The date is July 21st 2009. “I’m gonna go for a walk. My heads not right.” I left my campsite and friends and headed down the trail through the woods. There were tents on each side of me and people roaming everywhere. I looked down into the valley in the woods and there were drummers and people all gathered around a blazing fire. It was my third day here and my third day without sleep. The festival was all about peace and music and I couldn’t seem to find peace anywhere I went. The acid I took a couple of hours ago is in full effect now. I shouldn’t have done that ecstasy. I should have learned my lesson last time and the combination with the acid is giving me a strange vibe I don’t understand.
Everyone here was friendly and treated you as a friend even though they had never seen you or met you before. You could walk up to anyone’s campsite and they would usually take a liking to you and include you in their conversations as if you’d been their friends for years. I wasn’t used to this. Normally anywhere you’d go, people would rather keep to their groups and would express hatred to anyone that tried to be friendly or join in.  I had been here now for three days. Wait I already said that. The lack of sleep was starting to get to me. My normal functions were off and everything was starting to blur together like one long day.
I was three miles away from the Grassroots festival on a campsite with all the other people that had been there. You would go to the festival and listen to music and enjoy the activities there during the day and then you’d scream, drum and hang out with people at night on the campgrounds. There was never time for sleep and even if you wanted to sleep that wasn’t an option. With a thousand or more people on a small campground in the woods screaming, joining your campfire, talking to you and inviting you to activities at any time of the day or night. It was like trying to get some sleep in the middle of the road in Vegas. I was starting to grow tired of it. The people here were starting to bother me. The atmosphere here was starting to bother me. Everything was starting to bother me. I grew up my whole life with people around me hating and constantly judging people. I couldn’t get used to this atmosphere. It was too friendly and I just wanted a little bit of alone time.
I walked past some familiar faces, but I couldn’t seem to remember how I had met them. Did I know them from home, or did I meet them here and if I met them here where did I meet them? I think they were the three girls from the concert last night, or was it the night before. I had been dancing in the crowd and they had spotted me and came over and danced with me. I was out of it. If that was them I should have remembered them. Maybe the acid made them look different. Sometimes it does that. We danced for about an hour straight and talked the whole time. If my memory’s that bad right now I’m scared of what else might be going. I wanted to walk on by them because I didn’t feel like talking much, but of course I was going to get stopped right now and I’m too nice of a person to just blow them off.
“Hey! Happy grassroots” they said, which was a phrase that was really starting to boil my blood. Everything was so happy and peaceful to everyone else but me it seemed and they treated this whole thing like one giant happy four day long party. It’s hard to believe these people can still think after all the drugs they’ve done.
My head was a toss salad at this point. If I managed to say or even think of the right thing to say to people at this point it’d be a miracle. I mumbled something at them at tried to breeze on by, but they started rambling on about how peaceful and lovely there whole festival had been and I couldn’t just leave mid sentence. I waited for my opportunity to leave, hoping that some other stranger would stumble upon this site giving me enough time to bolt away.
It wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for, but it worked. They went into their tents to go get some drawing, or something that they had bought earlier and right when they left my sight I bolted down the trail deep into the woods.
I cut through a gap of trees and there in front of me was a stream leading to a wonderful waterfall. The moon was full and casting a wonderful glare off the water. A great sight when your tripping. I took a seat on a rock and put my head in my arms, closed my eyes and just listened to the waterfall splashing down on the rocks. I felt out of place. I don’t want to be here anymore. I sat in silence for awhile just listening. There seemed to be some other noise mixed in with this sound. The sound of footstep. It couldn’t be. I must be a mile away from the campsite by now, but the noise continued and grew closer and closer. Sure enough when I looked up I could see a figure pulling his way through the trees. He was wearing a bright white shirt which glowed in the moon and a backwards ball cap. I figured he must have been looking for somewhere quiet as well, so I didn’t say anything to him. I just kept looking forward and started to put my head back down, but his footsteps kept coming closer and closer to me. He was either walking to the edge of the waterfall, or coming for me. I didn’t move hoping to give him the hint that I didn’t want to be bothered, but now I could feel him brush up against me.
“Get up”
I looked back and he was holding what looked like a small switchblade. My heart started pounding, my legs froze, and suddenly I was wide awake and alert as I had been the first day I was here. My mind went blank. All I could do was listen and obey. I got up. I couldn’t see anything around me. All I could manage to see was me and the knife pointed directly at me.
“Empty out everything you got.”
Time seemed to stop. I was trapped. A horrible place to be for a head filled with acid. My mind started going through its basic survival techniques. Running over my two options over and over again in my head, give him the last twenty dollars that I have, or run for it. I didn’t think he’d chase me and even if he did, the head start I’d get would give me enough time to get away, or at least hide in the deep woods. I needed more time to think, but I was still facing the knife and it wasn’t going to wait for me to decide.
I pushed him down and started off running down the path. I was sprinting faster than I ever had in my entire life. No thoughts in my head running, just looking at what was coming ahead of me.  I could see tents in the distance and I knew that no idiot would stab someone in front of hundreds of people. I looked back and there was no one. Maybe he hadn’t chased me at all. I felt like I was going to puke. My hands were trembling, my body shaking. I was safe. I took a few deep breaths and started walking back towards my campsite. On the way back the girls stopped me again. They told me a story about all the nice people here and how everyone was so generous and would help you out if you needed it and as I walked away she gave me a peace sign. I started laughing hysterically. I couldn’t stop laughing.