Faithful Pebble
Part Twenty-Eight
"Do you still want to leave?"
Her hands trembled as her answer became silence, a silence that the wanderer could expressly feel rise out of the darkness and choke him, steal his breath from the outside in. He leaned back then waited as suddenly his watch was placed carefully onto the dirt crusted floor. He stared at it, held his breath turning to watch her. This movement was pointed, not without a purpose which freed bony, black, sharply bladed fingers to launch unexpectedly toward his face. He gritted his teeth and scrunched his eyes as calloused cracked fingertips ghosted over a narrow straight nose. In moments, they moved finding a clean shaven chin, a small tuff of stringy black bangs that framed an even smaller slightly sloped forehead. It arched gracefully over two deeply set narrow hooded eyes, broad soft cheeks, and two ring pierced ears that were buried beneath locks that barely curled. "You feel real," she whispered.
The wanderer chuckled before reaching forward to gather her into his arms—no, moving to direct her to climb onto his shoulders. Now she was standing, the hood peering down at glittering blue eyes the crinkled under his cropped draped hair. He smiled as he looked over his shoulder. "Do you want to leave?" he asked again.
The girl hesitated only a moment before she quickly gathered the watch and clamored up onto his shoulders. Sure and confident, it was as if she had done it many times before, perhaps with other shoulders, another broad back. As his hands reached to secure her legs, four words sailed into his ear making his smile widened further, to curl pleasantly like his hair in the dark.
"Please… Please save me."
"As you wish," he said.
- Calla