The rain was falling harder than it ever had before. Every drop sent a shock running through Solera’s fatigued mind. Because of the argument, which had gone well into the night, he had gotten no sleep at all.

Rasmurnov stood in front of the prisoners, inserting the last of his sandwich into his mouth. Slow, deliberate chewing noises mixed in with the sounds of rainwater as his eyes meticulously swept around the mountain clearing they had been led to. At his feet was a freshly cut tree, an axe embedded deep in the stump.

Rasmurnov’s throat made an audible swallowing noise as he finished his breakfast. He took out a canteen and leisurely popped off the cap. This sick fuck. He was dragging this out intentionally.

“Well.” He spoke as he half-dusted, half-washed the bread crumbs off his hands. “The criminal has had a day to reflect. Would he or she like to confess?”

Utter silence. Solera scanned the people around him. He no longer had any motivation to sacrifice himself for his fellow prisoners. Maybe if Lem, the bald man, or a few others were chosen, he would intervene. But otherwise, he was content to watch.

“... I see. That’s too bad.” Rasmurnov walked up to the stump. The axe made a wet squelching noise as he tore it out of the wood.

“This axe is finely made. By a craftsman from Eden, actually.” He lifted the implement up into the air. “The village head gave it to me after I told her that I was using a jackknife.”

The axe started emitting a high-pitched humming noise as a slight sheen of power covered it.

“Yes, she said the axe would be better. Faster and easier. Less messy. Cleaning my sleeves takes time out of my day, so I accepted.”

Rasmurnov lowered the axe to his side. “It’s less painful for the unlucky one, as well. So let’s get right to it. Who’s it going to be?”

Solera looked at Rasmurnov’s cold, clammy eyes. What kind of a person was this man to speak of killing so dismissively? To him, it was just a task to be done after breakfast! Compared to Rasmurnov, Jumpy was luck from Heaven. If only he had known that earlier. Now, they all faced death.

It was paradoxical, really; death by Rasmurnov was not like any other death Solera had seen in that the death would seem so mundane. Like that of a cow in a slaughterhouse, a trivial matter completely devoid of emotion or struggle. Something to forget about by the next day.

Solera felt a death like that was the worst kind of death he could experience, one where nobody would remember him the next day. That was a death best relegated to animals and not humans. He hoped with all his heart that it would be someone like the whore who would be chosen.

He knew this wasn’t sustainable, but he had to get through what was right in front of him before he could think about what would come after.

Rasmurnov raised his arm to point at someone in the crowd. “It will be you.”

The guards shoved the prisoners aside and grabbed hold of a man, dragging him to the stump. Solera scrutinized him for a moment. A slight feeling of relief appeared on his face as he looked away. This man had been one of the ones vocally criticizing him last night. Solera didn’t have to die for him. He didn’t have to die.

The man’s face was stained with rain and bore a vaguely shocked expression, as if he couldn’t believe it was him who had been chosen. But just as he reached the stump, he seemed to have recovered his senses.

“No!” He screamed as his thrashing limbs kicked a flurry of mud into the air. “It’s not me. It’s not me!”

Rasmurnov rolled up his sleeve with his free hand. “I know.”

A mix of tears and rain flicked out from the man’s head as he struggled to keep his head away from the stump. “I know who the killer is! Mister Rasmurnov, it’s him! He did it! The bald man with the hooked nose! He’s the killer!”

Rasmurnov’s eyes flicked onto the bald man, who just smirked. Solera watched on, his eyes sullen. He had expected something like this. When people’s lives were on the line, their true colors showed. He thought about how just yesterday he had been blindly willing to sacrifice his own life for this man, and sighed.

This man and Solera, they were the same. They shared that desperate desire to live which all humans held at the core of their hearts. Because he wanted to live, he had indirectly condemned this man to death, and the man was in turn accusing another.

It was so pathetic.

“It’s him, it’s him, it’s him…” The man’s muffled voice trickled out from the stump.

After another few moments of eye contact with the bald man, Rasmurnov lifted his axe high up.

“You already know what I think about lies. Any last words?”

“No! NO! NO!!!”

The axe came down, slicing into the stump as if it was a block of cheese and only stopping when the handle made contact with the damp wood. The channeler holding down the man’s head lifted it up and handed it to Rasmurnov.

“Shame another had to die.” Rasmurnov held the head out, fresh blood still dripping down the neat line that had once attached the man’s head to his neck. “I do not like to do this, but I must do what I must. Only the killer, who is one among you, can end the executions.”

