• “Do you have any last words?” The Captain of the Jail asked of Prisoner, lifting the gun up to his temple…

    Suddenly, Prisoner was back to his childhood. His entire family was kneeling beside him, guns pointed to their heads. His Little Sister was shaking uncontrollably, and the man behind her was looking annoyed. Popping the trigger, she fell, face first onto the hard dirt floor.

    The one lone door burst open. In terror and rage, the men standing above his Mother, Father, and Older Brother fired, killing them instantly. His, though, did quite the opposite. Throwing him to the ground, Prisoner watched as the men, who had just previously killed his family; defend him from the rain of bullets.

    When it was all over, he was the only one left alive in that run-down, shack of a house. The Soldiers outside rushed in right as he grabbed a knife out of one of the soldier's boots, and they kicked it brutally out of his already bruised hands.

    Nudging him with their guns, they told him to stand or die. Prisoner brought his legs out, showing to them the long, rough rope that connected him to the rest of his family, whose corpses were lying on the floor beside him. Laughing, one of them picked up the fallen knife and drew away his bonds of imprisonment…

    They gave him a farm in a near by town, seeds and a charming little cottage on the edge of town. Eventually, he would get married to the sheriff’s daughter, Eliza. They would have two children together, but it would be when Eliza was weighed down with their third child that the rebels would come once again into Prisoner’s life, and now his family’s.

    They came on wheeled horses, with flames shooting out of their hands. Lining up the men and women in the dark, cold streets of winter. They walked through the lines, cutting limbs off those whom they deemed not worthy to live. Stopping at Eliza, they asked if the one child there was all she had, taking a deep, long and concentrated breath, she answered yes.

    Just then, one of the rebels, who had been walking through the houses, walked out of Eliza’s and Prisoner’s house, a child following in the rear crying his little heart out. The rebel turned to the child and asked, very sweetly, whom his mother was. The child pointed to Eliza.

    Laughing the man picked the child up by the wrist…put his gun to the back of its neck, and fired. The child, then known as John, did not die instantly, no, instead he wiggled around like a fish out of water. Prisoner gave a shudder and looked away, a tear running down his cheek. John’s younger brother, Joseph, tried to run to his brother.

    The rebel by Eliza took out his saber and skewed her, hitting both her and the child that was growing inside. She fell to the ground and Joseph sank to his knees beside her…

    Word of the army coming making the rebels run for the hills. Prisoner gently picked up, and carried his son John over to his mother and laid them beside each other. Joseph started crying, and jumping into his father’s arms, they cried together.

    The army marched in, like little devils, coming to late to see what had truly happened. They assumed the worst and harshly tore father and son apart.

    “I said any last words! Now do you have any?” Captain yelled at Prisoner jerking him back to the present. He laughed, seeing Eliza and Joseph alive was a blessing and a curse. They were crying. Turning to look at the Captain, he said with sudden gravity, “I would like to die with a name and not a title.” Looking back towards his family, he found them gone, for they had not lived and his son Joseph had died by the armies’ hand.

    That day he did not die as ‘Prisoner’, he died with the name his dear parents gave him…Jacob.