//------------------------------//
// As the sun sets 
// Story: The judgment 
// by TwiwnB 
//------------------------------//

“It doesn’t go any further”.

He could see that. The road was going straight into the cliff and just disappeared. Yet, he knew that road used to lead somewhere.

“It’s big.” He answered.

His guide just nodded in silence. Embarrassed, he tried to find something else to say, just to keep any sort of conversation going, like “I heard there used to be a castle here” or “what was the name of this place again”, but nothing good came up.

He felt a bit silly, like someone who believed a deodorant ad and expected women to chase him. If someone had asked him why he had come there, in the middle of nowhere, to watch the gigantic crater, he couldn’t have offered a good answer, if any at all.

“Seen enough?” His guide asked.

The answer had always been yes, given that there was nothing left to be seen. But that’s not what the question truly was. The right hand of his guide was already on the car’s key. The cigar in his guide’s mouth wasn’t even smoking anymore.

So what if there was nothing to see, or do, or just nothing at all ? Couldn’t the natural curiosity of any human not be enough to justify taking one goddamn minute to acknowledge that something did happen? Just because there weren’t any ruins left, nor traces of the inhabitants, didn’t mean it wasn’t an historical site nonetheless. There was the crate. Maybe not the biggest one, there were certainly bigger ones on earth, but this one was man made. That alone merited some sort of respect instead of a yawn.

“I’m going for a walk” He responded.

And just as to convince himself he wasn’t all talk, his legs immediately cursing him for this stupid pride, he begun his descend within the crate under the annoyed look of his guide who would quickly transform this into an opportunity to take a little nap. Humans are resourceful like that.

Meanwhile, he continued his descent with the natural order of things in mind. First, putting one step in front of the other. Second, not falling down. Third, never to care about how much time has passed. Fourth and foremost, he was already at the bottom.

It had gone really fast in his head, but the sun was already low in the sky. How long had it been since he had felt so exhausted and yet alive at the same time? Not that his body wouldn’t avenge itself in the coming days, of that he was absolutely certain, but he just couldn’t let that sensation go. It could hardly be called an adventure, but it felt like it and that was all that mattered at this point. Now he hadn’t come for nothing, if one ignored that he could have done in his home country just as well.

So braving the setting sun, he just kept going.

Prideful.

Boldly.

Until the day let its place to the night and it immediately became clear how stupid of a move it had been. 

The first rule of a mountain is to respect the mountain. Recklessness is paid with one’s life. Thankfully, the air didn’t get too cold and he had slowed down considerably beforehand, so most of his transpiration had dried already. He could see the many stars in the sky and given the lack of wind, there was not too big of a risk of rain.

He was lucky.

He smiled at the thought. 

And fell into a crevasse.