Serpent

Palms sweating, heart racing, knees shaking. All of these are common symptoms of fear, and I was faced with these feelings at twelve years old. It began on a cloudy autumn morning, as the group leader was going through the supplies being brought, she revealed it. Anti venom. At 12 years my mind is thinking this " if there's anti-venom there's snakes, if there's snakes I'm going to die!" On a side note, our hiking trip was on Mt. Diablo, a very unwelcoming name.
Our hike was going well, nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of boy scouts panting and sweating, observing the beauty of nature. Then, about halfway there, we saw it. A hideous, blood-craving, man killing, demon of a creature... a rattlesnake. We were on a one man trail at this point, almost no room to breath, and a reptilian monster right where my foot would have been. The leaders told us to stay as close to the left as possible, as if that would matter, I knew I was going to die when I saw those soul killing eyes that said, "I'm gonna eat you Andrew". I was behind two people when the snake curled back. At this point I'm praying to God to get me out of this situation, when out from behind us, a mysterious traveler wandered to us and said "I'm a professional snake handler." He walked in front of us and with a mighty knudge from his valiant walking stick, he sent the hellish serpent back to the depths from wence it came. I almost fired one out in relief and thanked God on the way home.
(no snakes were harmed in this story... I think.)