By Areaze Jiuare
Day One
The old man sat on the edge of the cliff, his gaze fixed on a vastness that flaunted its beauty like a swollen teenage girl on an evening stroll—tight-branded tank top, pert little shorts. He muttered disconnected words, scratching the sunburned redness on his bare shoulder. The wind stroked his long, disheveled, graying hair, slid along his wrinkles, and dried the sweat, leaving white streaks across his torn, filthy shirt. His beard shifted and tickled him. He raised a hand and shook it, as if expecting a naughty child to tumble out and burst into laughter. He laughed too—rasping, loud.
Down there, just beyond reach, a great shimmering plate of soup glistened. The sea. This time, calm, almost affectionate, curling around his leg like a kitten begging to be petted. His eyes traced the rocky spines jutting out of the glassy blue surface. A massive stone rhinoceros lay sprawled in a puddle, its lower half coated in greenish lichen. It looked ready to leap up at any moment, stagger, and run off in search of its herd. Or food. He hadn’t brought food. His stomach had been reminding him of that for a while now.
A cloud leaned against one of the mountain peaks, waiting for passengers to board before continuing its journey.
Several days had passed since he’d begun the ascent to this summit. Several hellish days. But it had been worth it. Every painful gash on his arms crusted over with sticky red scabs. Every bruise. Every blister. All of it was worth this pleasure.
He breathed slowly, deeply, drawing the divine scent of mountain air into himself.
Just like twenty-four years ago.
They had been young then. Very young. They had looked forward to the climb, knowing that up there waited a blow of pleasure, a brush with paradise—that they would float with angels, if only for a few hours.
They could not have known the dark secrets that day kept from them.
He returned there often. In truth, he lived every day inside some hour of that day, fingering through moments, searching for a detail, a sign, a whisper, a hidden message. He replayed glances, unconscious gestures, anything that might have foreshadowed what came next. There was nothing. It simply happened.
Fate.
Or time had eroded it from his memory.
They had set out together—seven of them. Three couples and him. Friends since their first year of college. Ana had been part of the group. They had broken up a month before the climb. The trip was planned together, but only he went. No matter how hard they tried to make it otherwise, he felt like the odd one out, holding a candle for the others. They knew every detail of his shipwreck and sincerely wanted to cheer him up—which only made it worse.
That was why he slipped out of the temporary camp before dawn, while the others slept. He didn’t wake them, as agreed. He wanted to reach the summit first, to spend at least an hour alone. Alone with the mountains, with the sea below, under the sky—alone in that beautiful corner of the universe—before the lovebirds arrived, started posing for photos, hugging, laughing, chattering.
He would wait for them. He never meant to abandon them. He just needed time. After an hour alone in paradise, he wouldn’t have to pretend he was happy with them. His smiles in the photos would be real. He knew everything would end up on Instagram. He didn’t want to look pathetic.
A thousand times, he asked himself if he could have saved them. If he had woken them and rushed them along. Had selfishness saved him? Was it even selfishness? Or was it fate?
He accepted the latter—not to absolve himself. That no longer mattered. He accepted it because it was so. It could not have been otherwise.
He played a thousand films in his head. If he had saved them, everything would have been different. Everything.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long blade of grass. Put it in his mouth and chewed. Juicy. Bitter. His stomach complained again. He knew it would—that was why he’d picked the grass, to fool it for a while.
Until it came for him.
He closed his eyes and let the wind caress him. Darkness. The great rhinoceros before him. Only the top of its head and horn visible—then they too sank into the murky puddle. It dove in search of something in the mud.
Just like now—just like then—he waited for it to come.
The ground beneath him swayed and cracked. A strong gust slammed him against the rock behind. But it didn’t come. Not for him.
He opened his eyes and watched the world change. The rocks split deep beneath him.
He fell asleep.
Day Two
He opened his eyes and let the blue sink into them again. The pain in his gut could not diminish the purity of this place. He gently stroked the rock he sat on. Stroked the mountain like a grateful dog.
He slipped back into his day.
After everything, he descended toward the camp, hoping for luck. He forced his way through rubble, orienting himself by the peaks. Despite his effort, he could not recognize where they had camped the day before. His legs sank into sand drifts drying slowly across unfamiliar terrain. He spotted a fish flopping in a shrinking puddle.
Food wouldn’t be a problem, at least.
He grabbed it and shoved it into his pack.
The view was the same, but the thrill had dulled. The sun carved into his skin like a taut wire, leaving wounds and pain. Now his stomach had competition. He pulled out another blade of grass and chewed patiently, like a bored cow.
If he had woken them, what would have changed? He would still have been the odd one out. The seventh wheel. If he could have chosen, of the three women, only Eva came close. Not beautiful so much as sculpted—her personality shaped beneath her skin by a master’s hands. Subtle movements. Sharp remarks spoken in a soft, feminine voice. Her playful eyes lit the room, warming his soul.
He imagined it. Him and Eva. Sometimes for days. Sometimes Ron would simply vanish, and he would be there. It would begin by accident—a consoling touch. And end happily, in a lakeside cabin filled with children’s laughter and endless contact with her gentle skin.
Other times he imagined a fight. They would part furious, each going their own way. On those days, he hated the entire world.
Sometimes Ana appeared. She would come to the camp. Everyone would be saved. She would understand her mistake. He would forgive her. Or forgive himself.
Sometimes he felt guilty for his fantasies.
Pointless.
Eva was gone. Ana too. The others. Everyone.
His thoughts retreated sluggishly beneath the noon sun. Pain spread through his body. Pain is good, he thought. I like pain. I deserve it.
He sank into sleep.
