A/N: I know. I'm not making much progress with the story… It's just that I have so many other things on my mind, that this story just gets lost in the middle somewhere. Sorry!

The wall in front of him was gray. He had a hunch that it might have been white before, but that must have been a long, long time ago. Even longer than the time he had spent in here. Grayness had been his world.

The floor was gray, too. Filthy and gray. Two dead rats were lying in one corner of the room, soaking in their own feces. Once upon a time, the smell they spread had made him sick to the point of throwing up, but he had quickly learned that that only made things worse. So now there were two dead rats lying in one corner, and a pool of dried-up vomit in the opposite one.

He didn't even notice the smell anymore.

When he moved around in his little cell, dust whirled around richly, causing him to cough and choke. So he stayed down, most of the time – he hadn't figured out a way to not make the dust whirl, yet. Maybe he would think about that, today.

But first, he had more important things to do. He had to think of other things. Because today, something had happened. Eric had come. After all the endless, countless nights of praying and begging, Eric had finally come. When he had reckoned he wouldn't come anymore, Eric did. He did! It had been bliss. And at the same time, it had been hell.

Hell, because he had seen the hurt in Eric's eyes. The pain, the anger, the frustration and the terror he had long forgotten how to feel… Hell, because he had seen his own reflection in Eric's eyes. The frayed body, nothing more than a skinny doll, all bruised and broken… Hell, because he hadn't had the opportunity to tell him what he had wanted to say for a long time now. At least, not out loud. Hell, because the glass that had separated them had made it painfully clear that they could never reach each other. So close together, but still a world of space between them.

It had been hell for a thousand reasons. And still, it was the bliss that overruled all other thoughts in his mind. To see him again, to see him be healthy and well… That face, that he remembered so well because it was with him in his dreams every night. To know that he was still out there, at this moment, maybe not even more than a few miles away, made his heart jump. He could hear the pounding of his heart and the rush of his blood in his ears. Normally, that sound made him nervous, uncomfortable even – knowing that he was still alive for yet another moment. But today, he welcomed the sound with pleasure. Because it meant another moment closer to seeing Eric again.

To be able to tell him everything that had happened… He knew Eric was the only one who would really listen to him. And so, he would tell him. Everything.

He would tell him everything from the moment things had gone wrong. Because it had been right once, before all this. The Peace Corps had been one great experience, and he had felt like helping the people he met was like his… destiny. Together with Rachel and the other members of the group, he achieved a lot in the little village he was being stationed in. They built new houses, renewed the town's school and church. They built a small store, which was being supplied with food and other products every two weeks. They were even building the town's first hospital, and both the native people and the Peace Corps volunteers were delighted about the project. Doctors were being called and interviewed, medicines had already been flown in. They felt like a miracle was happening right underneath their very hands. Jack had been so proud of those people, and for maybe the first time in his life, he had been truly proud of himself as well.

But that's when things went terribly wrong.

One day, early in the morning, Jack woke up noticing an unusual amount of noise outside. He knew that that night there were going to be some festivities due to the finishing of the hospital's first operating theatre, so maybe some people were already preparing the village – maybe putting up decorations or something. Just as he went back to bed - trying to get another hour of sleep before his first constructing shift began - the noise grew even louder. Voices were coming through, and they sounded more anxious than happy. Concerned, he got up a second time and approached the small window at the front of the house of his foster family.

As he put aside the jute curtain, his eyes grew wide and his heart started racing in his chest. The sound Jack thought was just noise, suddenly transformed to it's real shape and terrifying shrieks reached his ears. With one fluent movement, without thinking, he was already at the door and pulled it wide open. The full view of the chaos outside made his knees buckle and his stomach turn. He had to clasp both sides of the door entrance to make sure not to fall to the ground. Only barely keeping himself up, he stumbled forward through the mass of people running around, while gasping for air. Soon, his bare feet reached the first red pool. It shimmered in the early sunlight.

A man suddenly appeared at his right side and clutched his shirt. His face and hands were smeared with blood and mud. His eyes were big and reddish, with just little black dots where his pupils should be. He cried something in his own language, but it came out so horribly twisted that Jack couldn't understand what he was saying. Halfway down the second sentence, a gulf of blood broke off his words and the man sank to the ground without making another sound. Jack looked down at the man in horror, reaching out an uncertain hand, not knowing what to do. He looked up again, his attention drawn by another scream. Among the people that were lying, stumbling, running around, he recognized a redheaded woman.

Rachel.

