Soul of the Beast
He was on his own now. All alone in the night.
None of the people he had known and lived with, fought alongside and sometimes against, hated and loved were here with him in his darkest hour.
All alone. None of the Mallrats, none of his enemies and neither of his betrothed were there for him.
Zandra was dead and with her had died his unborn son who had never known the light of the world of life.
Instead he had been introduced instantly to do death and this had left feeling not only anguished but also lost and confused.
Tai-San was gone without a trace, the second whoman whom he had found it in his scarred soul to love enough to spend the rest of his life with her by his side and had met with god only knew what.
Perhaps it could be that somewhere out there in this half dead world she was still alive but as he thought about what he was now going through he sincerely hoped with all of his turmoiled heart that she was not.
That was odd. He was hoping that Tai-San was dead...
Yes... he thought as he bowed his head and closed his eyes since there was nothing to be seen around him save for the darkness which was just as present with his eyes open, I hope she's gone out of this world. Least she'll never have to go through the same as the rest of us.
Nothing was worth being put through the sheer hell he had endured over the past few days...not even life itself.
Lex had been staring at the blank expressionless black floor just as he was now.
It had been six hours since Java and ved had come to drag him off to that...place of torture.
His eyes were dark and dead as he cowered on his knees.
His arms were locked behind his back in the bulky metal restraint harness that was grafted around his arms holding them and his wrists together.
Lex couldn't move so much as a muscle although it had been several days since he had first arrived in this black pit of oblivion that he had stopped trying to do this and now as he knelt limply and lifelessy on the floor of the desperately depressing cell he no longer even noticed the extremely tight pressure about his limbs.
The only light in this pitch black cell was the very faint red light that shone down from the flashbulb attached the the equally uninteresting ceiling slightly lighting the room with scarlet red stripes that broke the black floor.
The red light had been switched on a few hours ago or at least Lex was fairly certain that they had been.
Actually now that he thought about it felt more like the day before...or maybe last week.
Time simply did not exist in the soul destroying void that they had thrown him into a left him there to slowly die, decay from within.
Actually this was perhaps more effective than those VR scenarios he was put through every few hours (days?).
Torture Lex could have endured and he would have been eager to if only to prove to these freaks that they could never break his spirit.
They would have had to have carried him out of this hell before he would ever falter and submit to defeat.
Lex could have withstood violence for he knew that one who lived by violence must surely die by it one day.
However what hey had done had been far more devastating to his already hurting heart.
They had not intended to do it but they still had.
the one thing in the world that Lex could not bear was...nothing.
To be helpless in the dark unable to do anything to resist his torment was sheer hell for him.
He was alone alone in the darkness of oblivion with only the company of his thoughts which were the company which he would have liked to avoid most of all.
If there was one person who Lex despised with all his heart it was...him.
He didn't want himself and he especially did not want to dwell on his past and all that he had done.
But in this empty lifeless place they were all that he had.
To cower here on the floor week after week as his muscles wasted away to become utterly useless to perhaps be released one day to be sent out into the world for the people he had known to see him completely destroyed from within, his spirit broken, his once formidable strength shattered and his soul withered.
Lex breathed in and out weakly and it felt as though he had just breathed away his very last ounce of hope.
All of them were gone.
His friends his tribe his wives and his son whom he had never even known, even Ryan who had sworn to watch his back in this new world that had followed the end of all life as they had once known it.
A world of despair and emptiness. A hell planet basically.
Lex hevaed a sigh and bowed his head closing his eyes again.
If this isn't hell... he thought silently. ...then I sure feel sorry for the devil...
Made sense that this should be his place of torture, his...what was it Tai-San had called the place where your greatest fear could be found?
Lex could hardly remember what she had said...it seemed like a lifetime ago and in a sense it had been.
His room 101. That was it.
Lex felt despair washing over him like a great black tide as the dim soul destroying red light washed over his body.
he had nothing.
So alone here at the very end.
He had never imagined that his place to...end would be anything like this.
Strength means only the love for violence... he thought bleakly. I wish I'd never been...born.
He hardly knew himself anymore, his very sense of self was dying and leaving him all alone in the dark, no more than a hollow shell of the Lex that he had once been.
