Frostbound

Chris

We traveled for over a week at the pace we set and we were making... decent time? It was hard to track. The only landmarks we could go off of were rivers and hills and none of us were expert cartographers.

It was easy to confuse one bend of the river with another on the map or one hill with another. Not that there were a lot of hills we were traveling over in Eastern Indiana. Still, we knew the general area we were in and that was enough.

It wasn't like we had a deadline we had to get there by and had to keep to a strict timeline.

Most took this time to decompress after a long and trying tutorial. Our camp arrangement at night made our tents within earshot of one another and it wasn't hard to pick up on sniffling or silent sobbing.

Those with higher perception had it worse and could hear... other activities.

With everyone reuniting and families coming back together, couples found ways to spend their time.

Both were things that were heard but not talked about. Personally, I felt it was a good gauge of the atmosphere and symbolized what people were going through. While grief was like a heavy fog sticking around us as we traveled, some happier notes played from within.

The fog would clear eventually. Little candles of happiness and joy burning it away one smile at a time. Marching forward one step at a time.

Some in our caravan lost everyone. There was one woman who lost both parents, all her siblings, and her significant other. She was nearly catatonic when she came back to realize all of them were gone.

I couldn't imagine it.

I was working through my own issues during this time and it was... going. I didn't know how else to describe it other than going. Every time I felt like I was ahead, all it took was rubbing my finger on the ring I now wore to bring me back down.