Her tall, strong body was half lying, half hanging in the mudded red dirt. Her hands were tied together with some string, as well as her feet. She was hanging from a small tree someone had tied her to. A rag was lying next to her knees on the ground, covered with blood. As well was her mouth. Jack could see her tooth flesh was bleeding badly, and some teeth were missing. She was the one who had screamed. But although her body seemed broken, she still had that fire in her eyes, and she still held her head up high. Her eyes spoke of incredible pain though. Noticing her friend, she panicked. She screamed again.

"JACK! NO! GO BACK!"

Before he could take a step, something heavy hit him in his back. An excruciating pain spread through his body within a second, and he fell flat on his stomach. His head hit the ground hard and he felt his wrist crack as he tried to reduce the force of the impact. Dizzy from the smack in his back and his fall, he slowly rolled onto his back, trying to see who had hit him. It was a face masked with black cloth, and the man held a rifle in his right hand, pointing it loosely at Jack's forehead. Even with all the noise, the screaming and crying, he clearly heard what the man said.

"You know what we don't. You'll come with us." Around that time, he had lost consciousness.

He reckoned it was later that day when he had woken up again. Black clouds were gliding along the edges of his sight, but his head was clear enough to make sense of what he saw. He realized it was very important to absorb every single detail, to try to remember as many things as he could if he would live to pass them on. From his lying position, he saw only barren land. Stone, sand and a single tree now and then passed by him. That wasn't going to help him. Instead, he decided to focus on the vehicle he was being transported with. It seemed to be a truck of some kind, as he could hear the noise from an engine nearby. His back hurt with every bump the truck encountered, although he felt that he was lying on something soft that absorbed some of the shocks. When he tried to roll over to his stomach, he looked right into the eyes of another man, lying next to him. Only, these eyes were dead.

Horrified by the dead eyes, Jack tried to roll over as fast as he could, trying to get away from that sight. But suddenly, he felt a hand grabbing his shirt and pulling him up.

"Where do you think you're going?" Paralyzed by the increasing pain in his back, Jack was unable to answer. He felt a distant sense of fear, but he was too distracted by the pain to pay much attention to it.

He looked up to the man, but the black blur was becoming too dense to distinguish any facial features. He weakly raised a hand, trying to gesture that he wasn't going anywhere. His wrist didn't let him though, and numbed by the extra pain from his broken wrist, Jack lost consciousness again.

The next time he regained consciousness, he was lying on the hard ground, face down. His mouth was full of sand, and breathing was hard. He slowly turned his head around and tried to take a deep breath, while coughing out the sand at the same time. His body shook heavily with every cough, and every breath caused a concerning squeaking sound in his throat. He felt pain over the whole of his body now, his back and wrist still hurting him the most. After the heavy coughing had subsided a bit, Jack lay down motionless, trying not to attract any attention. Unfortunately, that had already happened.

"Get up!" a voice spoke above him. When he didn't react, something hard hit him in his ribs, causing another rush of coughs and an excruciating pain in both his back and side.

"I said – get up!" Slowly, as too avoid as much pain as he could, Jack tried to bring himself up with his good hand. While doing that, he noticed that the wrist of his other hand had an hideous black color and that it was twice as thick as normal. He quickly shut his eyes and worked himself up to a kneeling position, trying to ignore the pain. He felt the heat of the sun burning on his shoulders. That's when he noticed that he was almost naked. He quickly inspected his hips with his good hand, and came to the conclusion that he was wearing only his boxer shorts.

Meanwhile, his thoughts finally came together. What was he doing here? Where was he at? Who were the man that took him? And why? Why was he here? Why was he naked?

But there wasn't any time for more questions, because the man grabbed his arm with a tight grip and dragged him a few meters to the right, tearing the flesh off Jack's knees. The new stings just added to the existing pain, numbing his body even further. The man threw him down hard and kicked him in the side a few times more. He didn't feel it anymore.

Jack, with his eyes still closed, heard how several different men positioned themselves around him. At that point, he knew what was coming. A man kneeled beside him, and a voice hissed something in his ear.

"Now boy, when we're done with you, you'll tell us all we need. I promise."

Jack heard someone unbuckle his belt. That's when he shut himself off. The only thing he heard for the next hours, was the rasping sound of his own breathing.

And now, he didn't feel like Jack anymore. The horror at the village had taken the last of his innocence. The trip down the prison had taken his dignity. And finally, they had beaten and tortured Jack out of him.

The only one who was able to find the real Jack again, was Eric. And he was finally here.

Right?

A/N: Let me know what you think? Does this explain anything?