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Capital Punishment

The Future Prediction — Remastered

The day I turned thirteen I was taken to the Headmaster. Each town had one, but we called ours the Death Man. He was an old man, nice about his job, all things considered. He hooked me up to his machine by plunging half a dozen IVs into my body. The machine drew my blood, and a lot of it.

“All part of the process,” he said. Finally the machine beeped and booped and a slip of paper printed from its front. Four words were printed in a row on the pristine white paper sheet.

Hung, drawn and quartered.

He didn’t tell me when, the paper didn’t tell me why. My father’s face was stony after the Death Man showed him the words. Death by violence was unheard of. My father would die from lung cancer, one day in the future. My mother died months ago in a bicycling accident. She’d known since her thirteenth birthday. My friends shared their Futures with me, the older ones. A heart attack, choking to death, measles. Those were the usual. To be drawn and quartered?

I shuddered where I sat, my arms ached where the needle points held into my arm. The Death Man gave me a grim smile and slipped the needles from my arm one by one.

“Gettin’ more violent by the year, unfortunately,” he said.

Later that day, a few of my friends came over to my house for my birthday celebration. I tried to forget about the headmaster, but his words weighed in my mind, young as I was. I wondered what the rest of my friends might have been told, I hadn’t asked all of them. One’s visit with the headmaster was usually a private affair.

In the wee hours of the morning, I finally asked my friend Turner what his Death Man had said.

“I’ll bleed to death, a stab wound.” Turner shrugged, “I’m still holding out on avoiding that,” He laughed. He was fourteen, a year older than me. He’d had more time to come to grips with his violent demise. I decided to be open with him. I told him what the Death Man had told me. He was quiet for a moment.

“What does that mean, exactly?” he asked. I shrugged.

“I’ll be strung up by my neck until I’m almost dead, then they’ll pull me apart. Into four quarters.”

It was harder to say it out loud, those words. Four quarters. The notion of dying felt even more terrifying after I’d voiced it to someone else.

“Did the Death Man say anything else to you?” I asked.

Turner shook his head.

“Nothing, other than reading the paper off to me. My guy was a grim one. You?”

“He told me violent death’s were more common, at least recently. Aren’t death’s usually from natural causes?”

“Usually, that’s what I learned this year. Violent acts are few and far between, the death penalty for all violent crime see’s to that.” But Turner still frowned, and I could tell he was bothered for longer than he should’ve been.

We continued on with our night, but my violent Future left me wondering if I too should be worried.

Twenty two years later, and I knew that my Death Man was telling the truth.

The war started fifteen years later, and the bombs came soon after. The invaders were relentless. In two years our skies became choked with ash and dust. The temperatures had steadily dropped until mid-summer was colder than winter. The war ended two years ago, and the invaders had conquered our homeland. We’d all bowed before the King but his promises of a new and better land had remained empty.

I stood at the edge of the forest, a long field ahead of me. Several hundred villagers, bundled in whatever clothing they still had, stood behind me. They watched as I surveyed the soldiers milling in the field. They protected a storehouse, one of the King’s own. A lone building in the middle of a field, halfway between two of his army’s supply routes. It was rumored to hold enough clothing and food to last our village three or four winters.

And there I stood, I waved my sword over my head and screamed until my vocal cords felt like they would shred. With a final battle cry, I sprinted to the front of the mob and my own voice was lost amid the cries the villagers around me. Row after row of soldiers rushed to form a line of defense. They carried long-range rifles and the occasional machine gun. In our ranks, I knew that we had thirty guns among the four hundred or so that charged. But our chances of victory were high, numbers were on our side. We kept charging. I could see the faces of the soldiers beneath their thick white hoods. Some were laughing, shaking their heads at the fact that we were fools enough to try to attack them. Others were serious, some were angry. One or two looked frightened. A moment later, the soldiers followed commands we couldn’t hear and as one they held their rifles up to their shoulders. We kept charging. The King’s men fired once. Twice. Many of us fell. I somehow remained standing. The ones who fell were trampled by those behind, but we continued our charge. If we won, we would search through them for survivors.

We reached the first line of defense a second later. We cut them down as if they were nothing but brush that needed clearing. I beheaded a soldier where he stood, my elegant blade easily swept through his neck. I was immediately on another, taking another man through the back while he trained his rifle on my fellow villagers.

