(A/N: finally, a new chapter…as short as it may be…
Before reading, I'd like to point out that this chapter is rated 'R' for graphic descriptions of mutilation…no bad language, though)

Love and Burden
By The Great Red Dragon
Chapter 21
When Auron went to sleep that night, he felt guilt…guilt, guilt, and more guilt about what had happened to Reihana. He went into the bathroom and mixed himself several prescription tablets; he wanted to suppress his dreams. He swallowed a cupful of them and went back downstairs and laid down on the mattress in the dark. He tried to close his eyes, but he was feeling a strange type of irritation behind them. He tried to lift his arm to rub them…but all of the sudden, his arm felt like it weighed a million tons. He opened his eyes, but he could only see part of a dark, storming sky above him through the crusting over his sockets. All of the sudden, he was sweating. Rain was falling on him in streams from the billowing thunder clouds overhead, but he was still sweating like a water fountain. He coughed; salty water was gushing out of his throat. And out of his ears. And out of his nose.
He was drowning…drowning; suffocating in his own sweat. He strained, and choked as he tried to turn himself over – maybe then, the liquid would leave him faster. As he pushed himself as hard as he could, the flow of the sweat increased. He was pouring from every part of his body – he was drowning himself.

With a last superhuman effort, he managed to roll himself over.
He fell off of the metal platform he had been laying on, and landed with a splash in a huge puddle of mud; so deep he might've swum in it. He pushed himself up with his arms above the water, and felt the slimy bottom of the mud hole with his palms and fingers. He wasn't sweating or vomiting water anymore, but he was instantly subjected to an intense, biting headache. Thunder crashed overhead and as he instinctively raised his hand to his head out of the chest-deep water as rain continued to patter and pound the muddy ground and dirty water around him, his right hand made contact with his forehead…but there was no fur on his head. Instead, he felt scale-like, leathery skin on his forehead…his forehead, which was blunt and almost fell over his eyes.

His eyes…his eyes…HIS EYES…

They were pushed so far back into his head…so far, it didn't seem natural. Through the pounding of his head, he opened his eyes ever so slightly from their sunken place, and saw his arm pass in front of his face…it wasn't his arm.
The arm in front of his face was thick, muscular, and grey in color…the skin surrounding his wrist was compressed and distorted, as if he had worn a very large bracelet there for many, many years on end.

…A bracelet…or perhaps a gauntlet?...

Auron splashed against the water furiously. He slashed the surface of it tearingly, wanting to wash aside the mud and the brown water and find a clear, mirroring surface.
As if by magic, the dirty brown color of the mud parted vertically, and it revealed a face…that was not his own. Auron's glowing-red eyes traced shiveringly over a ghastly, dark-orange-skinned face; piranha-like, spiked, and with lower fanged mandible the stretched beyond the upper lip in a twisted, evil appearance.

Almost a fourth of his scalp was missing – fetid, dead skin curled cocoon-like over the bordering chips of skull that looked like it had been inflicted in a massive crash of some sort. He could literally see his exposed brain: grey and dead-pink, and dry-looking from gaining staleness in salt-water.
He tried to raise both hands to his head – he felt a need to touch the mutilation on his head…but as both of his arms passed before his eyes on their way up to his head, he realized…that he didn't have a left forearm.

In horror, he stared first at the grisly reflection in the water, then at the physical being; he had nothing above his left elbow, where splintered bone and torn, burnt skin marked the absence of his whole limb.
Auron's eyes traced over his reflection again…and found his face even more mutilated than before: another chunk of his head was missing…his right eye was completely carved away, along with all of bone, skin, and tendons that ran along that section of his head.

Auron's mouth opened trembling as he stared horrorstruck and unbelieving at his hideousness. He couldn't as much as raise his one remaining hand towards his face…but as he looked into the water at his reflection, his horrible false-face was changing rapidly…his lower jaw completely disappeared, leaving only the charred, torn remnants of what once was a complete lower jaw.

"No…no…nooo…"

Auron didn't want to deal with it…this wasn't him; he didn't want to look at this damned Predatorian body. His mind was stinging not with a headache, but with the stress that accompanied not wanting to know and accept that this was him…

"This can't be, this can't be…"

Then, pain so severe shot across his forehead as if it were being split in half. The mutilation and injuries on his Pred-esque body, which had remained mute until then, suddenly exploded in such pain he had never ever felt before.
At once, he couldn't hear, move, or reason – only scream into the violent, raging storm.