His face hit the floor as his knees finally gave way under him and he pitched forward in the ground of the cell.
As he lay on the hard remorseless floor finally weakened beyond endurance he could hear a faint whirring from a long way off.
A thin sliver of piercing light flooded into the small room as the cell door was opened.
Ved and Java stepped in and as they looked down at him they savoured his stae as a beaten lifeless husk.
Behind the Techno who stood ready to zap him if he made any attempt to resist (which was pretty laughable in the circumstances) was...Siva.
Her eyes were lowered as she gazed down at the floor but not because she found pure uninteresting black fascinating.
Rather that she could not bear to see him this way all but dead inside because of her.
Siva felt herself cry out in pain in her heart as she felt wracked with desperate regret that she had helped to bring Lex to this fate.
She felt like she was going to die as she forced herself to look at him, look upon what she had done.
But she had to, she told herself, she had to do him some honour even though it was not much.
Ved stared down grimly at Lex for what felt like a fortnight and then his lip curlced into that smirk that so often screamed 'punch me!' at those he provoked with his insolence.
"Show time." he drawled in what he accurately judged to be an infuriating manner, not that it produced any effect on Lex considering his condition. "Time to ride cow boy!"
Siva lowered her eyes and closed them in deepest guilt as Ved and the Techno next to her dragged Lex off for the Vr Suite where RAM awaited to inflict his torture.
A while later...
I'm back...
It was Lex's first thought as his senses reasserted themselves painfully back into his brain upon his return to reality.
He made a heartless effort to rise to his feet and just as he had completely expected he pitched forward onto his knees and then as his strength failed him utterly his face.
As his head spun like a vortex a vague suspicion of where he now was entered his mind.
To make sure he raised head and forced open his burning eyes with a supreme effort of will to glance around.
He closed his eyes again and felt himself sink into the murky blackness.
He'd been right. Here he was back in the cell.
Finally once he was sure that his eyes had had the time they needed to recover from their bout in VR he opned them to see...darkness.
Black curtains of shadow hanging all around him.
No more.
Despair hit him like a blow to the stomach as he rolled onto his side and heaved for breath desperately.
Here he was locked up once more in his own personal hell with only his own personal demonds for companionship until the time came for him to be dragged off to be put through one of RAM's specially devized hells.
He had no idea which was worse.
In his desolation Lex did not notice the door being opened slowly, cautiously for his eyes were screwed shut desperately as he tried to think of better happier times.
But he couldn't. Anything good that he had ever known was banished by the pain in his body...and his heart.
A sheer sense of futility filled him as he realised that he would be able to stand much more of this.
So immersed was he in his despair that he did not hear the soft click of the door being closed nor the wary footsteps as the person who had stepped into his cell stepped closer to him quietly.
It was the sound of her soft whispering breath that caught his attention.
Lex felt his entire body become rigid as she knelt over him and he felt her breath in his face.
Gentle hands which were the last thing he had come to expect to feel here were placed beneath his chin and turned it up so that his face was raised.
Something warm and pleasant found its way to his lips that was welcome to him here.
Lex slowly opened his eyes ignoring the agony it brought him to look up at the newcomer with hope returning to him as she kissed him.
He could make out her face in the red light as she ended the tender kiss and looked at.
Lex studied her face attentively as his lips still tingled from the kiss.
He had no idea when he might see her again so wanted to cherish this time with her now.
Siva knelt beside him with her arms around him wearing that awful Techno outfit that he had always thought did her no justice at all. He could just picture her in an elegant white gown.
"Siva..." Lex murmured hoarsely as he raised his head weakly to look at her properly.
Siva smiled sweetly at him in the darkness and nodded.
"Shhh." she whispered as he drew his head closer to her lips. "Don't say anything. Save your strength."
Ram would not control her forever, Lex knew that one day Siva would be free.
As Lex closed his eyes again to enjoy the kiss he made her as well as Tai-San wherever she was, Zandra who was surely watching over him, his son although he had never been born and himself a deep promise which he was determined to keep.
It wasn't going to end like this.
He had to make some sense out all that had happened to him in his life, all that he had been through and endured.
Never... Lex thought as he and Siva kissed in the darkness and then he thought nothing more.
