Sparks

Chapter 11

Eleven

When night began to fall, the air cooled considerably. I once again considered walking. It would probably take an hour or so to get some feeling back in my limbs, but after that I could disappear into the wilderness. With any luck, I wouldn't be too far away from civilisation. The UK was a pretty crowded place, so unless they'd shipped me off to the Scottish Highlands, I'd probably be okay. If not, I'd get to eat berries and nuts, and be at one with nature for a while. Grimacing, I thought waiting out another day was preferable to that risk. So was the promise of kinky sex at some point in the future, although this kind of treatment didn't bode well.

My legs had long since gone numb underneath me. Goosebumps covered me from head to toe, and my naked body protested vehemently against the cold. I ignored it. I also ignored my stomach, which had begun rumbling in earnest. Typical. I'd barely eaten a thing all week, and now, when I couldn't, I was hungry. Figured. On the plus side, I was no longer worried about anyone seeing me naked. If anyone wanted to come and rescue me from this ridiculous predicament, they were more than welcome to get an eyeful. It was never going to be that easy, though. This would be a test of endurance, mind over matter, and my ability to battle exhaustion. It was the last one that would get me. How long would it be before I succumbed to sleep? Would that count against me? There were so many variables, and so much was unknown.

Gently shaking my knees out from underneath me, I squirmed a little, trying to get some circulation going, whilst imagining someone had cocooned me in a large, warm blanket. What I wouldn't give for a sleeping bag right now...

Dusk turned to darkness. The passage of time was recorded in varying shades of grey and black. Everything moved impossibly slowly, except my eyelashes. They began fluttering shut with alarming frequency. Wondering how much sleep I'd had on the drive down, I figured it hadn't been that much. If I'd had a good eight hours, I would have made it through the night fairly easily. Working with the assumption I'd had maybe three or four, that would explain why I now felt as if my eyelids were made of lead. I was going to collapse with exhaustion sooner rather than later, I suspected, but I'd put up as much of a fight as I could.

Funnily enough, sleep was elusive. The cold kept me awake for far longer than my body would have liked. I began shivering, and when it started, I could not stop it. Tremors overtook my body, and just trying to balance on the cobbled steps became impossibly hard. It felt like my limbs were slipping and sliding all over the place. When I finally succumbed to exhaustion, it was almost a relief.

The respite was short lived. I awoke after a short nap to find myself shivering worse than before, and the cold cut into my side where I was laying like a knife. They were certainly going to put me through the wringer with this training course, I thought. How bad could two weeks with a millionaire playboy be? Seriously, this bordered on the ridiculous.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim moonlight around me, I saw that someone had been outside whilst I was sleeping. There was the outline of a sleeping bag in a clear plastic wrapper, and they had left a bottle of water and an energy bar beside it. It was refreshing to know that they didn't actually want to kill me by exposing me to the elements, with a dose of starvation to boot. Looking at my gifts, I slowly worked through my options. I could accept them and have a reasonable night's sleep without my stomach trying to claw its way up through my skin, or I could refuse them. Although I desperately wanted to take the offerings, I did not want my stay outside to be any longer than absolutely necessary. Two days of trying to remain upright on cobbled stones was going to be agony. If I didn't accept the water, and developed hypothermia, someone inside was going to have to make a decision regarding my welfare, I hoped. That would get me inside sooner rather than later, which was preferable to this infernal waiting, although I would be in a sorry state. It was the easy way out, albeit in a weird and wonderful way, and although I hated to admit it, I was going to take it. My body was already halfway there. Give it another five or six hours without food, water, and adequate rest, and I was going to be a mess. Did I really want to play that card, though? If someone didn't come and rescue me, I wouldn't be able to get myself out of this very easily after I'd reached a certain state of exhaustion.