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It had to be a nightmare, the worst nightmare of all time. Jim couldn't think of any other explanation as he gripped the hollowed body of the Professor. The loss undulated over him in tremulous horror as he gently laid the corpse down and stood. He turned to look at Rheis, who was leering with almost infantile glee.

"You...you..." Jim shuddered before he lunged at the panther, drawing his fist back as the guards moved to stop him.

But Rheis darted past them and drew a hidden dagger from behind his back. He swiped the blade down Jim's forehead, lacerating across the corner of his eye and down his cheek.

Jim fell forward clutching at his wound, but he still desperately tried to stand even as the pain staggered his motions. He had to do something, had to stop the maniac that made him lose everything again. Flames licked at the corner of his eye as a red pulse overtook his vision.

"You bastards!" Jim roared with a paw held against the blood pouring from his face, "It was Pyrosteam, it was that panther! They set us up and now...he's...dead..." The last words were retched out of his lungs.

With his blackening vision he glanced over at Tuck, who was still held in the petrification of terror.

"You did this!" he screamed as the guards rushed to manacle him, "How could you do this to me?! How could you do this to my family?"

Tuck shook his head as fear and guilt swelled within him like the fires of the workshop. His legs found purchase against the ground, but it felt like he was trying to move the earth around him as he backed away with hobbled steps.

"Excellent work, Mr. Tucker!" The panther laughed as they carried off the struggling husky, "You have helped to capture the most wanted enemies of the state!" he threw a bag of coins at Tuck's paws, then continued in an undertone, "And the idiot I paid to set off the crystals went and got himself caught in the fire, so you get an extra share!"

The hyena reached down with automatic motions to pick up the blood money. His shaking paws placed it within his coat as he ran away from the blaze. He hurried into an alley and threw up, clutching at the wall for support as wheezing gasps shuddered through his body.

He knew that Jim would never see his love again, and it was his fault. He knew the punishment for treason was to be imprisoned for life in total isolation from the Imperium. The thoughts clenched at his stomach like tightening wire as he remembered the stories of those who had seen into the Black Prison...

The final home to traitors was set up in an almost ingenious method of confinement. The high walls of each cell were made from single-pour concrete, so nothing short of power tools could breach them. The doors had tumblers specifically designed to repel lockpicks, even the locksmith who fashioned them would be hard pressed without a key. An unreachable lamp embedded in the ceiling outside the cell provided a constant, dim light that made each day drag seamlessly into the next.

The small, inset plumbing fixtures were capable of being turned off from the outside to avoid flooding, and one particularly ambitious guard had come up with the idea to make the tap drip like a constant metronome.

The guards who brought meals did so by walking quickly past the bars and tossing in the food as they went by; they were instructed never to acknowledge the prisoners much less talk to them. It was an easy job and quickly rotated when it was needed, so guards never felt the desire to disobey their orders.

It was only one step away from a death sentence; those few that were imprisoned in the cells didn't last more than a couple months before going irreparably insane. Many didn't even last one...