"Koba, why do you need me to die?"

"Koba, why do you need me to die?" - Nikolai Bukharin

There were used to be threads like strands of electricity which are connected to each other in a maze of deep network inside Raphael 's eyes.

They glittered. They shone. They unleashed the brightest light with the utmost confidence.

Now these once glittering strands are dim. Red threads are infiltrated inside the crystal blue network like a vicious virus squeezing itself into the cell. They are like red worms that are wiggling inside the slightest creaks of two round exquisite blue marbles. The confidence inside blue eyes are dissipated and invaded by an inexplicable fear.

This is not the fear of death or despair. This is the fear of uncertainty, of ignorance, a fear that a child has at night, a fear that a man has when he is lost in a forest

This fear is devouring Raphael now. He is running in the narrow dark hallway. He is sweating, he is coughing. He is looking back to check if someone is chasing him. Yet he pays no attention around his surrounding.

He runs and he runs and finally he sees the light that is coming from the exit. All of a sudden, he senses movement above his head and stops. He looks upward and sees a crescent blade is tied up to a string and it is swinging from the extreme right to the extreme left The most horrified thing is that it is descending with lightening speed.

He does not have time to react because he is already beheaded in matter of fraction of a second. A head is rolling along the ground, with the bloodshot eyes wide open.

A man is coming from the source of light. He walks slowly and languidly toward the dead man. Wearing white gloves, he picks up the head triumphantly.

A smile is cracked

One hand is holding the head, the other one is skilfully finding the right angle of degree to pinch the blue eyes out. He pinches the upper muscle and exert pressure on the pouch, the eyeball is squeezed out smoothly. From his pocket, he immediately picks a small plastic bottle that is fill with unknown liquid. He then drops the eyeball inside it. He repeats the same procedure for the other eyeball.

Another smile is cracked as he is watching one of his newfound trophies that are floating inside the little plastic bottles. The ugly disturbing red threads are disappeared. What is left is the original blue threads in which every one of them sparkles like a lightening in the dark night. Yet there is a strange quality. It seems to be trying to say something or to be more precise, it is struggling to lament something.

"Koba, why do you need me to die?"