Just then, a noise broke through the stillness—a distant murmur of voices and the crunch of boots on leaves. Jacob froze, his head snapping toward the sound. The traveler. He was coming, and he wasn’t alone. The urgency to act warred with a paralyzing fear.
Jacob quickly ducked into a patch of bushes, the ground beneath him slick with mud. His foot slipped, and he fell with a loud squelch that shattered the silence. The noise echoed like a beacon, and when he looked up, the traveler’s head turned sharply in his direction.
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