The mountain path that led to the eastern cliff's edge was not merely unmaintained; it was a wound in the earth, a jagged scar of loose shale and rotting vegetation that clawed at the ankles of anyone foolish enough to tread it.
Once, this route had served as a shepherds' and surveyors' ghost of an era before the island's agricultural zones consolidated toward the northern and western faces.
Now, it was a graveyard of forgotten footsteps.
Theo walked it with a mechanical, hollow gait. He did not look down at his feet.
When he stumbled over a broken section of stone, his ankle twisting with a sickening pop that sent a lightning bolt of pain up his leg, he did not correct himself.
When he nearly plunged face first into a cluster of thorny brambles that tore bloody furrows across his cheek, he simply kept moving. Urgency required a purpose, and Theo no longer possessed any desire to survive.
He only possessed the momentum of his own trauma.
