Lost

Jesus loves me this I know
For the bible tells me so

The voice seemed small and far away yet I knew it was close by but where exactly I couldn’t tell. The two lines of the hymn repeated over and over as though the singer had forgotten the rest of the hymn, the voice obviously that of a young child.

I had stopped at the top of the hill partly to rest but more just to sit and look at the view spread out before me. It had quite taken my breath away with its wild beauty. I decided to eat my packed lunch and settled myself against the huge rock that formed the summit of the smaller of the two hills I had set out to climb that day.

The singing had begun just as I was finishing the last of my high energy drink and cheese and apple I had packed for my first meal since breakfast at the hostel I was staying at. I stood to look all around convinced there must be more hill walkers around but I was quite alone, that was clear. The song though continued and I began to get anxious. I skirted the rock at the top of the hill and as I stepped around the narrowest part before it fell away some twenty feet or more below to a nasty looking rocky outcrop before falling further down the steepest side of the hill; I realised the voice was emanating from within the rock itself. No, surely not… how could it be possible?
I twisted my neck as far as it would go and glanced up and saw that it was quite an easy climb to the top.

I put down my rucksack and began to climb to the top, half way up the singing abruptly stopped and as I approached the top was confronted by a considerably large gap that I had previously thought to be a small ledge. I found myself unexpectedly staring down into a black void. I reached gingerly into my hip pocket for my flashlight and shone it into the gap; there wedged several feet below was the skeletal remains of a child, it’s skull staring back at me with the mouth stretched wide in a silent parody of a scream…