~ Dear Readers, for those who still follow my story, thank you for your support. Circumstances may have taken me away, but I'm back, baby! New chapters will come. More action will unfold. This I promise you.

Now, I would suggest re-reading the previous chapter, or perhaps the whole story as I

did, to get re-aquainted with my cast of characters.

Without further ado... I give you (albeit a tiny) Chapter 22! ~

~ Enjoy! ~

- CS

XXII The Last He Ever Was

Kruger

First, came the smell of smoke, acrid in my nostrils and thick in my lungs. Next, came the heat of the flames lashing at my legs, then my body. I had no protection against the fire. Bare, naked and vulnerable to the inferno growing slowly beneath me.

I couldn't even move.

I was chained, my limbs bound by biting iron. I tried to scream, but mechanical claws clamped themselves across my mouth like a vice. Though no sound emanated from my throat, my vocal cords were hoarse from the effort of trying to make myself known to the blackened world around me. The only thing visible was a single pinprick of light far, far ahead of me. I couldn't tell what it was from back here, but I knew it was important, I knew it was my way out, and I knew it was unreachable.

The chains suddenly lunged downwards, dragging me sharply down with them. The fire and heat tore at the flesh of my legs, making the flesh bubble and burn as I glanced wildly around me for an escape.

There was nothing. There was no escape.

The chains pulled me harder and faster, tearing into my flesh as easily as a blade through butter. I pulled on my restraints, screaming louder and louder as I desperately tried to break free. And then, spikes. Iron spikes aimed straight at my sternum, poised to pierce straight through my black heart. With horror and burning eyes I watched as the steely jagged blades ripped through my body, straight through me and out the other side. My wails of agony went unheard as though I were in a dream. I lay there, floating in mid-air as time slowed to a heart halt. A single drop of blood, my blood, floated past my wild eyes. I watched it as time resumed it's normal pace, and began to convulse spastically as a jolt of burning electricity was shot through my system.

Had I been able to hear myself, I would have sworn that was the loudest I've ever cried.

Save for the day in the sand when my flower kissed me and slipped away.

I didn't have time to think about anything else before I was thrust about by the chains again. This time, when I fought against them, they simply shortened. My limbs were now slowly being pulled from my body by an invisible force. I felt myself giving way from the inside out. And then, I felt the strangest sensation all over my body. It was not painful, but powerful.

A hundred hands pawed at my body, gripping and ripping as they did. I tried in vain to fight them off, to fling them off me, but they crawled on skeletal fingers all over me. They had no host, just severed hands grabbing and violating ever part of me. They began to feel cold as they began to sink into my very skin. Eyes wide with terror, I screamed and begged them to stop with silent screams. The hands melted into my skin, spreading an overall coldness through my being. I lashed my head around wildly to see where they had gone; the hands, the chains, the flames. Nothing was there now. Just a coldness, and a feeling of floating. Trembling feverishly, I dared steal a glance towards the light I had seen before. Soaked to the bone in my own fear, that tiny light was the only thing in this hell that remotely gave me comfort. I stared at it, willing it to come closer. I floated slowly, gently, towards it.

I waited for what seemed like millennia. I was a patient man. I would wait.

The gentle beating of my heart told me I was alive, and that the light before me would truly be something comforting; something real and precious…