098. Homecoming, 2

(Rose)

I wake up around midday. My body still aches, but I feel better. I feel quite good actually.

The weather is nice outside. I'm atop a comfortable bed in a nice house. I can hear wind outside. Only the wind.

But everyone is gone. I'm not sure where or why. And many died surely. Horribly. During frightening nights. And yet today is peaceful. Quiet but peaceful.

Ann has become more reliable since the death of all her three children. I wonder how she manages to smile nowadays. One thing for sure, is that she has evolved this past week. For the better perhaps. As for I, I actually revealed the worst of myself in order to survive...

I think the rush is over, and I feel that I'm back to my usual self now. I guess that primal me only appears when I'm in dire danger? I've been truly disgusting and violent. But I've survived...

Have I changed too?

Well, my body sure has, now that I'm covered with healing wounds, and certainly cannot wear a left glove anymore. Thinking about it brings back painful memories overflowing with screams, bloods and... Well, everything of the worst I could have ever imagined...

Ann is setting our affairs for the journey to come. We found horses yesterday. They weren't too scared of us though they seemed wild. Which doesn't make sense. But if that was the first senseless thing we encountered, or the last one, maybe we would have been bothered by it. As things are now, that was the least of our worries.

Ann saddled two of them and keeps them in a stable across the road. And while I rest a little more, she is scavenging this abandoned town for what we could need for our travel.

Nothing valuable, everything useful.

So far, we're not even sure that currency still exists in this area.

We are about 150 kilometres north of London. I think. We're not sure.

That's about the distance our train should have done when it crashed. But neither Ann nor others from the area did seem to recognise the country anymore.

Either the landscape changed, or by some bizarre trick we landed by train in another country. I don't know which is more likely, and nothing helped us understand our situation.

Actually, everything encountered made things become more confusing...

Up to the point where we simply don't know at all. Nothing. We don't know.

~

I don't remember ever being so kind and helping with Ann, but she still acts as if she should be eternally grateful to me.

All I can recall is being unable to save her daughter Charlotte from a gruesome death, trying to kill her by strangling her, and actually killing her second daughter Victoria...

I know that I tend to only see and focus on the worst parts of things that happen, but still, I don't understand what I could have done next to all that, that would in the end make me praise worthy. There must be something more that I've done, and I just can't see how important it had been for her.

Because her kindness toward me is genuine. I was afraid for a time that she was putting up an act in order to kill me, to punish me for good. I was afraid of her when she began to smile at me...

But she's not planning to kill me. That I know for sure at least today. Her kindness and help are true. She's sincere. I'm still a bit odd though.

She brought me another glass of that lukewarm milk. It begins to taste better now. The smell of my wounds is fading away.

I go outside.

The ghost town is in the middle of England. That's a strange sight. Everyone is gone. There seem to be a very tall tree somewhere in the distance. It's so far, the blue of the sky makes it fade, but so tall it goes above the clouds even that far away. Am I seeing things right?

Another illogical thing encountered. One more I guess.

Ann has the horses packed. It's the first time I see her wearing a ponytail. I guess it's better when you work physically.

She sees me and smiles. She doesn't talk before I'm closer. I ask her about her hair. She tells me it's better when horse riding. She also found hats to wear. I follow her advice and do like her.

With my left hand still painful, she helps me tie my hair.

I ask her out of the blue why is she so kind to me. She knows what I fully mean by that. She looks surprised at first. Then she smiles. Then she gives me a radiant, amused smile.

Is she mocking me? She did not reply.

Anyway, it's time to go home for me. She'll teach me to ride and we'll be able to leave anytime she says. She's still giving me that warm smile, while I probably look stupid.

I truly don't understand her at all.

A little like you somewhat...

Please, wait just a little longer.

I'm on my way home.

~