Stepping Forward

Many hours have gone by, and by now, the beast hide has finally been resisted. Many families devastated from the event, lives lost in numbering over a hundred, and almost half of the village is in shambles from the destruction.

Still, it wasn't until a few more hours after the devastation ended, that Chris would finally open his eyes. As he did, he didn't exactly remember anything that happened recently. As far as he was concerned, it was just a brand new day. He found himself in his bed, and his entire body felt sore, far more sore than after training, in fact; he could barely move. As seconds turned into minutes, memories of what happened during the night flashed through his mind as he it tried to process everything.

The beast tide, beasts all over the village, fire, death, killing worgols and... Chris stopped himself from remembering everything afterwards. Deep within himself, he already knew, and the memories that flashed across his mind don't need details just to torture him further. As Chris slowly recollected himself, and raised his torso from the bed to look around his room, deafening silence responding back to him.

Yet, when he focused, he could hear several people speaking inside the house, and two of those voices, belonged to his parents.

"Madame Schmidt, we understand that isn't your fault that the beast tide occurred earlier than predicted for the first time in history, and neither is it your fault that there were just too many beasts this time."

A couple of more voices joined in agreement. "Yeah, that's right." - "Aye." The same voice continued speaking.

"If anything, Madame Schmidt, if it weren't for you on the frontlines dealing with hundreds of beasts alone, I doubt the name Grimsby would be on the maps for long."

And after his words, a solemn silence ensued, which was only interrupted by Chris's father, Nick, after a while.

"Thanks, you two. Those comforting words do a lot to quell our guilt, even if the losses we suffered today weren't anyone's fault."

Chris's mother, Arielle, then continued.

"Thank you. In any case, we need to start planning things going forward. The beast tide that occurred during the night today happened a week earlier from what we were told by the authorities. Not only that, but there were almost three times as many beasts as normal. " After taking a deep breath, she continued.

"Never before did I have to personally set out to battle for a beast tide in this village, never mind risking my life. Worst case scenario, and the most likely one, is that there is more than one Beast Lord in existence at the moment. That, or the current one is far more powerful than almost all known Beast Lords for at least a few centuries." She then paused yet again, skillfully making use of the silence to allow others to understand the severity of her words; before continuing.

"What we should do now, is not only look after the injured, but fortify our defenses in a much smaller area, better yet, we should have several layers of defenses so we can keep continuously fall back while suffering the fewest of casualties; all the while buying as much time as possible. Chances are, and I think this is obvious, but we are not the only ones suffering this much from the beast tide. So I doubt reinforcements will be coming any time soon. Allow me to clarify, it is irrelevant how beasts ignored settlements after a beast tide in the past, let the battle still fresh in your memories server as the answer to any questions you have for my plans. Do I make myself clear?"

Loud acknowledgements resonated through the walls of the house. "Yes, madame."

After multiple footsteps were heard leaving the house, Chris thought that it was enough of laying about, and slowly began to get off the bed, only...

He couldn't.

His muscles & body were so sore, that any movements beyond raising himself up were useless. His legs simply wouldn't budge. Though thankfully, he didn't have to suffer in solitude for long. The door to his room suddenly opened, and more surprised than Chris was the the intruder, his mother. Her straight, light-brown hair was messy, and colored with slight red hues all over. Though barely visible, one could also notice some resemblance of bags forming under her eyes. As for the eyes themselves, gazing into them would tell anyone, that she came inside as a mother worrying for her child. Despite being a leader in front of the people who came in earlier, considering she was, after all...the lord of this fief, right now, she looked tired. If anything, she almost stuttered through her words as she addressed her beloved son.

"I didn't expect you to wake up this soon but... I am thankful." She slowly walked towards the bed in which Chris was, and before he could muster a response, hugged him. She hugged him so tightly that he almost wanted to protest but alas, he couldn't. Just as Ariel was thankful her son is safe, all Chris needed was the warm embrace of someone precious to him.

It was only because of that, that he felt tears slowly tinkling down his cheeks as they began to form faster, and faster, until he simply sobbed, returning the hug his dear mother game him, with all the weak strength he could muster in his body. It was only now that he could, at the very least, begin to grief for his loss. The mother and son duo spent plenty of minutes in the warm embrace of each other, the one less experienced, sobbing heavily into the chest of the other; yet it was only after all that, that Chris could finally muster up the courage to speak, albeit all that came out was but a mere whisper only she, could hear.

"M-mom? I-is there anything I can do to just... move on?"