He was lying on a table…no; he was strapped to a table: pinned down so tightly he couldn't move his head.
At once, he realized that he was once again in his own body, and the injuries seemed to be gone.
He tried to move, but before he did, he heard a voice…coming from beside him.

"Can you feel it now?"

It was strange, chilling voice…a metallic, echoing growl, as if several voices were speaking at once. It sounded familiar…
Auron wanted to turn his head and look. He at least wanted to open his eyes, but they appeared to be pressed shut with a strap. He tried to speak…but his voice seemed to have gone.
The voice to his side, however, seemed individual: whoever it was seemed to be having a hard time breathing, as the growling, panting voice rasped dryly.
It was as if somebody else was lying strapped down beside him…

"I can remember the fire…and sight and the smell of the oil as it burned on the water…and then I drowned…but I can't remember my body decaying…"

The voice was shaking as it spoke…not with tears or emotion, but with some sort of dysfluency that didn't sound natural.

"I was born again in a tub…after they dragged me out, and immediately began to put me back together…I was awake, but it felt like I was dying…machines kept me alive, but I so wanted it to end…I was supposed to be dead, but I'm being brought back…they're bringing me back…they're still bringing me back…"

Auron wanted to speak out – who was bringing him back? Who were they? Who was he?
But now the voice was steadily rising…

"I was alive, and they began using me for it…I was lying…hooked up to the machines…I remember the pain…the pain, and the shame, oh, the shame…I can remember liking it…I didn't know any better…lying there, softly praying to God, what can I do, what can I do…but I could hear them coming…bringing me back, as they did so, they used me, used me, used me…I could hear his hooves as he led them to my chamber…"

The voice's next words rang out in an unearthly, trembling roar that reverberated in Auron's ears like a large bell. When the voice wasn't roaring, it was speaking fast and in rhythm, like a horror movie moderator;

"TUROK! The day of your atonement is due! Well, there's so many victims out there, and they include YOU!
"No, master, don't! No, brother, don't! Please…LEAVE ME ALOOOOOONE!
NO, I DON'T WANT TO FEEL THIS! I DON'T WANT TO KNOW! TAKE YOUR RAZOR OUT OF ME! PLEASE TAKE YOUR KNIFE OUT OF ME!"

The voice was so strong and so terrifying that Auron wanted to run – he had to get away…but he couldn't move; he couldn't move!

"I WILL NOT CRY! I WILL NOT CRY! I PREFER DIE! I WANT TO DIE! BUT I WILL NOT CRY!"

Music severe and violent was pounding in Auron's ears as the voice roared its agony…but all of the sudden, it stopped…and the voice became quieter again.

"Why…why didn't you just kill me?"

The voice seemed to move – swing around to face Auron, who still couldn't see. It leaned in close, and Auron felt ice-cold breath on his face.

"Why didn't you just kill me completely? Why did you leave out there? Why not tear me to shreds, and burn my brain? I know you hated me enough…"

Auron was crying. He was sobbing in anxiety.

"I-I d-didn't mean f-for this t-t-to happen…it w-was s-supposed t-to be over…you were s-s-supposed t-to be at peace; we both were…I d-d-didn't mean for…for…"

The voice cut him off, and it roared again;

"LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO ME! LOOK WHAT THEY DID TO ME! WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME?! WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS TO ME?!"

And the strap was ripped from his eyes, and he caught only the slightest glimpse of the speaker's face before it faded into the darkness: mutilated, torn, and unreal-looking…still, it looked all-too-familiar; like a nightmare that would never ever leave him.

"They say to me that my purpose is not yet done…you and I…will tear at eachother again…and this time…much will be different…oh, my friend, you will see in time…"

And as the face faded slowly into the darkness, and only shadows remained in front of Auron's face, the voice whispered once more in his ear…a warning? A hint of the future? A metaphor of a hint?
He did not know…but the words chilled him to his bones, and the chill stayed with him even when he awoke again in a puddle of sweat;

"Resurrection is for those who didn't get it right…the first time."

(A/N: okay…any idea who Auron's dreaming about? Perhaps…someone we used to know?
Maybe…
Apologetically, I need to asked to be excused for the violence in this chappie…this is perhaps the most violent piece that I've written, and I probably won't write many more chapters like this; if I do, I'll change the rating on the story.
Still…I hope I didn't disgust anybody. More detail on what the heck all of this craziness means in further chapters…

Thanks to all who took the time to review last time…I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Until next time…see ya!)