Albatross (working title, anyway)
an excerpt

“It’s time” the man behind her announced, and she took one last look out the window, and then right at the sun for a moment. She turned and faced the guard who stood by the open gate. “Let’s go” he said softly, and she walked to him and let him guide her where she was supposed to go. But with every step she took, the urge to fight back or try to save herself grew. She thought she was ok with this, she thought she was at peace; but that was before. Now that she was taking the final walk, it hit her how big this was, as if somehow she didn’t fully realize it before. Maybe it was just some form of denial before, like she thought she would somehow be able to get out of this. She looked around for a way out as she walked, but there was nothing. It was only the hallway with locked cells on one side and a concrete wall on the other. The two doors on the ends were locked and required a fingerprint to open. Granted, if she could somehow take the guard behind her down she could, in theory, use his finger, but he was rather large and well-built, and she doubted she’d stand a chance against him.
He led her to the end of the hall and pressed his finger against the reader, unlocking the door. He pulled it open and motioned for her to step into the courtyard outside, and she did so as he followed and closed the door tightly behind them. A quick glance around the courtyard showed it was surrounded mostly by a high fence with barbed wire coiled at the top. There was a concrete wall from the building on the other side and three doors, all of them protected with fingerprint identification.
But she knew that if she was going to run or fight back, this would probably be her best chance. But then where would she go? Scale the wall, perhaps? No, it would be too slow. The guard pushed her so she started walking towards the door at the other end of the courtyard. Frantically she looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon, but she saw nothing, not even any rocks. If she was going to fight back, she would have to do it on her own. She wasn’t handcuffed, so at least that was an advantage, although she realized the cuffs themselves could have made a nice weapon. At the very least she could have broken the guard’s nose with them.
But instead here she was, more or less defenseless. The guard was armed, so anything she tried likely wouldn’t end well for her. However, she knew that if she didn’t try something it wouldn’t end well anyway.
Soon they reached the other door, and the guard pressed his finger against the sensor and waited for the reading. “This is it,” Jess though, “now or never.” However, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The guard wasn’t a part of all this. He had a job to do, that was all. As much as she wanted to live, she knew that, realistically, there wasn’t anything she could really do, and so she gave up.
The door unlocked and swung open, and Jess took one last look at the city beyond the fence and at the bright red sun hanging behind the tallest buildings. “Goodbye” she whispered as she entered the hallway and the guard closed the door behind her. This hall was one that she had not seen before. It was lined with rows of doors on both sides, so many in fact that she wondered how anybody kept them straight.
She was led into a room through one of the doors on the right. Inside were three guards and a man in a lab coat. There was also a flat wooden bench in the middle of the room. The first guard closed the door behind her after she entered the room and stood guard outside.
“Jessica Thomas” the man in the lab coat said, “I need you to lie down, face up, on this bench.” She paused for a moment, desperately trying to think of some way out, but there was none, and she knew it. Slowly she sat down on the bench, then reclined backwards until she was lying flat on her back. The guards in the room came up to her and began to tie her down to the bench, with belts across her waits, chest, and legs. Her hands and feet were also fastened to the bench to make sure she wouldn’t be able to move.
The doctor told her, “For the crime of treason, you will now by executed by lethal injection, as decided in Council.” He looked her in the eye and said, “It’s rare to see an execution like this for a crime such as yours. You will feel no pain, but will simply fall asleep.”
But she barely heard what he said. She concentrated as hard as she could on not feeling or noticing anything. She hoped somehow it would strengthen her resolve. At the very least she did not want to show any fear, even though it gripped her with all its strength and wouldn’t let go. No, she would go down a soldier, a warrior to the end.
The doctor turned and took a small vial off the shelf behind him. He then grabbed a needle, and filled it with the clear liquid serum from the vial. Jess saw him do this from the corner of her eye, though she tried as hard as she could not to watch. Instead she concentrated on the ceiling – a plain gray concrete ceiling, one that was hardly fitting for being the last thing she would ever see. The doctor turned and knelt beside her, needle in hand. She looked at it, though she didn’t want to.
“May God have mercy on your soul” he said, then slowly reached down and stuck the needle into her arm. Her heart was racing and her breathing rapid. Her palms were also growing quite sticky from sweat, though she felt cold. She did not see him inject the poisonous liquid into her veins, but once he pulled the needle out, she knew the job was done.
At first, there was little change. She did her best to stay awake and keep her eyes open, but gradually it became more and more difficult. Nervous as she was, she felt her heart rate become slower and slower with each passing moment. Her breathing was already shallow from her nerves.
The exhaustion grew until she felt that she could barely move. She tried to move a finger on her left hand, and that took much more energy than she expected it would. It was at this point that she gave up.
She closed her eyes and saw her husband standing beside her. A smile crossed her face, and she used all the strength she had left to open her hand and take his.
“I love you” she whispered, though it was barely audible, and then she fell into a deep sleep. The doctor reached his hand to her neck to feel for a pulse. After a moment he removed his hand from her unmoving body and said quietly, “It is done.”