more.

Nothing came.

His boot caught on a root.

He stumbled, and she jerked his sleeve to steady him.

“Careful,” she snapped.

The word struck harder than the root.

They walked another ten minutes, maybe fifteen.

Time was strange when every step depended on trust.

Michael listened for the creek, for birds, for anything familiar.

But the forest around them seemed too still, as if it had been waiting for them.

Finally, Gloria stopped.

“Sit here,” she said.

Michael reached forward and felt the rough curve of a fallen log.

He lowered himself slowly.

“I’ll get you water from the creek.”

“I don’t hear the creek,” he said.

“It’s close.”

Something in her voice made him lift his face.

“Gloria?”

But she was already moving.

Her steps went over leaves.

Then over softer ground.

Then farther away.

Michael sat with both hands on his cane.

He waited longer than he wanted to admit.

A cold gust moved through the trees.

It carried the damp smell of rotting leaves and distant rain.

Michael turned his head from side to side, trying to catch the pattern of footsteps returning.

There were none.

When he finally stood, his knees felt weak.

“Gloria!” he shouted.

A bird startled somewhere above him.

Then nothing.

He took three steps forward and nearly fell.

His cane struck a rock, slid off it, and tapped empty ground.

He tried to retrace the path by memory, but fear had already scrambled the map inside his head.

Left.

No, right.

Had they turned near the hollow stump?

Was the slope behind him or ahead?

He heard his own breathing grow ragged.

The forest was no longer a place he knew.

It had become endless.

At last, he found the log again by accident and sank onto it.

His hands were shaking.

He pressed them between his knees and bowed his head.

He understood then why she had chosen this place.

No one would hear him.

No one would find him quickly.

And if they did find him later, the story would be easy to tell.

Poor Michael wandered off.

Poor Michael got confused.

Poor Gloria did everything she could.

The thought made him feel smaller than fear ever could.

By evening, the cold had entered his bones.

Hunger twisted in his stomach.

His throat burned from calling.

Once, he thought he heard something far away and shouted until his voice cracked, but the sound turned out to be only wind pushing through the high branches.

He thought of his house.

He thought of the chair by the stove.

He thought of Gloria returning alone and hanging her coat by the door.

Had she cried?

Had her hands trembled?

Or had she felt relief?

That question was the one that broke him.

“Maybe she’s right,” he whispered into the darkening woods.

“Maybe there’s nothing left of me.”

Night came slowly, then all at once.

The temperature dropped.

The forest changed its language.

Daytime rustles became secret movements.

Leaves scraped the ground.

Branches creaked overhead.

Somewhere far off, an owl called once and did not call again.

Michael pulled his coat tight around himself.

He tried to pray, but the words would not stay in order.

Around midnight, the church bell in town rang faintly through the valley.

Michael counted the sounds