything about serenity? Don't they know this is a falling rock zone? Don't they know they're being annoying?
Step five, wonder briefly out loud if something is wrong. Your friends will laugh (with just a bit of nervousness--just a bit) and agree that they hope nothing is wrong with the annoying yelling guy.
Step six, suddenly hear, very clearly (and your friends will confirm they heard this too) the man yelling, "Help, help!"
Step seven, take off running like a cat on fire. You'll drop your bag for your friends to bring after you, and you'll run right the frig up the friggin mountain! In this step, you'll be yelling as you go, "Hello? Where are you? Hold on! Hello?" You'll be looking up into the wall of vegetation above you as you leap from dirt path to boulder to boulder to dirt path, running up a 30%ish incline. You'll be looking into the drop-off on the other side of the path, scanning for bloodied and unconscious bodies. You don't hear any more yelling. You are completely convinced that someone has fallen over the cliff. You are completely convinced that they were injured terribly while doing this. You are hoping beyond hope that you'll find this person and that there is something you'll be able to do. You'll run up one zig, up one zag, up a second zig, up a second zag, and turn onto the third zig. As you turn onto the third zig, you'll see a man up ahead of you.
Step eight, yell up to this man and ask if he heard someone yelling. When he says that it was him, and that he's okay, and that he hadn't yelled Help, but Hey and Hello and that he was yelling because his group is down at the bottom, with his baby but without water, and that the upset (desperation) you heard in his screams were from that and not from any dire mishaps, you'll laugh and half collapse on the mountain path. You won't be angry, you'll be so relieved because you had thought someone was dying, but no one is dying. You won't be able to draw a proper breath because you haven't run (much less run up a mountain) in almost two years. The blood will be pounding in your ears, literally pounding. You didn't know that that really happened. It feels like someone is hitting your eardrums with a hammer, in time with your pounding heart. But you'll laugh, and you'll chat with the guy in out-of-breath gasps for a few minutes until your friends finally reach you.
Step nine, sit down for a minute. You're going to be so friggin' tired and out of breath. Your friends won't mind waiting on you as you take multiple breaks during the rest of your trek up. At some point, you're going to stop feeling silly with relief. You're going to start feeling like an idiot for running up a mountain because some guy yells "Hello" by putting the emphasis on the "Hell" instead of on the "O". You're going to start wondering what you could have done anyway, since you're a skinny-ass-no-upper-body-strength-having girl and you were responding to what you thought was a grown man who fell over a cliff. You would have gone anyway, you decide, you would have tried even if there was nothing you could have done, but it occurs to you that you really weren't equipped to deal with the situation to which you were responding.
Step ten, think back to that How to Be A Superheroine book that you got as a gift a while back. Start thinking again about first aid certification, and how you had considered getting EMT training just so you could have it. Think about buffing yourself up so that you could lift, or at least drag, someone your own weight or heavier. Think about learning how to handle yourself in nature so that you'll be prepared to deal with potential dire situations.
Now, at this point, you're also going to think of that Friends episode where they hear a car backfiring, but they think it was a gunshot, and one of them has all these great epiphanies due to the "near death experience" of hearing a car backfiring. You think it's similarly ridiculous to be having all these thoughts on how you need to prepare yourself so that you can help other people, based on the fact that you thought someone was dying when they yelled "hello". But you think about these things anyway.
Step eleven, half an hour later, as you're beginning to cool off, it will occur to you that you ran up a friggin mountain. And that your physical therapist had given you specific instructions not to try running for at least another six months because it could retrigger your injury. But you did it. And your foot doesn't hurt. Take a moment to be happy you're not walking with a cane. It's so awesome to not walk with a cane.
Step twelve, and this is arguably the most important step, stop in Kawi and get some shaved ice. Rootbeer and blue vanilla will strike you as strange flavors for shaved ice, but you have a suspicion that if you mix them, it'll taste like a rootbeer float. It will. And it'll be really good. And after you finish it, you'll finally be cooled off.
Life is good.
Oh, and make sure to get a picture of the guy who's life you mistakenly tried to save. You'll see him a little bit later with his girlfriend and baby. Such a cute family.
