The stone dropped with alarming speed, leaving me no time to think.
I sprang away from the rock wall, out of its path, and fell at the same frightening velocity.
We landed in the same moment, thudding to the sandy desert floor, sending up a whirl of dust. I tried to tuck and roll, but my position made it awkward and I landed on my left side, knocking the breath from my lungs. The ground, coarse and hot beneath my cheek, smelled strangely of the sea—heat, salt, and sand.
I lay with my eyes closed, allowing myself to drift in that beach dream, almost lulled into sleep and forgetting. The urge to give in, to give up, to avoid the pain of reality, held me in its powerful jaws and it took an awful wrench of will to drag my eyes open and deal with my situation.
My chest unclenched, and I p
