It was a hot August night, and the stars were peeking out of the barely light sky. Me and my parents had just come back from swimming, dinner, and ice cream. We pulled into our campsite, number 28, and started to unpack our swim stuff from the car. I walked over to our tent, tugged off my shoes, and grabbed a headlamp from my bag. When I turned around, I saw my parents were whispering to each other.

“What are you guys talking about?” I asked.
My mom quietly answers,” Honey, there's a bear standing about 8 feet away from us.” I couldn't quite process what I had just heard, the moment I realized what she had said, my stomach started to ache, and my whole body started shaking. It was happening again.

Let me explain. Every year, on my way up to Oregon, my parents and I camp for one night at this place near Mt. Shasta. Last year, my mom woke me up in the middle of the night, telling me to get in the car because there was a bear around. That's when the stomach ache and the shaking started. It was almost like having a panic attack. Nothing happened that night, but I was still so scared I could barely sleep the night after. That was a year ago, and we were in a campsite closer to the main road, so we thought that we wouldn't have to worry about bears this year, because we were much closer to civilization. We thought wrong.

After last year’s events, I realized that one of my biggest fears was bears. After my mom told me about the bear, I turned my headlamp on, since the sky was getting darker by the second, and shone my light where my mom pointed. The bear had already lumbered off, so I didn't get to actually see it, but I still jumped at every noise. After I got ready for bed, I climbed into my sleeping bag, wishing for sleep. My wish was not granted. I was too scared. It also probably didn't help that all around us people were making noise and shouting, “Bear!” every few seconds. The darkness around us was filled with the cracking of branches and the howling of the wind. I probably fell asleep around 1:30.

After a long restless night, I woke up at 5:30. The moment I realized that the sky was light, I turned to my mom, who had gotten even less sleep than me, and we both smiled at each other. We were so tired, but even more relieved. The night was over.

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