The End
He was on his own now. All alone in the night.
None of the people he had known and lived with, fought alongside and sometimes against, hated and loved were here with him in his darkest hour.
All alone. None of the Mallrats, none of his enemies and neither of his betrothed were there for him.
Zandra was dead and with her had died his unborn son who had never known the light of the world of life.
Instead he had been introduced instantly to do death and this had left feeling not only anguished but also lost and confused.
Tai-San was gone without a trace, the second whoman whom he had found it in his scarred soul to love enough to spend the rest of his life with her by his side and had met with god only knew what.
Perhaps it could be that somewhere out there in this half dead world she was still alive but as he thought about what he was now going through he sincerely hoped with all of his turmoiled heart that she was not.
That was odd. He was hoping that Tai-San was dead...
Yes... he thought as he bowed his head and closed his eyes since there was nothing to be seen around him save for the darkness which was just as present with his eyes open, I hope she's gone out of this world. Least she'll never have to go through the same as the rest of us.
Nothing was worth being put through the sheer hell he had endured over the past few days...not even life itself.
Lex had been staring at the blank expressionless black floor just as he was now.
It had been six hours since Java and ved had come to drag him off to that...place of torture.
His eyes were dark and dead as he cowered on his knees.
His arms were locked behind his back in the bulky metal restraint harness that was grafted around his arms holding them and his wrists together.
Lex couldn't move so much as a muscle although it had been several days since he had first arrived in this black pit of oblivion that he had stopped trying to do this and now as he knelt limply and lifelessy on the floor of the desperately depressing cell he no longer even noticed the extremely tight pressure about his limbs.
The only light in this pitch black cell was the very faint red light that shone down from the flashbulb attached the the equally uninteresting ceiling slightly lighting the room with scarlet red stripes that broke the black floor.
The red light had been switched on a few hours ago or at least Lex was fairly certain that they had been.
Actually now that he thought about it felt more like the day before...or maybe last week.
Time simply did not exist in the soul destroying void that they had thrown him into a left him there to slowly die, decay from within.
Actually this was perhaps more effective than those VR scenarios he was put through every few hours (days?).
Torture Lex could have endured and he would have been eager to if only to prove to these freaks that they could never break his spirit.
They would have had to have carried him out of this hell before he would ever falter and submit to defeat.
Lex could have withstood violence for he knew that one who lived by violence must surely die by it one day.
However what hey had done had been far more devastating to his already hurting heart.
They had not intended to do it but they still had.
the one thing in the world that Lex could not bear was...nothing.
To be helpless in the dark unable to do anything to resist his torment was sheer hell for him.
He was alone alone in the darkness of oblivion with only the company of his thoughts which were the company which he would have liked to avoid most of all.
If there was one person who Lex despised with all his heart it was...him.
He didn't want himself and he especially did not want to dwell on his past and all that he had done.
But in this empty lifeless place they were all that he had.
To cower here on the floor week after week as his muscles wasted away to become utterly useless to perhaps be released one day to be sent out into the world for the people he had known to see him completely destroyed from within, his spirit broken, his once formidable strength shattered and his soul withered.
Lex breathed in and out weakly and it felt as though he had just breathed away his very last ounce of hope.
All of them were gone.
His friends his tribe his wives and his son whom he had never even known, even Ryan who had sworn to watch his back in this new world that had followed the end of all life as they had once known it.
A world of despair and emptiness. A hell planet basically.
Lex hevaed a sigh and bowed his head closing his eyes again.
If this isn't hell... he thought silently. ...then I sure feel sorry for the devil...
Made sense that this should be his place of torture, his...what was it Tai-San had called the place where your greatest fear could be found?
Lex could hardly remember what she had said...it seemed like a lifetime ago and in a sense it had been.
His room 101. That was it.
Lex felt despair washing over him like a great black tide as the dim soul destroying red light washed over his body.
he had nothing.
So alone here at the very end.
He had never imagined that his place to...end would be anything like this.
Strength means only the love for violence... he thought bleakly. I wish I'd never been...born.
He hardly knew himself anymore, his very sense of self was dying and leaving him all alone in the dark, no more than a hollow shell of the Lex that he had once been.
