Waking up to a roof over his head should've felt so wrong, so suffocating, bashing his skull against a ceiling every time he opened his eyes, but he'd gotten too used to it too quickly.
He thinking, what would my brother say? What would he do? Trying to kill those thoughts is like catching a fly in a storm. He lets the buzz in his damaged ear take over the other half of his brain. Static on the television, that's actually what happens when there's maximum information in a video.
Ursus, with its dark evergreen and pine bleeding sap, opens up in the spring. He imagines the sharp smell pumping in and out of his lungs and cleaning him from the inside. There is a man nearby. Tall and dressed in cool greys, he only sees the back of his head but knows that this was the man Merrick had put on such a pedestal.
Wordlessly, he walks in alongside him, and presses his mouth to the cool water.