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Ravvlet rolled 2 8-sided dice:
1, 1
Total: 2 (2-16)
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 Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 10:39 pm
Sweat glistened off his brow as Wash slowly threaded his way from his quarters to the blasted landscape of the abandoned town. His body still felt weak, from his time with their captors and the long hospitalization afterward, but he grew tired of the confines of his room. Tired of the memories; the nightmares. He'd hidden there for days, in what had once been his refuge. The others had respected his privacy, but in the solitude he was a captive to his own thoughts and guilt. Had he abandoned the things he loved? Had his pride and cowardice cost so many people so much? He felt like he no longer knew himself; his actions painted in a new and unflattering light.
He blinked, gazing tiredly into the early morning sun, and very nearly tripped over what was left of a cement foundation. He found himself staring up at the old schoolhouse; one that he and Jerry had once cleared. It's familiar visage was largely destroyed now - so much rubble. What use was a schoolhouse, Wash thought bleakly, when there was no one to teach? No younger generation to fill the desks. No life, here. No fresh blossoms, no new promise.
Just old sweat, old tears; old wounds. He flexed stiffly, grabbing a shovel, and started working to sort the rubble.
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Ravvlet rolled 2 8-sided dice:
8, 4
Total: 12 (2-16)
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Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 10:39 pm
Several hour's labor, and he had managed to get a fair-sized pile of good material. Separating what was still useable from the chaff. He had helped make this mess, indirectly. By hesitating. By being uncertain. How ironic that he was just as uncertain now, as he tried to make things right. Always fumbling in the dark.
It was noon now, and he'd long since abandoned his jacket and his shirt, wrapping his scarf around his neck and face to keep the sweat out his eyes. It ran in streamers down his bared chest, glinting off his aching muscles. Manual labor was a kind of release- cathartic. It was simple, this work, and it reminded him of home. In the gentle rhythm he'd developed between the shovel and his hands, he could think of home, and not be plagued by sadness. Home simply was, a place he'd once been, a collection of memories. Pieces of who he'd become. The work he'd begun didn't remind him of anything specific- just a soft, fuzzy sense of familiarity that quelled the ache in his bones, gave him the energy to pull one more brick; to delve one more pile.
As he worked, he dissected his own thoughts in the same piecemeal fashion. Sorted out his emotions, in small, manageable sections, neatly grouped them together. A pile of bricks here- dusty, covered in old mortar, but beneath the dust and dirt still useable, still whole. The foundation was undamaged, revealing bits of frame jutting from it like some strange skeleton. It wasn't broken yet - wasn't unsalvageable. Hope existed here, in this purposeless structure. He could amend it. He could fix it, and it would stand here again; vacant and dormant. Perhaps it would never fulfill it's old purpose - but that was alright. It was being made anew. One day, something might find it's way into its heart.
He thought of the Halloween children then, and their school. Just kids, just a bunch of innocents, free of the bitterness, doubt, and cynicism adulthood could bring. Still young and bright and hopeful. And then the horsemen, with their dank caves and darkness and penchant for cruelty. Of his own kind, his fellow hunters- their ruthlessness, balanced by trust; violence tempered by everyday living. They walked a fine line, here. A line between the light and the dark.
Wash just kept shovelling. Kept thinking. Thoughts of empty places, of boundaries, and of time. Time to move on. Time to keep going. To find something to chase the darkness and debris from his own heart.
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Ravvlet rolled 2 8-sided dice:
8, 2
Total: 10 (2-16)
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Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 10:40 pm
He stopped focusing on organizing, as the last shafts of afternoon light filtered through the clouds and fog. Instead, he worked to clear the rest of the debris. He needed a good starting point, and for that he needed to see what shape the frame was in. Was the structure damaged? Had the foundation cracked? Did it finally fall apart, from all those weeks of neglect?
In his weariness, his thoughts ran together. Weeks of neglect? No- months. He'd made no friends here; no close ones. He tried to keep the others from his heart, from his mind. After all, he was full up on people he loved, right? His father, mother; brothers and sisters. Denise. Daniel. His love for them had only caused him pain and heartbreak. Pain because he left. Guilt, because he'd abandoned them. Sorrow; because he didn't know if he'd ever see them again. Was there anything left to salvage? Or had Wash neglected himself, to the point of breaking?
He leaned heavily against his shovel, panting. There- his first good glimpse of what lay beneath the dust and dirt. Beneath the rubble. A white slab; a blank slate. Miraculously unblemished. Yes, he could begin anew, here. It was time to put away those feelings of hopelessness, wasn't it? He had been in mourning for a long time, now. He had nearly died, in that lair, had nearly watched Sasha die; and yet, in all this time, he had neglected to really live.
He stood there for some time, long after the sun had set, thinking. About loss, and empty rooms, that once were filled with sunlight and laughter.
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