His face hit the floor as his knees finally gave way under him and he pitched forward in the ground of the cell.
As he lay on the hard remorseless floor finally weakened beyond endurance he could hear a faint whirring from a long way off.
A thin sliver of piercing light flooded into the small room as the cell door was opened.
Ved and Java stepped in and as they looked down at him they savoured his stae as a beaten lifeless husk.
Behind the Techno who stood ready to zap him if he made any attempt to resist (which was pretty laughable in the circumstances) was...Siva.
Her eyes were lowered as she gazed down at the floor but not because she found pure uninteresting black fascinating.
Rather that she could not bear to see him this way all but dead inside because of her.
Siva felt herself cry out in pain in her heart as she felt wracked with desperate regret that she had helped to bring Lex to this fate.
She felt like she was going to die as she forced herself to look at him, look upon what she had done.
But she had to, she told herself, she had to do him some honour even though it was not much.
Ved stared down grimly at Lex for what felt like a fortnight and then his lip curlced into that smirk that so often screamed 'punch me!' at those he provoked with his insolence.
"Show time." he drawled in what he accurately judged to be an infuriating manner, not that it produced any effect on Lex considering his condition. "Time to ride cow boy!"
Siva lowered her eyes and closed them in deepest guilt as Ved and the Techno next to her dragged Lex off for the Vr Suite where RAM awaited to inflict his torture.
A while later...
I'm back...
It was Lex's first thought as his senses reasserted themselves painfully back into his brain upon his return to reality.
He made a heartless effort to rise to his feet and just as he had completely expected he pitched forward onto his knees and then as his strength failed him utterly his face.
As his head spun like a vortex a vague suspicion of where he now was entered his mind.
To make sure he raised head and forced open his burning eyes with a supreme effort of will to glance around.
He closed his eyes again and felt himself sink into the murky blackness.
He'd been right. Here he was back in the cell.
Finally once he was sure that his eyes had had the time they needed to recover from their bout in VR he opned them to see...darkness.
Black curtains of shadow hanging all around him.
No more.
Despair hit him like a blow to the stomach as he rolled onto his side and heaved for breath desperately.
Here he was locked up once more in his own personal hell with only his own personal demonds for companionship until the time came for him to be dragged off to be put through one of RAM's specially devized hells.
He had no idea which was worse.
In his desolation Lex did not notice the door being opened slowly, cautiously for his eyes were screwed shut desperately as he tried to think of better happier times.
But he couldn't. Anything good that he had ever known was banished by the pain in his body...and his heart.
A sheer sense of futility filled him as he realised that he would be able to stand much more of this.
So immersed was he in his despair that he did not hear the soft click of the door being closed nor the wary footsteps as the person who had stepped into his cell stepped closer to him quietly.
It was the sound of her soft whispering breath that caught his attention.
Lex felt his entire body become rigid as she knelt over him and he felt her breath in his face.
Gentle hands which were the last thing he had come to expect to feel here were placed beneath his chin and turned it up so that his face was raised.
Something warm and pleasant found its way to his lips that was welcome to him here.
Lex slowly opened his eyes ignoring the agony it brought him to look up at the newcomer with hope returning to him as she kissed him.
He could make out her face in the red light as she ended the tender kiss and looked at.
Lex studied her face attentively as his lips still tingled from the kiss.
He had no idea when he might see her again so wanted to cherish this time with her now.
Siva knelt beside him with her arms around him wearing that awful Techno outfit that he had always thought did her no justice at all. He could just picture her in an elegant white gown.
"Siva..." Lex murmured hoarsely as he raised his head weakly to look at her properly.
Siva smiled sweetly at him in the darkness and nodded.
"Shhh." she whispered as he drew his head closer to her lips. "Don't say anything. Save your strength."
Ram would not control her forever, Lex knew that one day Siva would be free.
As Lex closed his eyes again to enjoy the kiss he made her as well as Tai-San wherever she was, Zandra who was surely watching over him, his son although he had never been born and himself a deep promise which he was determined to keep.
It wasn't going to end like this.
He had to make some sense out all that had happened to him in his life, all that he had been through and endured.
Never... Lex thought as he and Siva kissed in the darkness and then he thought nothing more.
The End