Roffo

This one is about gentleness meeting strength—about being seen at the worst possible moment. By the time the quicksand reached his chest, he had stopped hoping. Not because he didn’t want to live—he did, fiercely—but because hope had been the thing taken from him first. Long before the cuffs. Long before the sentence. Long before the years stacked up like stones on his back. Hope was fragile. He had learned not to rely on it. He lay half-submerged now, massive body spread wide against the surface of the mud, every muscle locked in trembling restraint. His arms burned. His neck ached from being craned back. Each breath scraped shallow and tight against the pressure squeezing his ribs. Mud clung to him like accusation. His shaved scalp glistened with sweat. His gray beard was heavy with wet grit, the small braid at its end stiff and dragging. The cross at his chest bobbed weakly at the surface, smeared with brown, rising and falling with each careful breath. He had not fought the sand for a long time. He had learned—too late, perhaps—that fighting was what it wanted. So he waited. He waited the way he had waited in a cell for the lights to go out. The way he had waited for someone, anyone, to believe him when he said, again and again, I didn’t do it. The jungle breathed around him. Somewhere far away, something moved. A bird. An animal. A person. His heart stuttered. No. Don’t do that. Don’t hope. Then he heard it. A sound that did not belong to the land. A voice. “Hey—HEY!” His eyes snapped open wide. The voice was human. Close. Panicked—not at him, but for him. “Don’t move! Please don’t move!” Footsteps skidded at the edge of the pit. He couldn’t turn his head far enough to see, but he felt the vibration through the mud, felt the way the surface quivered with someone else’s careful weight. “I see you,” the voice said. Softer now. Steady. “I’ve got you. Just—just listen to me, okay?” He swallowed hard.