Day Three
His own labored breathing woke him. His tongue was swollen, dry—like a dying slug writhing between his teeth. He tried to coax out saliva, to moisten it, to breathe. He managed.
He looked around. Rhinoceros. Sea. Sun. Wind. All present. Always present. As if they would always be.
And they had been. And would be—except for that one day. That Saturday, twenty-four years ago.
While he sat, spending his bonus hour breathing deeply, a star shot from the sun and plunged into the sea with a deafening crack. It happened in moments. He didn’t even have time to be afraid. From the top of the world, it looked like a show the mountain staged just for him. The meteor seemed to fall far away—hundreds of kilometers. Whatever happened, he was sure he was safe. He imagined hearing about it on every news channel the next day.
In the distance, through thick haze, a massive wave rose at the impact site, like a stone dropped into a pond.
Ten minutes later, the world changed.
The sea below him began to boil, then to retreat. He felt he could stop it with his hands—but it slipped through his fingers like life itself. It fled, baring the bay, exposing parts of the mountain usually hidden. Then it returned. And kept coming. Until it swallowed the mountains below him entirely.
It raged like an offended beast, determined to tear down everything in its path. He looked up. At the impact site, a towering tongue of lava burst upward, then collapsed, pushing another wave toward him.
He waited.
He let go of hope. The sea climbed relentlessly, devouring forests like breadsticks. He closed his eyes and waited for the unavoidable.
He didn’t think of the camp. Or Ana.
He just waited.
Day Four
He tried to open his eyes. They were sealed shut. Through cracks he sensed daylight. He knew the sea was below, that the rhinoceros lounged peacefully in it. That it was calm. That it would be calm.
Pain was unbearable. His eyes burned. His skin had turned to charcoal. His stomach no longer registered the knives slowly slicing his flesh.
He smiled.
He deserved it.
He could have woken them instead of slipping away like a whore and leaving them to the sun’s fury. Stone and shattered trees from the first wave ground them down. They suffered. Terribly.
He could have saved them.
It hadn’t taken him that day. It hadn’t come for him. It stopped a few hundred meters below. He felt the rock cracking deep beneath his feet. Thought he would fall into the raging beast bent on devouring the world.
Hours passed. The water stopped. Slowly receded. Returned again, a horde of feral cats—snorting, clawing, dragging their prey: mice, lizards, people, city wreckage. Then it returned once more, lower than before. In the days that followed, the sea advanced and retreated, each time less.
Until it went silent.
He collapsed into darkness.
Day Five
He panted, short and heavy. Hot, sticky fluid leaked from him and over him. He reeked of carrion.
Ana stared at him, furious. The room smelled of her shampoo and conditioner. She stood like an executioner with an axe. No trial remained. No arguments. Only the final swing.
“You think I’m an idiot? That I don’t see we’re hiking just so you can be closer to her?”
“Ani… you’re imagining things,” he said weakly, wiping his freshly shaved face.
“And the phone is imagining things too?”
She raised the traitorous device instead of the axe. He knew there was nothing left to say. He didn’t think she was an idiot. All that remained was to lower his head to the block.
“Ana—”
The door slammed. The lock clicked. Echoed long after she was gone.
He staggered to the mirror, grabbed the lotion. Not the end of the world, he thought. Eva had been teasing him with messages. Nothing really happened. She liked stirring things up. Who knew if she would have gone further? Somewhere deep down, he hoped she would—and that it might happen on the trip.
Instead, she was ice-cold throughout the climb. As if nothing had happened.
He was furious with himself. He’d fallen for a stupid game. If not for that pointless flirtation, Ana would be here now.
He needed to separate himself from them. Just for an hour.
That’s when he made the plan.
If Ana had come, maybe he could have saved them all. Eight lives. A future. He’d ruined everything.
For twenty-four years, he wandered the world. Searching. Not for Ana. Not for Eva. They were long dead—he knew that. He searched for anyone. Found no one. This time, the gods’ fury had been absolute. Cities vanished. He scavenged shipwrecks and bones on mountain edges. He learned to live as a hermit.
Every day was Saturday.
“I hear you,” he croaked. Or thought he did.
Death climbed the cliff like a chamois—leaping, pirouetting, joyful, like a girl in a pink dress. The old man was glad. He had waited a long time for an embrace.
He crossed three continents, climbing mountains, hoping to find someone like himself. His luck had ended the moment Ana slammed the phone onto the table. The screen bloomed into cracks. He had no spare.
He hadn’t known he wouldn’t need it anymore.
It was his fault. It had to be. The universe wouldn’t shake people off itself like fleas for no reason. It had to be him. Him and those damn messages with Eva. Nothing else made sense.
He collapsed into fog.
Day Six
He opened his eyes. Somehow, he could. Pain was gone. The soup. The rhinoceros.
Eva’s smile floated before him.
“He’s awake!” she called.
She turned. The pink flowers stitched onto the pockets of her light-blue denim shorts danced in his vision.
“You were having a rough dream,” Ron said. “Thrashing like a fish on dry land.”
They stepped aside. Ana came forward. She smelled of shampoo. Touched his soft, freshly shaved beard.
“I’m sorry. It was stupid. Eva told me everything.”
He laughed. Reached out. She pulled him up, hugged him. The clouds vanished. They rose together into the light. Mountain air brushed their hair.
Below them, the great rhinoceros leapt and dove into the blue.
The chamois looked up from the old man’s unnaturally twisted corpse. His bulging eyes drank the noon sun. A death-smile revealed sparse blackened teeth. Gray, dried hair and beard fluttered in the mountain wind.
She pulled the blade of grass from his pocket and chewed it in a few strong bites. Then she bounded away.
There was still work to be done.
The sea winked from below. The smell of salt fouled her nostrils.
She licked her lips.