It was a testament to my fear of losing code that my first action post surprise teleportation was to save the files on my open laptop. My dexterity was tested, what with one hand carrying the laptop and the other a hot cup of coffee.

Thankfully I had a lot of practice – read bad habits – of using my laptop as a coaster for drinks.

With the files saved and my anxieties superficially addressed. I returned my attention to the environment.

What had once been my cozy work-from-home office had turned into a grassy meadow that ended in pine trees. Birds chirped, insects buzzed, and a pleasant warmth filled the area.

I took a sip of coffee. Was I hallucinating?

The coffee was a nice Colombian blend with chocolatey hints and a syrupy smooth finish. It paired well with the surrounding nature and for a moment made me nostalgic for camping.

I swiveled my head behind me, hoping to see my kitchen from whence I came – and instead saw a welcoming blue sky and a forested valley surrounded by snowcapped mountains and etched with winding blue-white rivers.

I took a deep breath and felt the tell-tale thin crispness of mountain air. It felt real.

Moving slowly and intentionally, I sat down on short wild grass and gently lay my laptop down to my side. The clock on its brightly lit screen read 7:59 AM. To the left of the clock was an exclamation point next to the Wi-Fi symbol. I pulled up a browser just to be sure and was greeted by an ASCII dinosaur.

I opened up a list of nearby Wi-Fi networks and watched bemusedly as windows struggled to tell me that no, in fact, I could no longer connect to EdgarIsAWizar[d].

I dug through my black sweatpants and pulled out my phone, confirming the time as well as the lack of Wi-Fi and cell service. A digital melody filled the meadow as my phone informed me it was time to start work.

I stared out across the foreign, beautiful landscape.

I probably wasn’t going to make scrum.

***

I drank my coffee and took in the views for a couple minutes while my brain caught up with the surroundings. I was having a hard time believing that just a few moments ago I had been multitasking between brewing my morning coffee and adding some #TODOs to my coding project in my apartment kitchen. Some part of my gray matter was scrambling to reassert reality and in lieu of additional sense data was writing off a morning spent in my kitchen as hallucinations and the current impossibility as truth.

Thankfully, I had evidence in the form of my electronics, clothing, and coffee in a still warm mug that those memories were real.

And so was the surrounding wilderness. The bite of the air, the birdsong, the smells of nature and the irrefutable sights were simply too much to be anything else but reality. And so, I must have experienced teleportation.

Or maybe some kind of elaborate kidnapping with heavy-duty drugs.

No matter the cause, the current situation demanded serious consideration for my next actions. I was effectively lost in the wilderness with no sense of direction and no guarantee that people were looking for me.

Well, my boss would wonder when I didn’t show up to scrum. I frowned a little as I realized my perfect attendance streak was kaput. Not to mention missing code review with my junior developers, I hoped they didn’t push anything strange in my absence.

I wonder if anyone would follow up enough to realize I had been…displaced.

And that wasn’t even considering the process of search and rescue. Or perhaps more likely, a missing person report and police investigation.

I pondered.

Best case scenario I was teleported, because that essentially meant magic was real and the upper limits of what was possible was infinite. One such upper limit outcome might be this situation being caused by a spatial instability that at any moment might grab me again and shoot me back into my apartment.

On the other hand, I was making words up. Just because it sounded plausible didn’t mean it was.

And to be more scientific there was really no conclusion to draw, I had to assume a positive outcome was just as likely as a negative outcome without more information to draw from. I could maybe assert that teleportation was possible and that my highest chances of returning was to stay within a proximity of where I had experienced teleportation – but there were just so many unknown variables that the theory was functionally useless.

I would feel really bad though if I ended up dying to a bear while foraging for berries whereas if I had merely stayed put, I would have been back in my apartment before lunch.

Well, no, that wasn’t entirely true, I wouldn’t feel anything because I would be dead.

The grimness shook me for a second and the weight of the situation pressed in. The warmth of the sun and the relaxing sounds of nature felt more ominous as I sat there doing nothing but thinking.

