The man kept his seat on the broad rock, resting his wrists on his knees.
“Well, you were freezing,” he said, tapping one finger against his knee.
“I needed to keep you alive, so I changed your clothes.”
“What?” I stepped closer to his rock, my hands tightening into fists.
“You changed my clothes because I was cold?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“How could you do that?” My cheeks burned hot, and I pressed my jaw shut to stop my mouth from trembling.
“What did you see?” I demanded.
He tilted his head back against the stone, looking at me with a completely blank expression.
“Relax. If I wanted to harm you, I would have done it while you were asleep but i like making women scream.” He swung his right arm outward, pointing his open hand toward the dark corners of the cave.
“Look around. You see all those old clothes lying near the water? The people who came here before you…”
“Keep whatever speech you are about to give me for later,” I interrupted, thrusting my finger straight at his chest.
“I do not have time for your stories.”
I pulled my arms tightly across my ribs, standing as tall as my aching legs would allow.
“One thing i know is that You can look, but you cannot touch.”
He raised one light eyebrow, a faint movement touching the edge of his mouth.
“But I touched everything.”
My mouth fell open.
My face burned even hotter, and I took a step back, staring at him.
He sat there without an ounce of shame, watching my reaction with steady gray eyes.
I hated him in that moment.
I hated that he was sitting there so calmly while my entire world was falling apart.
Part of me knew he had saved my life by taking off those wet clothes even though he saw my body,~Atleast he is a cute one so…~ but I refused to let him hear those words.
I was not going to give an adorable strange man chained to a wall the satisfaction of a thank you for seeing my purification, my masterpiece.
My holy sacred body nayyyy.
I turned my back on him and scanned the riverbank.
My eyes moved along the shallow water where the current lapped against stones.
A small glint of metal caught my attention beneath three inches of water.
I walked over, bent down, and reached into the river.
My fingers closed around a heavy iron handle.
I pulled it out.
It was my thick utility knife, its iron blade dull and stained with a little rust, but the edge was still solid.
The man watched me from his rock, his gray eyes following the blade in my hand.
“Where do you think you are going with that?” he asked.
I turned to face him, gripping the wooden handle tightly.
“What are you doing?” he asked again, leaning forward slightly.
“Watch and find out,” I said.
I turned away from the river and walked straight toward the back wall of the cave.
“I am not going to sit here on the sand and wait for help,” I muttered to myself.
I looked up at the wall.
The rock stretched high above us, covered in sharp ledges, small cracks, and narrow ridges.
It was steep, but it was not flat.
I jammed the knife into a wide crack above my head, tested the grip, and pulled my body upward.
My left shoulder throbbed instantly.
The muscle pulled tight, sending a sharp wave of heat straight down my arm.
I clamped my teeth together, jammed the toe of my boot into a small ridge on the stone wall, and lifted my weight off the floor.
I took one step up.
Then another.
My breath came out fast and shallow.
I stretched my right hand upward, searching for a ledge to hold onto.
My fingernails scraped across wet stone.
My boots slipped on a patch of slick algae.
I lost my grip and fell.
My body hit the rock floor hard.
The man did not move from his seat.
He sat on his rock, resting his chin on his palm, watching me with an unblinking gaze.
I pushed my hands onto the sand, shoved myself back onto my feet, and walked straight back to the wall.
I did not look at him.
I did not give him the pleasure of hearing me groan.
I grabbed the rock ledge again and pulled myself up.
I reached the second ridge.
My foot slipped.
I crashed back down onto the ground.
I stood up.
I reached for the wall.
I fell again.
My knees hit the sharp stone floor, cutting through the thin purple fabric of my trousers.
I wiped the palm of my hand across my thigh, ignoring the smarting pain, and placed my hands back on the rock.
“You couldn’t stand few minutes ago and now you think you are fit enough to climb out?,” the man said, shifting his weight on the rock.
His chain dragged across the stone floor with a sharp metallic rattle.
I glared at him over my shoulder, my chest heaving.
“Shut up.”
“Why can’t you just sit down and let us have a conversation?” he asked, leaning his elbow on his knee.
I ignored his voice completely.
I reached for a higher hold on the cliff face, digging my shoes into the stone.
