Prayer
There were many connections on the Intercontinental train line. Victor wished he had the time to truly enjoy them. He rushed from platform to platform, scuttling into a cabin as far in the back he could manage. Trying to get a room to himself with limited success.
Every day it got warmer as he left the winter of the north. He wished for cool dry air as his breath became short and his muscles weak. He drank water like a man consumed as he sweated precious salts from his pallid skin.
He used the rotating crowd to provide translation when necessary. Victor hadn’t studied Italian, just Latin. He knew enough about roughly where Cupido would be, but in a country full of strangers and roads named similarly, he needed to know exactly.
If Cupido couldn’t give him what he needed, he would head straight to Russia afterward. Victor was already behind and fading fast.
He had lost his taste for travel. If he survived this, he would pick a place and stay as long as he could. Not his home: that was too full of ghosts.