[color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=662d91][i][b]Alexander Polawski[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=662d91]Location:[/color][/b][/i]Outside of Mess Hall, streets of CMB -> Education Center (M6) [i][b][color=662d91]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/BBfr494/Mugsy-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color] While with the thoughts and doubts weighing him down, Alexander did his best to carry them like he had hauled an overly heavy radio strapped to his back on so many patrols in his younger years. It was heavy, yes, but it was a burden he kept on carrying. That wasn't the concern. It was how long he could carry it, and how much he could ignore it while looking at the beautiful scenery that surrounded them. For as Alexander followed Aeron through the streets of CMB, those sights made an impression on the old veteran. The sun setting in its organge glory, children enjoying life to the fullest and...Alexander couldn't put his finger on it. Somehow he kept on putting on the load, and kept going. Alexander reached the Education Center still at the side of Aeron, nodding silently to the backstory of their beloved Father Atticus. While he, having told himself this countless times over the last decades, had trouble believing anyone aside from himself and his former brothers in arms could understand, Alexander wanted to believe Aeron's words. A battle priest, soldier of Uncle Sam and sheppard of God. Yes, he wanted to believe that anyone could understand his actions. Understand and forgive. Could God? [color=662d91]"Now that sounds like quite the collection then. If I find an old advertisement for any of my old radio sets or a Ford Granada. Yeah, that's something for the youngsters to be taught. Though I suspect and so I've heard that you teach the new generations far more...'practical' skills these days. Stuff we only learned in Boot Camp."[/color] Alexander said to Aeron as they reached the doors of the Education Center, glad to have a topic he could talk about without feeling weighed down by those doubts of his. Inside he gave a friendly wave to those milling about their own business, still following Aeron into this unknown territory. The library sent old images across Alexander's vision, back to the days he spent time reading books and not hiding from the Undead underneath crumbling bookshelves. Not that he recognized any of the titles, though he wasn't looking for anything special. He was looking forward to what Aeron was going to show him, so the books could wait. [color=662d91]"As old and sensitive as us two old geezers then? Sounds like the red-light room Judith kept in the basement of my shop back home. Don't want to ruin what you can keep, right? Has Edna kept the basement as organized as the library then? I thought you said something about needing a new pair of eyes to sort things out.[/color] [color=lightgray][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h3][color=B8860B][i][b]Nigel Cooper[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=B8860B]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Streets of CMB/Beach (M9) -> Outside of Chapel (E10= [i][b][color=B8860B]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/LrnKm2S/Nigel-Hadrian-1.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][CENTER]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][/color]] The sun was setting, the air was getting gently cooler by the minute, the waves washed up on the shore and...Nigel took in a deep breath, smelling the salty air in his lungs and trying not to feel too much about his current predicament. The world was serene at that moment, the universe in an orderly balance which had not been felt by this relatively large safehaven of humanity for what felt like a lifetime. It was easy to look at and feel like all was all right, and yet Nigel, when stepping onto the sandy shore of CMB, felt immensly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Insignificant and wandering, lost before the waves of the Gulf of Mexico. Nigel sighed again, noticing a pair of people further up the coast from him. If his eyes didn't decieve him, it looked like Thana and Ashton, deep in conversation. He had to chuckle to himself quietly, looking away and down at the setting Chariot of Appollo as the realm of night advanced steadily. He turned and started walking in the other direction, heading up the coast towards where he thought they had been shown the Chapel. Why? If Nigel knew for sure, he wasn't sure he would tell you. That feeling that had penetrated his defences earlier remained persistant in his mind. Nigel sighed once again, keeping a slow but steady pace up the shoreline. Yes, loneliness was a constant companion of Man. Many a piece of poetry had been written about its titanic weight that rested upon the shoulders of even the strongest of Men, and how it could break them down. He himself would not admit it, but he could not escape the truth that ever since Erika, Hell, since he had parted ways with his three friends earlier, he had felt something missing. Or rather, someone. He probably was not alone in having lost those he cared for, and really they were still around there in Camp Mexico Beach. Yet he did not have the strength to go seek them out. Was it lack of strength, or lack of courage. Cowardice was severely punished in the Roman Legions, but loneliness? What was that? A weakness, or a curse?