After the death of Mrs. Santi and her husband, Ali and I immediately headed for the road street next to a big tree. Ali had already set his feet on the steep downhill road. When he saw I was hesitant to take a step, he reached out his hand to help me, but I ignored him.
"The roads are slippery," he muttered, his hand still outstretched to me.
"I know!" I said curtly.
Actually, I really want to accept his helping hand, but I feel prestige. It was strange seeing him being so nice to me when he usually never ignored me. Usually, he would smile when he saw me in trouble. He deliberately put me in the situation. His sudden change in attitude made me feel a strange swish in my chest.
"Okay, be careful, I'll go first," instead of getting angry, Ali smiled, then turned around and started to walk while humming.
I stared at Ali's back which was getting further away. I began to move my feet down the path below me hesitantly. I'm not sure how to get past it. The road was slippery and dangerous, but it was the only quickest way to the houses below.
The side street is slippery and steep, and I estimate the height is about three to four meters. On the right side of this road, trees belong to residents with the same ground level as this path, while on the left side, there is a very steep ravine. I can't imagine what would happen if I fell from this place.
I started down very carefully. I cling to the grass and shrubs on the side of this path. I often slipped because the road was so slippery that I felt sorry for ignoring Ali. In my heart, I can't stop praying.
I strolled down and stopped several times out of fear, and I saw Ali was not far below me because he seemed to have stopped several times to watch me. I was halfway there when my foot slipped again, and I tried to grab the grass, holding whatever I could so I wouldn't fall. I managed to grab a piece of grass as a handle. Unfortunately, the grass-root uprooted, and I couldn't balance my body. I bounced. I felt my body float. I closed my eyes and imagined my body would hit the ground, and the rocks beneath me made my whole body tremble.
Dug!
I felt a reasonably hard impact on my body. I think there is something wrong with this collision, like not hitting the ground or rocks, but...
I opened my eyes and saw Ali's face so close to mine, and I could see there was relief in his eyes. One hand wrapped his arms around me and held him so I wouldn't fall on the rocks below us while his other hand gripped the bush next to him. Our faces were so close, so close that I could feel his warm breath on my face. We both tried to hold our breath and stared at each other for a very long time. I felt my cheeks warm up, and it must have turned red by now.
I felt as if time had stopped. Only our heartbeats were racing against each other, and an electric current stung my whole body. I don't know how long we were in that state until someone's scream woke us up, I tried to get away from Ali, but I almost slipped again, making Ali grab me again.
"Are you all right?"
I saw a woman standing at the end of the road. She looked at us with a worried expression. My face turned red. Ali immediately removed his arms from my body and led me down this road. I didn't refuse anymore because I didn't want what happened to me to fall again.
Until we got to the bottom, we got to know the woman who had shouted earlier. Her name is Astuti, or used called Tutik. She was the one on the phone to Santi to meet us and help us here.
"Just now, I saw Ms. Zie fall. Luckily Brother Ali was alert, so she didn't fall to the ground. I was already horrified. I was afraid Ms. Zie would be okay," said Mrs. Tutik when we headed to her house.
Ali just smiled. I blushed, my cheeks flushed red at the thought of what had happened, and I thought that Tutik must have seen everything. But it seems that she doesn't care about my concerns. Instead, she expresses her joy because his village is being used as a practice field to gain health knowledge.
***