Love is a strange thing. Pulls forward like a magnet, holds like a chain. The choice between her and freedom was more tormenting than any traps.
— For her, for myself, or to prove I'm not dust in the wind? —he asked the horse. She snorted, as if mocking the pathos.
Step by step, holding breath, he walked through deadly snares. Each step—a dice throw on fate's table. The amulet pulsed like a heart seeing a beloved—with anxiety and anticipation.
Funny to rely on a piece of metal for life and death. Isn't all life built on such absurdities?
With each careful step, he understood: traps are not just tools of death but a wise lesson. True freedom is born not in flight but in the ability to laugh at absurdity.
The horse swayed like time's pendulum between life and death. Ahead stretched the path—endless as human stupidity, beautiful as last hope.
Life is a minefield, —Sholn mused, — and we're all sappers without instructions. All that's left is to go, hoping for luck and gods' mercy, in whom we've stopped believing.
He stroked the horse's neck, feeling warmth under his palm.
— You and me, old girl... We'll prove we're still alive.
And moved on—a living embodiment of paradox: a man going forward precisely because he knows—death may be ahead, but behind there's no life left.