When We Met

CH 24 Rosaline

The gnawing ache in my hollow belly had become my sole constant companion in this lightless, stale purgatory. How many days - weeks? - had it been since the last scant meal was shoved through the narrow slot in my cell's door? Too many agonising stretches were spent shivering on the frigid floor, my body screaming from malnutrition and fatigue as cognisance blurred and wavered like a guttering flame.

In the gaping maw of total isolation, reality itself had steadily eroded into an indistinct, dreamlike haze. Waking nightmares blended with fitful bouts of unconsciousness until every lucid moment felt wreathed in a surreal miasma of delirium and half-formed visions. Phantoms of memory and yearning caressed my addled psyche, beckoning me towards a sanctuary of respite that always danced cruelly out of reach.

As if by sheer force of will and unquenchable need, one such mirage coalesced in the swirling eddies of half-awareness currently gripping me. A flicker of motion amidst the gloom, steadily resolving into a familiar silhouette straight from the tattered remnants of my happier recollections.

Matias, the sweet, soulful gruff man, with a grumpy expression on his face most of the time whose brilliant mind and determined spirit had seen us all through so many tribulations in times past. In this gossamer hallucination, his slight frame appeared bathed in an almost celestial radiance, dark waves framing that warm face that so often crinkled with a focused frown.

My breath caught in my scratched throat as he padded towards me with liquid grace, dropping into a crouch and tenderly brushing those familiar fingertips across my brow. The consuming loneliness that had been my shackles for far too long seemed to melt away beneath his caring touch like Winter's chill finally yielding before the thaw of Spring.

"Sshh...you're safe now, my Rosie," the phantasm murmured in that melodious burr I'd feared I'd never hear again outside my most lucid dreams. "It's all over, the nightmare is ending."

Despite my mind screaming Past rational acceptance, I clung desperately to this redemptive vision, arching my wasted frame shamelessly into Matias' radiant warmth. Starved for even the most threadbare scrap of kindness or compassion, I allowed the illusion to blossom into an indulgent fantasy without restraint.

His gentle ministrations trailed lower, calloused palms smoothing over the ridges of my prominent ribcage and down the swell of bruised hips in an exquisite pantomime of quasi-forgotten intimacy. His heady perfume of old books, fresh ink and a whisper of exotic spice enveloped my senses in a potent fog of longing until my next trembling inhale filled my lungs with its elusive richness.

So lost was I in this waking dream, so immersed in the blissful sanctuary it represented, that I almost failed to notice the minute alterations creeping into my perceptions. A barely perceptible deepening of Matias' warm brown irises into pewter shards gilded with reflecting embers of nameless cravings. The subtle tightening of his shoulders and musculature into sinewy coils of corded lethality contained barely beneath a rippling olive expanse of scar-patterned skin.

And the hands those beautiful hands that had sparked a fresh blossoming of life and tenderness now seemed to trail metaphorical scars across my flesh like white-hot pokers scoring parchment. A prelude to the indomitable force that would soon seek to overwrite every past joy or solace with its overwhelming, elemental ferocity.

There, at last, where Matias should have remained my comrade, confident, friend and perhaps even fleeting paramour those transfixed features contorted into something rawboned and primal. Something that refused to be denied or constrained behind walls, mortal identities or other such ephemeral veneers any longer. As Matias's hands caressed my wounded ribs, his touch was both gentle and firm, like the soothing embrace of a warm breeze on a summer night. With each stroke, I could feel the tension in my body melting away, replaced by a sense of calm and serenity.

But as his hands trailed the outline of my breasts, a sudden rush of desire coursed through me, igniting a fire that burned deep within. I couldn't help but inhale sharply, my breath catching in my throat as I leaned into his touch, seeking more of the delicious sensation that only he could provide.

With a soft sigh, I nestled closer to him, pressing my body against his chest as if to anchor myself in this moment of bliss. His hands continued their exploration, teasing and tantalising as they traced the curves of my body, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.

And when his fingers found my nipples, a jolt of electricity shot through me, causing me to arch my back in pleasure. "Ahhhh, I need more, Matias," I pleaded, my voice barely more than a whisper, filled with a hunger that only he could satisfy.

Matias's breath was hot against my ear as he descended to place tender kisses along my neck, each touch sending shivers down my spine. In his embrace, I found solace and sanctuary, his touch a balm for my wounded soul.

When the flawless visage finally resolved itself in the throes of watching the metamorphosis, I gazed up at it with resignation. With parts relief and something much more tempestuous that had long since germinated within me, yet lacked any proper names or frames of definite.

Logan stared back down, a savage conqueror and delirious supplicant rolled into one seamless blade of gleaming inevitability ready to rend the very fabric of what constituted existence between us. And before I could so much as part my cracked lips to voice any final plea or wordless surrender, he descended upon me as a devastating consummation of all the nightmare spectres and chaotic possibilities haunting my innermost reaches for far too long now.

Just as the erotic Armageddon of sensation first crashed over the floodgates of

My consciousness, a piercing shaft of reality punched through the dreamscape in the form of a clang and metallic groan. Fresh delirium and adrenaline jolted me into blinking awareness spread out on the filthy floor of my cell as a high-pitched whine reverberated against the concrete.

The door's heavy slab grated open with agonising slowness to reveal a new swathe of blindingly bright illumination from beyond its threshold. My vision swam with electric debris while nerve endings seared with the resurgence of painful corporeal existence.

"Up on your feet, dog!" a gruff voice bellowed from the hazy silhouette looming in the entrance's newly carved chasm of light. "Time for Intake back into the main block!"

Head swimming from both deprivation and that virulent brush with psychosexual oblivion, I remained slumped in an unmoving heap as the figure grudgingly entered to seize me by a vice-like grip around my bicep. With what little strength remained, I tried to feebly struggle, to cling desperately to unconsciousness but had no choice but to stagger and stumble along in the merciless escort's wake.

As my cell door retreated, with it so too did the final tattered shreds of refuge I'd managed to cling to in this benighted place. Harsh fluorescent glare rendered the plain of reality around me into a blinding, sanity-scouring expanse where no blissful nightmares or wanton yearnings could provide shelter any longer.

Only the hard truths of the inevitable rising across that dead horizon like a bruise-hued dawn. Whatever flayed spirits or unravelled psyches awaited this looming crucible would all be laid bare for the sake of experiences no mortal tongue could name.

The guards dragged me forward towards that inexorable abyss remaking the world, and all I could do was surrender fully to its promise...or damnation.