One year later
"I'm not ready for this!" I exclaimed loudly.
"Yes you are," Kuri said calmly.
"No, I'm not!"
"Yes, you are. Now calm yourself and continue on with the exercise."
I gritted my teeth to bite back any further protest. My nostrils flared wide in search for more air as I focused on moving my foot on the tight rope and inching it onwards a bit further on the rope.
Oh No!!!
"You're too stiff! Relax your posture and be easier with your breathing," Kuri called out.
I spared a glance from the rope beneath me to look ahead towards Kuri, "What happens to your plans if I die right now?"
"You're not going to fall. Come to me. I wouldn't have put you up to this if I didn't think you were ready for it."
I glanced back down to my lifeline and desperately fought to hold steady on it against a sudden updraft of air from the valley below. Sweat was running off me as if I was being rained on. My entire being was sick with the fear that I felt at my current endeavor.
My eyes took in the drop of several hundred feet which formed the narrow mountain gorge between two upthrusts of rock across which was stretched the rope I stood on. There was no soft landing below, only more rock.
I would die if I fell, of that I had no doubts. If I didn't get off this rope soon I'd become too stiff with fear to even maintain my balance and that would be the end of me.
"Benaiah?"
I looked up to Kuri from my sealed fate that waited below.
"Come."
I had to get off this rope and somehow he thought I could do it!
I took a big step and then another and another, until in my haste to escape the rope my foot slipped and I fell. I banged up hard against the wall of the cliff and was momentarily puzzled as to why I wasn't still falling.
In a daze I looked upward and saw that Kuri had a hold of one of my hands.
"I won't let you fall Benaiah."
I nodded and he pulled me up the rest of the way. Quickly I crawled away from the cliff's edge and pressed up against the wall of the ledge that ran along the side of the mountain.
Pulling up my knees I hugged them to me and buried my face against them. My whole body was shaking and even though the day was warm I felt cold. I was such a coward!
"I have something to tell you Benaiah," Kuri said, as he sat down beside me and stretched out his arm to pull me against his side consolingly.