He looked down the path. “Get a move on.”

Lem said nothing as they walked along the wet, gravelly road that day. He wore the same bitter expression that Solera once had. He was silent, in the same manner of silent that Solera used to be. A frustrated, lost, and helpless silence.

Solera was silent, too. But his silence was a bitter one, bitter at Jumpy, Rasmurnov, and all the prisoners who had verbally attacked him. Bitter at war, which had pitted all of them against each other. Bitter at the ugly, selfish nature of himself and every other human on Land.

He clung to life so, so desperately. He had done what many would consider would be depraved when he let the two men die in his place. Why was he doing it? Why did he want to live so, so much?

He had told himself it was for revenge. The truth was, it was very unlikely he would ever be able to get it at this point. All he was doing was prolonging the inevitable, and making his end that much more pathetic. Yes, the truth was that he was already dead.

He needed to lose his attachment to life. No matter what kind of a place Sky was, it could not be much worse than what he was experiencing right now. Indeed, a piece of his fragmented soul could even become a Sky God one day.

A huge droplet of water splashed onto his forehead, shocking him out of his thoughts. He blinked several times as a lucid cold shot through his head. Did he actually just consider throwing his life away? After all he had been through?

This was ridiculous! He had already argued with himself for two entire days about this. If his thoughts about life just now were really valid, he would have thought about them earlier, not now when both his mind and his body was bone-tired.

He was sleep deprived, that was all. Even though his train of thought made sense to him now, it might not do so the next morning when he had gotten his sleep and was thinking clearly. He needed to be rational and wait until the next morning to make a proper decision.

They stopped at an enormous cave carved into a mountain pass that night. Rasmurnov herded them all through a winding tunnel into another dark cavern, once again leaving them with no guards. By now, it was obvious he wanted them to argue with each other, and so the majority ignored the whore’s shrill cries. Solera himself immediately laid down and closed his eyes.

The miserable cries of the executed man replayed itself over and over in his ears. Solera knew he was like that man, vainly trying to delay his own death by letting others die in his place. In the end, his demise would be no less deplorable. He knew he had to do something drastic. But what? Try to escape again?

SSSSSSSSSSSS!

The acrid stench of burnt flesh assaulted Solera’s nostrils, waking him from the sleep he had not even known he had sunk into. A shriek reverberated off the walls of the cave.

“Stop!” A woman shrieked, struggling as two soldiers dragged her into the tunnel. “Let go!”

Solera frantically scrambled to his feet. By the mouth of the cave, he could see several bodies collapsed onto the ground, in front of a group of masked channelers.

A plume of flame erupted from the hand of the leading channeler, an armored woman with a dark helmet-mask covering her entire face.

“Everyone against the wall.” Her voice was blunt, amplified with power so it echoed around the cavern. “You, you, and you, come with us.”

Several youths were escorted to the exit by two channelers as the others aimed their gauntlets at every part of the cavern. Any attempts by these people to struggle resulted in a forceful cuff to the head.

The woman’s helmet swiveled as she assessed the room. After a second, she turned around and walked back into the tunnel. The other channelers filed out after her, leaving behind only two motionless bodies and the smell of death.

A shocked silence fell on the prisoners. Solera stared at the corpses on the ground in utter shock. They were killing at will now? That man and woman, what was going to happen to them?

“I want to kill them.” A loud, clear voice broke the quiet. “I want to bash their heads to a pulp, burn it to cinders, and throw whatever’s left into the Bloodsand volcanoes. I want these, these motherfuckers to hurt for what they’re doing.”

Solera’s eyes widened in shock. The voice belonged to Lem. He had tears streaming down his face, and his hands were clenched into fists.

“Even if I died, man. Even if I died.” Lem’s face was full of hatred. “I’m done being treated like shit. No, worse than shit. If I could take those sickos down with me, I would do it.”

An old man sneered. “But you can’t, so you won’t.”

“Fuck!” The whore screeched. “Fuck the killer! Look what he’s done to us now! At least some of us would’ve lived to see the prison camp. Now, we’re all as good as dead. If I knew who the culprit was, he would be a dead man.”

“Dumb bitch.” Lem spat on the ground with a venomous hatred, causing Solera’s eyes to widen in surprise. “That person is a hero. At least he took out two of these fiends. I’d gladly die for him or her if it meant Rasmurnov died. It’s people like you who drag us down.”

“Speak for yourself.” The woman snapped. “Your hero killed us all.”

“I’d die for that hero.” Lem repeated.