Layer by layer, lash by painful lash, he’d been carved away from himself, from his humanity, until nothing but that primitive savage remained. Once he’d been rescued, the struggle to regain his sense of civility became his only imperative. When nightmares played on the backs of his eyelids every time he closed them. When he had episodes like this one, where his body betrayed his dignity, and the beast threatened to overtake the man, demanding he execute or escape. When paranoia stalked his every interaction, and suspicion became his only companion, he grasped onto the one principle he knew to
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