text: Ashta is a town like any other: full of wonderful people, clear skies, and surrounded by a lush forest. The neighbors were friendly, the air was clean, and everyone never wanted to leave. What sets Ashta apart from the rest of the world is that the town sits atop a large mountain, making contact with any other village nearly impossible. They would get supplies straight from Ashta, which means everything was grown and handmade. The lush forest that surrounds them lies at the bottom of the steep slope, making the fall down mean inevitable death. For Taylor, the fall sounds more like an adventure, a journey, rather than asking for death. Everyone in Ashta lives and breathes the fresh air of the mountain, seeming content with living above the world forever. But what happens below the trees? Beneath the pine and oak, the green and brown that seems to stretch forever, there has to be more below the town than everyone makes it out to be. When asked what Taylor wanted for her 17th birthday, she responded immediately, “I want to go down the mountain.” Her parents reacted like every other member of Ashta; they changed the subject. They’d deny, deflect, and get the topic of conversation away from the fact that their daughter or friend wanted to leave their perfect paradise near the clouds. Little did they know that deflecting would cause them more pain. Taylor, a teen on a mission, would set out every night to the edge of Ashta. She had been walking the outer edge and looking out to the trees. At night, below the mountain, it was pitch black. When the wind began to pick up, it would blow the leaves enough for the sound to carry to the town, but nothing could be seen moving over the edge. It had taken Taylor a while to complete the circle around the edge. After two weeks of leaving her bed and coming back before her parents noticed she was gone, the journey had been complete. The hand-drawn map that lay beneath her bed whispered to her as the day went on. Today was the day she would descend the mountain. It would be idiotic of her to try and go down at night. As said before, the forest could not be seen when the sun went down. The location with the most clearing had been marked, and Taylor would be going during the day to see if her eyes had been correct in choosing the marked path. She quickly slipped out of the house; her parents watching television together was an easy distraction. Hopping onto her bike, she began the journey to the location on the map. Her travels took less time than in the dark. It was like the sun was encouraging her to follow her plan. She would nod to the neighbors and say ‘hello’ to the students in her class but never stopped to chat. If she did, she might consider going back home and never touching the trees beneath the city. She couldn’t back down, not after all of this time and energy she had spent on it. Taylor arrived within 20 minutes. The path was the clearest out of the rest of the edge, just like she had thought. It had a few large rocks, but it went the furthest down without being swallowed by the trees. She took a moment--not too long to think about what she was about to do--to look back at her hometown. The place she grew up, the place she loved, from the bottom of her heart. But her heart also called to the forest beneath her. Before she began to think of the memories she had in Ashta, before she began to regret her decision and turn back, Taylor took a deep breath and pushed off on her bike down and over the edge of the town. The point of continuing on her bike was to help her explore once she made it down. Little did she know that the journey down would be much more difficult to navigate and control on a two-wheeled object. The initial drop over the lip of the edge made Taylor’s heart fly out of her chest. It wasn’t a gradual slope but an almost horizontal line for a while before moving to a steep one. Taylor had assumed the horizontal slope wouldn’t last as long as it did. It felt like she was free falling off her town rather than riding her bike down. In a flash, Taylor began thinking of her friends, neighbors, and poor parents. What had she done? Did she think of a way to get back up? Will she make it down to the forest conscious? Her tires hit the steep slope hard before she could think of anything else--hard enough to bend the front tire and cause her to let go of the object as she flew over the handlebars. She managed to twist her body enough for her shoulder to take the impact rather than her head. The hard smack was followed by a loud ‘pop’ and a seething pain in her shoulder. As she landed, her body bounced like a rubber ball. She continued bouncing down the slope, smacking against the earth with enough force to knock the rocks she hit off of their tucked-away home in the dirt. The air continuously knocked out of her, forcing her to keep silent during her fall. Did anyone notice her going off the edge? Would anyone be able to help her? Her shoulder was in so much agony. That pain was nothing compared to landing on a sharp rock. Almost all of the force of the land went straight to her right leg, a loud snap accompanying it. Taylor still couldn’t scream, her lungs filling with dirt and dust. She couldn’t breathe; the natural coughing fit was not helping her panicking brain. The world spun, making it hard to tell how far she had fallen. Taylor opened her eyes, which had closed a long time ago, only to watch her bike approaching her. It wasn’t a moment longer that the handlebars collided with her forehead, knocking her unconscious. Her body continued flinging and falling, her bike rolling with her and tangling her limbs between the metal. It was hard to tell what was girl and what was bike. Upon finding one of the many trees beneath the mountain, Taylor’s body wrapped around the trunk, her bike hanging around her to pin her to the forest floor. Before sighing for one last time, Taylor could feel the tree bark digging into her skin. At least she was able to touch the forest like she always wanted.