Part 358 – Moving Forward

Ambrose licked the traces of mixed blood off his claws as he walked along the train tracks.

A train barreled through, but Ambrose barely noticed.

He noticed what he deemed important.

He was no longer hungry.

The pain had stopped.

His cough was gone.

His savage hunger was satisfied for now. Maybe for good. He didn’t know.

He didn’t think about it.

He thought about only one thing.

One word.

“Barbara.”

Even though he was still day exhausted and kept tripping over random pieces of wood and assorted garbage buried under the snow, he didn’t stop.

He kept walking.

Walking back home.

***

Hildreth put extra cheese on the pizza before sticking it into the oven.

“Mayhew.”

He startled and turned around. “Sorry! I didn’t hear you come in.”

“I know my path.”

Hildreth waited.

“Revenge is easy but hurtful. Forgiveness is difficult but will come. Right now, I move forward. I need move forward.”

Hidreth frowned. “I don’t understand, Master. He was your brother.”

“He was my brother and good man. His loss hurts. Loss will hurt me every day I breathe. Is why I must move forward. If I stand still, hurt and loss will consume me. If I look back, always look back, I lose my way. I must move forward, Mayhew. I will carry loss with me until it is time for loss to be free.”

Hildreth had no words to say to that. He simply bowed to his Master.

***

Ambrose tripped and fell.

His world spun on a faulty axis, wobbling in unpredictable patterns.

He sat up and his world knocked over like a spinning top.

He spread his hands on the ground and bowed his head, waiting for the dizziness to cease.

His eyelids dipped down.

Ambrose struggled up to his feet and glanced around through half-mast eyes. Everything was tilted all wrong.

“Barbara.”

He left the train tracks and entered the forest running alongside it.

Branches thwacked him in the face.

Tree stumps that barely stuck out of the ground tripped him.

Random holes in the ground snagged his feet and sent him falling.

Every single bur bush lunged at him and left their prickly, stickly bon-bon surprises all over his clothes.

He kept walking.

Until he just couldn’t walk anymore.

Ambrose sank to the ground and closed his eyes.

He fell asleep in the midst of sunlight, trees, and snow.