"Find a way to kill him, of course."
Rocky came to shortly afterward, glaring angrily at Markel. Markel stood over him. "Rocky, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by just telling me about it, and how you do it."
Rocky spat on the ground. "And after, you'll knock me off again, huh? Listen, I wouldn't tell you the right time, square man."
Markel sighed. "Typical peasant arrogance," he said, shooting Rocky squarely in the forehead.
According to Markel's wrist watch Rocky stayed dead—that is, without pulse or respiration—for seven hours and forty-six minutes. During the first three hours Markel sat incredulously, not believing his eyes, watching the bullet hole in Rocky's head stop bleeding and slowly close, until there was no evidence of a wound. Rocky woke up cursing him.
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Markel stabbed Rocky through the heart with Rocky's knife. The wound closed in slightly under four hours, after which respiration began again. Rocky remained unconscious for six more hours; he was dead, in all, for nine hours and twelve minutes.
Markel bashed Rocky's head in with a dead branch. In twelve hours and thirty-one minutes Rocky was awake and cursing, his skull completely healed.