I tested 911 and predictably reached no one, my phone did offer to contact emergency services the moment my cell service reconnected at the cost of a slight battery drain. I tapped the “OK” button and hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

My phone was, thankfully, 100% charged and from experience could probably last a few days or even a week on battery saver without any service. I committed to checking the charge every so often to make sure it wasn’t decreasing too quickly.

I modified the power settings on my laptop and knew I wouldn’t be nearly as likely to stretch out its battery life without shutting it down.

Out of both curiosity and slight desperation I searched the computer filesystem for any survival guides I might have downloaded on a whim. A spark of excitement quickly turned to disappointment as my computer found a deletion log for an archive entitled “Survival in the Rockies – a backpackers guide.” The deletion date was marked for a couple years back.

I sighed, switched off the power, and closed the black aluminum lid. I wished I had a backpack to store the laptop in, but one cannot always be prepared for the laws of physics breaking.

My electronics taken care of, my next decision had more ambivalence. Should I stay or should I go. A song bubbled up in my consciousness.

I checked my phone, 8:10AM. Most of the common advice I had heard in passing from survival shows or childhood education had been to stay where you were. But there was likely more nuance than that. If the location was dangerous, for one. If nobody was looking for me, for another.

I had no information and the cyclical nature of my thoughts was starting to frustrate me.

I decided to explore.

***

Over the next hour my respect for early trailblazers grew tremendously.

While the mountainside I had been unceremoniously dumped on was not steep, it wasn’t tamed either. The ground was littered with ankle breaking divots hidden by tall grass and accompanied by rocks and shale that threatened to impale me, or otherwise send me careening down the mountain-face until I hit a tree.

It didn’t help that one of my hands was tied up carrying my laptop. I had considered leaving it behind in the meadow but I decided against it in case I couldn’t return to get it.

There was a comfort to having it with me. Like a totem of modernity and technology in a wild world, reminding me of where I belonged, of who I was.

My phone might have been that for me if I had spent so much of my waking life using it, but I was a software engineer, not an influencer.

The thought inspired me though, and I took a few pictures of the meadow as well as the surrounding valley before leaving on my impromptu journey. Even if I was simply documenting my fall into insanity, it was proof that I had been here.

Not that I was needing much more proof, the scratches and bruises accumulating on my shins and knees was more than I needed. I counted my lucky stars that I had been wearing sandals with heel support upon my unlucky transposition, otherwise it would have been a lot worse.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Despite my suffering, the landscape didn’t let up and barely changed after an hour of stumbling around.

I had been moving down the mountain-face, in what I was tentatively assuming as West of my origin point and I had seen nothing but trees, meadows, and more trees, when I heard the telltale gurgle of water.

And indeed, after breaking through another thicket of pines I found myself staring down at a winding brook that had dug itself between the mountain I was standing on, and what looked like a hilly offspring, also covered in trees.

Tired, sore, and wishing I had done more cardio pre-teleport I staggered my way down to the gentle babble of water.

***

I made it without incident and spent a much appreciated break dipping my toes into the mild chill of the brook.

The ceramic mug I had managed to store in my front pocket found its second drink of the day in the form of hopefully clean mountain-brook water. I had considered trying to find faster running water which I vaguely remembered as being less likely to contain contaminants or bacteria, but I was also thirsty and not in the mood for more hiking.

I sat, too tired to think, and let nature consume me with sensation.

Until the violent bleat of what could only be a goat jolted me from my reverie and nearly threw me into the brook.

A few paces away stood a mountain goat, replete with shaggy white hair, a pair of curled horns, and yellow eyes with black sclera. It bleated at me again and I jerked uncontrollably.

The goat stared at me for a few tense seconds before apparently losing interest and going to drink from the same brook I was dipping my toes in.

I took a deep breath and tried to calm my racing heart. It’s just a goat. It wasn’t going to eat me. I think. Corporate survival training did not prepare me for wildlife diplomacy.

I slowly put my sandals back on and collected my laptop and mug. The goat kept drinking and after a minute or so of watching it lap up the water, I felt my body relax.

As I calmed down it struck me that there was a prey animal a mere few paces away that had seen me, acknowledged me, and had gone about its business anyway. Could it be tamed? Or otherwise used to humans?

