The pain was unbearable, blinding all senses and pulsing in rapid waves.

This must be hell. This must be the punishment he rightly deserved. All the evil things he'd done, the people he'd killed. It wasn't even hard, it had always come so easy, he'd always been able to see the spot, the moment in time, the angle of fire, the amount of pressure to break the spine.

Yes, that's what this was. Hell. The searing heat, the blurred flashing light, the constant unbearable noise. The smell of iodine...

Wait, no. It should smell like sulphur, or brimstone, burnt flesh, or sewage. This smell was clean, sharp and harsh, but clean and antiseptic. And the light was too blue, too what?

Too fluorescent! He felt a sharp pain in his arm, like an IV needle. The waves of pain were in time to the pounding thump of his panicked heart! The incessant sound was beeping, the beeping of equipment.

He was a fool to think these red figures were 'demons', such an out-dated concept. They were working furiously to stop his bleeding, and calm his racing heart. These were trained and experienced Alliance trauma surgeons, as denoted by the Snake and Staff emblem on their sleeves. They HAD sent a second ship, of course they had.

"No, stop. Let me die." No on reacted to his cry for mercy. No one even paused in their attempts to keep him alive. And they wouldn't stop until he was really and truly dead. Perhaps not until he was several days dead. Or, if medical science had progressed enough to put GenOrgans in Tracey, they might just replace his broken body with a new one. That's how valuable he was to them.

He wished God thought he was worth so much. He wished HE thought he was. But only he and God knew how very little his life was truly worth, how little good he'd done, and how much evil he had brought upon the innocent.

"Please, let me die. It would be justice. I'm not worth saving." He truly was ready to die. He wasn't even sure anymore if he believed in a judgement after death. Perhaps death itself was the judgement. And he had no desire for anyone, friend, foe, or stranger to know his sins.

"Please, just stop. Unplug your machines, let me go." He pleaded.

A young doctor, who looked so much like Simon, but with sandy brown hair looked down at him with respect and awe. He spoke to this superior officer, lying on the table dying:

"No Commandant Book, we cannot let you die. The Alliance needs you. It's time you stop pretending to be a Shepherd, and retake your office.

No, THIS was Hell. This life he could not outrun. Serenity, Southdown Abbey, Haven. None could keep him from his fate. From his judgement. From his personal hell.

Derrial Book's heart kept on beating....