This is just a short story. Though I have some ideas to continue it, that's not something I'm going to be working on right now as I have two other full length novels in progress. This story came to me while I was at work a week or so ago during a longer break between customers. I have a tendency to bring a notebook with me to work in case I feel like writing and that's what happened here. The first sentence just came to me and I ran with it and this is the finished piece for now. So hopefully you will enjoy it or, if nothing else, find it moderately interesting.
I didn't want to leave her there alone, but what choice did I have? With the world falling apart around us, how was I to protect her and save myself at the same time? The unselfish answer was, of course, that I wasn't. I should give myself up, willingly, so that she could have the chance to live. Ah, but I was not so unselfish and even if I did give my life up and she escaped, there was no guarantee that she would survive. In fact there was every chance that she would not. However, if I saved myself and left her behind, I was fairly certain that I would survive, more certain by far of that outcome than the one of her surviving on her own.
So I left her, alone in those dark echoing caves, alone and injured, hunted by creatures not of this world. I told her how to get out, but I had no hope that she would be able to outrun our hunters. They were far too cunning and deadly for a single girl to be able to defeat. She had nearly collapsed when I told her I was going on without her. Falling to her knees, she pleaded with me, begged me to stay, to not abandon her. She knew I was handing her a death sentence. Her eyes, desperate and haunted, had filled with tears as she realized that she had no hold on me. Those eyes, shining like the rarest of sapphires in the dim torchlight, had very nearly changed my mind. But self-preservation is often stronger than the strongest pull to stay. And so I gave her two of our remaining torches, flint and a piece of steel, and with a quick kiss on her forehead, I left her.
