• The anxiety is unbearable. The air is crisp, cool, almost cold. But still the sweat in my brow runs down my face. I hear the crowd start to aggregate, their murmurs and whispers echo in my head and torcher my ears. The smell of old, stale, dry blood burns my nose through the sack which covers my head as I kneel and place my head over the the great stone which has seen more death than any battlefield. The executioners axe screeches on the ground as he drags it towards me. His boots thud, thump, and stomp towards me, leading death by the hand to me. I hear the butcher shout above the crowd in his lunacy:”Death to death's hand. The murderer meets his maker!” I feel the acute, unforgivable, icy edge of steel at the base of my neck. My laughter starts to ring and echo in the silence, sweet silence of the crowd in the courtyard in the center of town. The contusion instantly severed my head and I conceded to death. This was my apocalypse.
    2 Hours Earlier
    All I remember is darkness, the many screams and plea's for mercy, and the seemingly never ending rivers of blood. The rest is just a blur of faces and death. But I still feel an intense satisfaction looking at the carnage around me, the carnage I caused. I finally start to notice the blood covering me on my clothes, on my hands, on the knife in my hand. The knife glints scarlet in the bright sun of day. Redder than a ruby. All those people with their smug faces and faked innocence. I saw their lies and was disgusted.
    I must have sat down after the massacre to rest and fallen asleep. I stand up, happily content and listen to the screaming silence as I look around at the land which death has kissed. I start away down the path leading out of town, when suddenly the silence is broken by the screams, shouts, wails, and bawls of a stampede of people who have found my gruesome gift. I stare at them, frozen in place at the glorious sight. I start to walk away until a shout filled with anger, despair, and desperation follows after me. Suddenly a huge, massive, screaming bulk crashes into my back bringing me down to the blood soaked ground. The butcher, one of the most renowned men in town, was rambling, screaming, and crying incoherently on top of me. He starts to beat me, and immediately following people join in. They throw rocks, and beat with sticks and kick at me. Suddenly a demanding voice rings out pausing every one and the blacksmith says,”Stop! All of you stop! We will not mix the blood of the innocent with the blood of the guilty. We will not kill him with the frozen eyes of our loved ones watching. Take him to town. The executioner shall deal with him.”
    Two men roughly grasp my arms and some of the crowd follows into town. I start to laugh. I laugh so hard that tears run down my face in small rivers washing the blood off. Being dragged down a dirt road is an unpleasant thing. Ricks, pebbles,stones, and twigs dig and cut into the exposed flesh of my back leaving deep gashes. In the middle of town we pass the executioner. He sits in his chair holding his axe in his hands his featureless masked face stares out at the condemned and it is said he see's all your sins before he kills you and he decides whether your death shall be quick and painless or whether it will take more than one swing to sever your life. He stares at me, and I almost believe its true. His eyes as black and lifeless as an orb of black onyx. He stands and follows the blacksmith to his forge. My world goes black as a sack is put over my head. I must have stood their for minutes thought it felt like hours. I am not afraid of death, I have brought enough of it to not fear it, but I do fear what lies beyond death. I hear the scrape of stone against dull metal, the axe is being prepared and the stone itself seems to quiver with anticipation of its new offering of blood. My end is near as I hear the sound of metal dragged across the ground towards me...