You can read minds but it 's too noisy in the city . You move to the mountains to learn what silence was . Then you heard something deep beneath the ground . [ WP ]

It was n't long before it spoke. I would've predicted it anyway- me, in the forest, ALONE? Perhaps I'd pick up a wandering deer or carp's thoughts from down the river- never really had the chance to hear those in the city. Oh, or maybe I'd pick up a lost dog's thoughts. Those were always fun. Especially since it was n't really hard to pick up a stressed dog owner's thoughts at the same time. Fun to put a note on the dog with the words `` You're welcome''. Fun to spot the lucky owner's car coming down the driveway. Fun to watch dog and person embrace each other. 
 
 A dog barked in the distance. I could hear its thoughts- a random string of numbers, it seemed like. 10294124129827152. No idea why it would be thinking of those numbers. Could be that it was drugged- its voice seemed a little off. A bit deeper and a bit more monotone than a usual dog's mind's voice. I would say it was slightly serpentine, too, if that made any sense. Nah, let's not rule out drugs. I know plenty of owners who drug their dogs to take them to the vet- but what would a domesticated dog be doing out here in the wilderness if it was drugged? Car crash? 
 
 I sat up from my resting spot in a small grove of trees. The sun was directly over me- showing me how much time had passed since I woke up this morning, squinting at blinding, orange light as I honked my way through traffic. Car crash? But then there would be survivors- there would be their thoughts, too, travelling through the air alongside the dog's! 
 
 Dead? 
 
 I put my backpack on my shoulders. It still held the remnants of some lunch I had earlier- half of a ham and cheese sandwich, a nearly full bottle of water, some pop, and an open bag of chips that I had decided to open but upon further pondering decided not to eat. In hindsight, that was a pretty dumb move, since I could feel my stomach slightly rumbling. Well, too late for that now. 
 
 I started walking towards the direction of the voice, and quickly went through a first aid class I took during my high school freshman year. I thought and thought and thought but all I could recall were teachers showing us videos about how we should never do drugs. Oh, and CPR. 
 
 Shit, SIGNS that people needed CPR. 
 
 Ah, fuck it, I thought to myself as I made my way off the little grove of trees I had decided to rest in. It's the effort that matters, not the result. 
 
 But what if the people really needed CPR? What if the car was burning? And how would I handle a drugged do- 
 
 The dog barked in the distance. 
 
 And I heard nothing else. No numbers. 
 
 Another bark. 
 
 Wait just one second here. 
 
 The dog continued to bark at quick intervals. And as I neared it I could hear its thoughts, too, in a typical dog fashion- happy, jolly. Not serpentine, monotone, or even remotely deep. Nothing of that sort. It was just a dog out in the woods- a lost dog, at that. 
 
 And as it barked, I heard it again. The deep voice. The monotone voice. The unnatural voice. I heard it boom out again and reach my mind and echo back towards the ground, towards a large clearing. 
 
 I had never been in a grove this entire time. The forest had grown evenly, and I was standing in a large clearing of ground with no trees. 
 
 The voice came from the clearing. Rather, it came from beneath the clearing. 
 
 And it said to me: 
 
 `` 10294124129827151.''