I refocused my attention on the goat and looked for any telling clues.

It looked like a goat.

The goat finished drinking and promptly trotted away downstream.

I checked my phone, 9:30AM, 90% charge.

Well, I could always hedge my bets. I followed behind.

***

Stalking wildlife was not my forte, and the fact that I was even able to keep up without scaring the goat away spoke to a promising outcome.

I found myself grateful as well, because I could trace the goat’s path and avoid the pitfalls that had worn away my shins previously. It gave me an opportunity to actually think about the consequences of my situation.

Assuming I did get out of this valley and find civilization, how far away could I possibly have been displaced? The landscape was foreign, but it wasn’t tropical. It vaguely reminded me of the Colorado Rockies, albeit warmer than the childhood summers I had spent there.

I would have to hope that I could call my bank at the end of all this and transfer money enough to buy plane tickets.

Not to mention, what happens after? I can’t exactly go to the nearest news station and say I was teleported. Nobody was going to believe me. I wondered if I could access location logs on my phone that would prove me being in one place in one second, and quite another place at the next. Probably unlikely without service.

But I did want some kind of proof, or explanation. I needed a good story to tell my coworkers and boss that didn’t scream mental break. ‘Sorry I needed to take an emergency camping trip’ wouldn’t cut it.

I tried wordsmithing an email in my head and failed miserably.

Maybe I should accept the insanity and check myself in at a local asylum when I get back. How was I going to continue my daily life without fearing some breakdown in reality?

The thought reminded me of some argument for the existence of an omnipotent god I had heard way back in high school philosophy. That we cannot trust the moment to moment continuity of experience without having some eternal being that is independent of spatial-temporality gluing everything together. It had sounded…irrational then.

But it spurred the question now, had this been an intentional act of some higher being?

My religion, or lack thereof, was suddenly being called into question.

Fortunately, my inner theologian was interrupted by the growing sound of roaring water.

As the goat and I rounded a tangle of trees I was greeted by our quaint brook merging into a river and the subsequent termination of land over a cliff. A few rainbows floated in the air as white spray flew into the sky at the top of the waterfall.

Distracted by the natural beauty, I failed to truly appreciate the goat trotting over to the lip of the cliff and begin jumping across the river until it was more than halfway over.

By that point, my brain caught up, and I felt my stomach drop in apprehension.

“No! Goat! Come back!”

My voice was lost in the sounds of crashing water. The goat jumped between slick rocks with grace and speed.

Ten seconds couldn’t have passed before the goat reached the other side of the river and continued its journey into the trees, this time following the cliff edge.

I cursed and carefully ran to the precipice of the cliff, maybe there was another way I could follow without risking a trip down the waterfall.

I choked and staggered as I reached the edge.

I do not have a fear of heights, but the sheer immensity of the drop off made me reconsider. It must have been hundreds of feet to a forest floor engulfed by white spray below.

I turned my attention to the path the goat had taken and found myself terrified again, this time for a different reason.

It looked possible to cross.

The tiny outcrops of stone I had pictured from before was a continuous stone bed that was covered by no more than an inch or so of water. The goat had been jumping between the few outcroppings of rock that stuck out from the water. It had been styling on me.

I examined the potential pathway for a moment. The amount of water I could see going over the edge didn’t match the violent spray below and the flow upriver.

I walked upstream for a moment, conscious of the goat getting further away, and confirmed my suspicions. The river had bored straight through the cliff-face and underneath the rock ledge, creating a natural bridge. A slick and narrow bridge.

The geologic wonder struck me as rare enough to be a popular tourist spot. Coupled with the pleasant temperature and the beautiful views I wondered why this hadn’t been turned into some kind of national park attraction. Or maybe it was, and I had just been too blind to notice any obvious trailheads or signs.

I returned to the ledge and considered. Following the goat had been promising, but it wasn’t my only option. I gazed out across the cliffside in the opposite direction saw a few potential ways down into the valley below, albeit a distance off. The goat’s side of the river looked like a gentler transition, but was it worth the risk of traversing the river?

