The mother stood at the edge of the hill as if time itself had stopped at her feet. She no longer saw the ground beneath her or the sky above her. Everything before her had narrowed down to that small body swaying far away from her. Her eyes were fixed on him in a painful way. She was not merely looking at him, but clinging to him with her gaze, as if that alone could stop him from falling. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, uneven breaths, and tears began streaming down her face without resistance, slipping along her cheeks and falling to the ground without her even trying to wipe them away, because her hands were trembling. She did not know what to do. She did not know how to get closer, nor how to help. She could only stand there and quietly break apart beneath the weight of it.
"Dan… don't look down… just listen to my voice… I'm here…"
Her voice came out broken, trying to sound steady, but she could not hide the tremor in it. She was trying to be strong for him, but her fear was greater than her ability to hold herself together. She took one small step forward, then stopped abruptly when she felt the ground might betray her. She pulled back quickly and pressed a hand against her chest, as if trying to keep her heart from leaping out of place.
"Hold on, my son… please, hold on… don't let go… don't leave me… don't leave me alone…"
The words broke in her throat and dissolved into quiet sobbing. She did not scream. She did not collapse completely. But she was fighting. Fighting that feeling that kept telling her she might lose him right in front of her eyes. She looked at him again, saw his fingers trembling, saw the tension in his body, saw how exhaustion was beginning to eat away at his strength, and felt her own breathing begin to choke.
"Look at me… only at me… don't think about anything else… I'm here… I'll stay here…"
She reached a hand toward him, even though she knew the distance would never allow it. But she did it without thinking, as if her heart had moved instead of her mind. Then she turned sharply toward Tina, who stood behind her, tears filling her eyes, still unable to move.
"Tina… Tina, listen to me…"
She stepped toward her and caught her lightly by the shoulders, shaking her just enough to pull her back into the moment.
"Go to the hut… quickly… find a rope… or anything… anything that can help us…"
Her words came out broken, but clear, carrying real urgency, as if every second slipping away was bringing the end closer.
"Mom… I'm scared…"
Tina said it in a weak voice, her eyes still fixed on the edge.
"So am I… but we don't have time… run!"
She raised her voice at the end, not in anger, but in fear. A fear so strong it made her push her daughter lightly backward, as if she had to tear her away from this scene before it swallowed her too.
"Go now! Don't stop! Bring anything… don't come back empty-handed… please…"
Tina hesitated for a moment. She looked at her brother, then at her mother, then nodded quickly, as if forcing herself to accept it, and turned and ran. Her steps were quick but unsteady, her breathing loud, fear driving her forward before she could think.
The mother was alone again.
Her gaze snapped back to Dan at once, as though she feared his image might disappear if she looked away. She took another small step forward, then dropped to her knees near the edge, trying to be closer, to be on his level, to make sure he could see her face clearly.
"I'm here, Dan… look at me… don't look down… only at me…"
She stretched her hand out again, closer this time, even though the distance had not changed. Still, the feeling that she was nearer was stronger.
"Remember… when you were afraid of the dark… I used to hold your hand… and now… you hold on… hold on for me…"
Her voice broke even more, the words soaked with tears, but she did not stop. She would not let silence take her place, because she knew silence meant the end.
"I won't let you fall… I won't let you go… I promise… just… hold on…"
Now she was crying openly, no longer trying to hide it. Her tears fell on her hands and on the ground. Her voice shook with every word, but she stayed there, rooted in place, fighting her fear, fighting that thought that had begun slipping into her against her will.
Inside the hut, Kael stood fixed in place without taking a single step, as though the ground beneath him no longer allowed him to move. Not because he could not, but because he no longer knew which direction he needed to go. His eyes did not settle on one point, yet every time they returned to the two fruits near him, so clear, so still, as if they stood apart from everything happening. But inside him, nothing was still. A heavy feeling pressed against his chest, not unfamiliar to him, but deeply known, as though he had lived something like it before, or as though this moment was not a beginning, but an extension of something inside him that had never truly ended. That was why he could not treat it as a simple decision, but as something that would remain, as a mark that would not fade no matter how much he tried to ignore it.
He was not replaying what he had heard. He was not trying to remember the words, because the voice was no longer a voice. It had become a feeling, a tension stretched through his body, a strange overlap between the present and the trace of something old, as if what was happening now had reopened something he had once tried to seal shut—or forget—but it had never disappeared. It had only remained there, waiting for a moment like this to return. He drew in his breath slowly, but it did not calm him. It only made the weight in his chest clearer, as if his body no longer had enough room for what was happening inside him. He lowered his gaze for a moment, then lifted it again, as if trying to anchor himself to something definite, but he found nothing, because the decision was no longer outside him. It was inside him, and there, nothing was stable.
He lowered his eyes toward the two fruits and kept staring at them without reaching out. The act itself was not difficult, but it was no longer simple either, because what stood between him and that step was not distance, but a decision. A decision he knew would not pass without leaving a mark. He raised his head slightly, then lowered it again, as if trying to stop himself from looking in the other direction, but he could not, because that feeling was stronger—the feeling of a fall before it happened, the feeling of an ending drawing near even before he saw it.