The second line of soldiers fired without heed for their comrades. More of us fell, but nearly as many white-hoods exploded with . We reached the second line and again they crumbled beneath us. I picked up a rifle from a fallen soldier and sheathed my sword. I shot six soldiers before the clip was empty. I looked around for another rifle but there wasn’t one around. The other villagers had been hasty to pluck them from the ground. Thankfully it didn’t matter.

The third line was already running before we’d reached them. Their terrified faces were pale, fear etched into their frantic movement. They were off into the surrounding countryside. They were sure to be hunted down by my compatriots, blood lust was running in our veins. We wanted revenge. Some of those around me slowed to scoop up more guns from the fallen soldiers before they continued in pursuit. The villagers whooped and screamed, and unleashed hell upon the soldiers. The battle was over less than a minute after it had started. Nearly four dozen soldiers lay dead and dying on the ground. I ran towards the storehouse, but slowed when I saw how many of our own had fallen. Nearly twice that of the soldiers.

Someone shouted nearby, called out my name.

I turned to see a soldier behind me, a long knife held in his hand. A bloody bullethole sprouted from his stomach and mud covered his face. He swung the knife and I dodged it easily, his heavier clothing inhibiting his movements. He swung again and stepped closer. This time I parried and struck his hand, carved into his fingers with the thin blade. He dropped the knife as several fingers dropped to the ground. I rushed him, pushed my blade through his chest.

The man screamed, and try as I might I couldn’t resist looking him in the eyes. His pupil’s grew larger, and he gasped.

“Y — It was you,” he said. Blood bubbled from his chest and oozed from his mouth. He tottered, still standing with my sword impaled in his chest. I gaped at him.

“T — T — Turner?”

I looked closer, and beneath the grime and it was him. Twenty-two years older, muddied and dying, it was Turner. Tears sprang from my eyes and I involuntarily let go of the sword. He fell backwards, dead before he hit the ground.

I stood amid the screams of the dead and dying. I held my head in my hands. I’d killed before, I’d killed more than I was willing to admit. I wondered how many Death Men had foretold of an end that I would cause, long ago before the war. Tears fell freely. I remembered the conversation Turner and I had on my thirteenth birthday. Before he’d been drafted four years ago, before the war. Before we’d turned on one another for the sake of survival. I looked down at Turner’s body, my sword swayed slowly in the gentle breeze. I couldn’t bring myself to pull it from his chest.

“A solid victory my boy!”

My father’s wheezing cough told me who it was before I turned around. He was old now, but he was a fighter. I tried to hide my tears. I felt like vomiting. There was pride on his face. I only felt pain, and cold. I thought of telling him about Turner, but something inside of me couldn’t do it. I felt ashamed.

The women combed through the battlefield and pulled our wounded from the field on stretchers. The older men pulled small carts and started loading them with supplies from the storehouse. My father patted me on the back and walked towards them. I stood by Turner, motionless until my father returned with a large coat. I accepted it gratefully. The biting cold trumped even my sorrow.

I put on the coat, and reluctantly stepped over Turner. I yanked my sword from Turner’s chest. What was done was done. His eyes were still open. Wolves and Fowlers would likely eat him by nightfall.

I traipsed back towards the village with the old men and women. I helped carry a young man who’d been shot twice in the same leg.

“Everything’s going to be okay,” his mother whispered to him, over and over.

I sighed. Everything wasn’t going to be okay. It was going to be a long time before we saw the sun again, much less were able to grow food or sustain ourselves. I wasn’t even sure if we would ever see the sun again. The way things were going, even if I was able to keep the villagers alive long enough for the King to be overthrown, it would be too late to save what was left of the world. There was nothing we could do. Hopefully the King had other problems to deal with, like the other uprisings that were sure to follow ours.

In my heart, however, I knew what was going to happen. The punishment for betraying the King was capital punishment. When we’d pledged our subservience, they had been very clear. All traitors were to be hung, drawn and quartered.

I originally wrote this piece three years ago, and I readily admit it was a hastily written piece of trash with a few bright spots maybe here and there. Three years later, I’ve edited and rewritten where I saw fit to improve upon my old idea and lay writing style. Sort of a fun thing to do every once in awhile. You can read the old version here, although it reads like more of an outline than a story!

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