“Perhaps we can both understand why we are here,” he continued, his tone calm and slow.
“And perhaps I can find out whether you are like the others who have come down here.”
“I have only fallen five times,” I said through gritted teeth, pulling my ribs against the hard wall.
“I am not giving up.”
“You cannot climb out of this place not even with that body,” he said, watching my boots search for a footing.
“I will decide that,” I snapped.
I pulled my weight upward, reaching for a thick stone overhang five feet above the ground.
“You cannot leave until this place wants you to leave,” he warned.
“To hell with this place,” I spat out.
I hauled my body up another foot.
My hand slipped off the damp edge.
I plummeted straight down, landing heavily on my hip.
Pain flared through my side.
I rolled onto my knees, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
I stood up again.
I climbed again.
I fell again.
Ten times.
Twenty times.
Thirty times.
Every single time my body hit the hard ground, I forced myself back up onto my feet before the pain could settle into my bones.
I kept my face blank whenever I turned near his direction.
I refused to let my shoulders slump.
I refused to let him see the tears of frustration burning behind my eyes.
I acted as if every fall was nothing, as if my body was made of solid rock and my spirit was completely unbroken.
By the time I reached my fiftieth attempt, my hands were raw.
The skin on my palms was scraped red, and my fingers were shaking so violently that I could barely wrap them around the handle of the knife.
I stood up from the sand for the fiftieth time.
I took two steps toward the wall, raised my right arm, and reached for the lower ledge.
A sudden, blinding pain shot through my left shoulder.
It felt as if the bone inside my joint had twisted completely out of place.
I caught myself against the rock, my teeth pressing so hard into my bottom lip that I tasted blood.
No.
I could still do it.
I just needed to reach the next ledge.
I raised my hand again.
The pain spiked through my neck and down my ribs, so sharp that my vision went dark at the edges.
My body gave out before my mind could force another step.
I dropped back down onto the ground, hitting the sand with both hands and both knees.
“How am I going to stay here forever?” My voice cracked, raw with anger and exhaustion.
I slammed my fist onto the ground.
“How am I supposed to leave?”
I turned my head and looked straight at the man sitting on his rock.
“Why am I even here?”
I let out a loud, furious scream that echoed off every high stone in the cavern.
“I thought those wolves threw me away!” I yelled, my chest rising and falling in quick, heavy breaths.
“How did I end up in this hole?”
I looked around the dark walls, at the rushing river and the heavy iron chain stretched across the floor.
“I keep asking What is this place?”
The man looked down at me from his rock, his expression remaining flat.
“I told you to listen to me,” he said, resting his hand against his chained wrist.
I glared at him, wiping my sweaty forehead with the back of my sleeve.
“I don’t care what you told me.”
“You refused,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
“You were stubborn. I told you there was no way for you to climb out of here, but you would not listen to a single word.”
“I will still try,” I said.
I forced my shaky legs to push my body upward.
I took one slow step toward the wall and reached my right arm out toward the stone.
The pain in my shoulder roared back instantly.
My arm dropped to my side like a piece of dead wood.
I could not lift it.
A wave of useless anger flooded my chest.
I grabbed the iron knife from my belt and hurled it across the cavern with all the strength left in my right arm.
The knife bounced off the far wall with a sharp clang and splashed into the river.
“Damn it!” I shouted.
I sat down hard on the ground, pulling my legs toward my chest.
My entire body was covered in purple bruises and sand.
The man pointed his finger toward the edge of the river.
“If you are tired, there is water waiting for you.”
I glared at his finger, then at his face.
“You can drink some water and continue climbing afterward,” he said, a faint touch of sarcasm in his tone.
“Since you seem to enjoy throwing yourself against stone walls so much.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, turning my head away.
I dragged myself across the sand, moving back toward the rock where I had first woken up.
I sat down against the cold wall, resting my head against the stone.
For several long minutes, neither of us said a word.
The only sound in the cavern was the constant, heavy rush of the waterfall pouring into the river.
I stared at his white hair.
He stared back at my face.
I opened my mouth to ask why he was staring at me again, but before the words could leave my throat, he stood up.
His heavy iron chain rattled loudly against the floor as he walked across the sand toward me.
He stopped two feet away and looked down at my shoulder.
“You are bleeding.”