The time had flowed like thick, black sap.
The night had deepened, swallowing the edges of the camp, leaving only the orange circles of the fires and the groans of the forest. Inside the small tent, the air was heavy with humidity, sweat, and a silence of a very particular kind: the silence of a vigil.
Élisa sat on a low stool, her back aching, her eyes fixed on Maggie. She no longer watched only the flutter of her eyelids; she was listening for the fragile rhythm of her breathing, the faint twitch of a finger, the tiny movement of her parched lips. The flame of a candle set directly on the ground cast shifting shadows across the pale face of the wounded woman, sculpting a morphology of suffering and fragile resistance.
