Week Eleven - Wednesday Who: Ryder and Ace What: Ace shows Ryder what happens when someone hurts Danni Where: The burnt ruins of Ryder’s cabin When: Mid-morning Wednesday
Ryder hadn’t been back to his cabin since the night of the fire when he’d walked all the way to Grffin’s place in the main canopy. He hadn’t even looked for his horse yet and she hadn’t turned up at the main camp like she had other times when she dissappeared in the past. On Monday he’d gotten up enough gumption to write Danni a letter. He didn’t know how he really felt about anything at the moment. All he could think about, all he could feel, was an emptiness- deep and dark. It was probably one of the worst letters he’d ever written, but at least he felt somewhat accomplished- as if he’d successfully closed that chapter of his life.
It wasn’t until a Wednesday in early Spring that Ryder decided to return to his cabin. He figured his mopey figure was starting to get on Griffin’s nerves. He didn’t know if he even wanted to rebuild the cabin. It felt like everything he’d worked for in the last two years had been pulled out from under him in a firey blaze. He didn’t know what pieces to pick up or where to go next.
When he arrived at the cabin he sat his bag on the ground and stuck his hands in his pockets. The cabin had been reduced to a blackened carcass, picked clean by the elements and who knew- maybe a couple of drifters as well. He walked to the edge of the shiny black pile that was once his home. An image from two years ago flashed before his eyes. His incinerated ranchhouse; the burned remains of his crippled mother. God, how could anyone go on living after seeing those things- those horrible things that swept the earth at the height of the virus.
He knelt next to the cabin with a sigh and made the sign of the cross. The earth was cool and the layer of moisture buried just beneath the soil seeped through the knees of his jeans. He began a low prayer out loud, in Spanish. He prayed to the Virgen de Guadalupe for something to pull him out of the darkness that had taken all his joy away. He prayed for some reason, or some way to go on.