Chapter 44: Elodie
It was the scent of old blood that caught my attention. I was weak and dizzy with fever as I knelt to inspect the traces of rust caught at the top of a fissure of rock, as if a hand had grabbed it and been cut. Was it human? I bent to get a closer sniff. My pack shifted and I overbalanced. For a long suspended moment I hung there, arms pinwheeling, struggling to right myself before I toppled over the side and into the fissure.
It was my pack that kept me from plunging to the bottom and breaking bones. I wedged between it and one craggy wall, losing a few layers of skin in the process where my legs banged against rock and my shirt rode up. But I was still whole. And stuck.