I looked at the pathway again, it didn’t look like a long trek, and I had the example of the goat to follow.

I made my decision.

***

I regretted my decision.

The first few strides across the ledge had been fine, welcome even as the cool water flowed over my likely sunburnt feet. By the time I had reached the middle of the river I had been positively confident that I could make it the whole way.

And then I slipped.

If I had been ten pounds heavier I would have fallen to my death. Instead, I merely watched as ten pounds of black aluminum fell into a watery grave.

“Fuck.” I doubted my hardware insurance would cover waterfall obliteration.

“Double fuck.” I had at least a days’ worth of un-pushed code on that laptop not to mention all the projects I never started repos for.

My fingers twitched in a desire to Ctrl+Z my stupidity. Unfortunately, the laws of physics told me no. Which was doubly infuriating considering not two hours ago I had firsthand proof that they could occasionally look the other way.

On the bright side, I wasn’t dead.

I sighed in frustration bordering on sadness. My laptop had been with me for more than five years now, endured through multiple upgrade surgeries, and was the primary device for my creative and professional endeavors. It also had my personal journal on it. That, thankfully, was backed up to the cloud.

But it still hurt.

I added a few measly human tears to the cascading volumes of river water as I made my way across the rest of the ledge.

***

I found the goat about a minute later and looked at it with a mixture of relief and frustration. It, on the other hand, paid me no mind and continued walking along at a leisurely pace.

My phone read 10:30AM at 80% charge. I was not happy about the rate of battery decline. 20% over two and half hours meant I would probably be out of juice by the end of the day.

But I would pay that cost, because – I stared in relief at the hard packed dirt underneath the goat’s cloven hooves – I had found a trail.

The clearly manmade path wove alongside the cliff edge and cut through wild grass on either side. It was larger than I would have expected for a hiking trail but maybe it accommodated small vehicles. The thought made me excited, maybe I wouldn’t even need to hike all the way down.

Hell, if I was still in the US I could probably be back in my apartment before the end of day.

The goat walked along the path and I followed suit. My chest felt bittersweet as my hands relished in not needing to carry the pseudo-sharp edges of my once laptop.

I started a more comprehensive cataloging of what exactly I had lost, both for closure, and in preparation for potential professional consequences.

Work did have cloud storage, but it was a measly amount of space compared to what I needed for virtual environments and training data samples. It probably wouldn’t be that bad since all of the trained models were stored on a distributed network. I would just be losing the logs of how those models were trained.

That was valuable information.

I thought about my personal projects and felt some tears gather in the corner of my eyes. I wiped my face with my hands and sighed.

Well, I could always rebuild. My most promising project, a riff on Tinder for job seekers, had all the relevant code on Git.

I might be needing that one soon anyway.

I returned my attention to the beautiful valley and decided that maybe I should enjoy the surrounding nature while I had the chance.

I let myself breathe and take in the fresh air. The birdsong that had faded from focus came back with a gentle ferocity of muted chirps. The sun was bright over the mountain I was descending and while I could already feel the pink sting of a sunburn, the warmth was still pleasant.

I gazed back at the waterfall, now a distance away, and drank in the sight. The uniqueness of the geological architecture must have done something to the fluid dynamics because the river shot out into the air like a firehose before cascading down.

From this distance it looked like the trees were sparkling beneath, likely covered in dew and spray from the waterfall.

As the goat and I turned a bend of the path my view of the valley expanded and I involuntarily gasped.

If it had picturesque before, now the valley was simply magical.

A turquoise blue lake, placid, wide, and peppered with forest covered islands, drew itself gracefully into the bottom of the valley. At least three rivers fed it, two of them ending in waterfalls that could have been the younger siblings of my previous foe.

The valley was greener and bluer and more vibrant than anything I had ever seen. Even from this distance it looked like the very air was alive, and indeed I could see a few birds hovering over the lake.

I felt more tears well up. This time for a different reason. Maybe this experience would be worth the laptop.

I sniffed and felt hopeful.

I turned back to the path.

And met the blackened eyes of a monster.