The Last Kingdom began as a classroom experiment in criminal procedure and evolved into a dark legal-political fable. Written by a criminology and law professor with a background in criminology, organized crime, and terrorism studies, the story explores authoritarian collapse, resistance, and survival through the lens of myth and memory. Developed with the help of AI as a creative tool but guided by human choices, this original work blends legal insight with storytelling to examine power, complicity, and the people caught in the gears of broken systems.