I... [ "... thank you for keeping your promise..." but the words were stolen from his very lips with the emptiness he felt in his mind and in his heart. He had lost everything -- and lost them again and more when he lost his gamble.
Voice in a barely controlled rasp, as his guilt, his failure, his shame and disappointment ate him from inside. What is this...? Bringing a hand to his jaw -- was he bleeding? Hard to tell... ] It was not just a mere dictatorship. It was everything to me. I was made for that purpose!