Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
As if on purpose, time dragged by at an agonizing pace. Though the sun was already sinking toward the horizon, the soldier who had saved me—only to later decide to take advantage of me—showed no intention of going to sleep.
I was beginning to lose hope that my plan to get rid of him would ever succeed when, without even realizing it, I drifted off.
I woke only when the first rays of sunlight brushed against my cheeks. I sprang from the makeshift bed I had fashioned from the spare clothes in my backpack.
My rescuer—turned rapist—had apparently been awake for quite some time, yet he made no effort to crawl out of the sleeping bag that had become his bed.
He lay on his back, one arm tucked beneath his head, idly turning the same hunting knife between his fingers—the knife I had intended to kill him with the day before—while staring thoughtfully at the sky.
It dawned on me that getting rid of this man would not be nearly as easy as I had imagined.
Perhaps it would be impossible.
"So, you're awake," he remarked without so much as glancing in my direction.
Yet even from where I stood, I could still see the contempt lingering in his blue eyes.
"When is someone coming to get us out of here?" I asked instead of offering a simple good morning.
He had to hear the reproach in my voice.
"I haven't got the faintest idea," he shot back.
Rolling onto his side without letting go of the knife, he looked at me with an unreadable expression.
"We'll wait as long as it takes. We've got no other choice. Unless you'd rather throw yourself into the abyss." His lips curled faintly. "I could arrange that without blinking."
"Wonderful," I muttered bitterly. "So we're probably going to die here."
My displeasure seemed to amuse the fair-haired soldier, for a mocking smile immediately spread across his face.
"I could always go back the way we came and try dragging you into the forest nearby," he said carelessly. "I'm sure I'd find myself a little doe to hunt instead."
Then he rolled onto his back again, lazily twirling the hunting knife between his fingers while returning to his silent contemplation of the sky.
I had no idea how much more time passed, but the sun had clearly begun its slow descent across the opposite side of the heavens. By my reckoning, half the day was already gone.
The soldier and I had been sitting in silence for what felt like an eternity, each lost in our own thoughts, exchanging not a single word.
He pulled his canteen from his pack and drained the last drop. Then he unwrapped a chocolate bar and devoured it greedily before slowly rising to his feet. Stretching his legs and rolling his shoulders, he walked to the very edge of the cliff.
