Sophia and Tim made their way back down the trail to base. The trek down seemed to take longer than it had coming up. A tense silence seemed to lay over the two new friends as they were each lost in their thoughts. Both sensed that something was incredibly wrong here but neither knew what. Finally they made it back down to the parking lot where Sophia stopped dead in her tracks.

"My car!" She declared, now utterly pissed. "It's fucking gone!" Indeed her gray Altima was gone. Furthermore there were no other cars in sight. Sophia knew that not many people visited the park in November, but it was still early in the day and the park was still open. _Someone else_ should have been there too. Her initial anger past, panic set in. What if someone had stolen her car? She had paid for that thing with her own money! How was she supposed to get around?

Sophia tried to remain calm but there were tears threatening at the corners of her eyes as she turned to Tim. "Let's walk back to the ranger's station," she said, trying and failing to keep her tone even. "See if they know what happened to my car." Feeling utterly frustrated Sophia turned to walk the road leading down to the ranger's station where she had first stopped to pay for Tim's entry fee. She hoped that someone there could tell her what happened to her car. Sophia desperately hoped that it hadn't been stolen or towed for some reason, but she didn't know why else it wouldn't be where she had parked it.