The Uncrucified

Entry VII - Black Sun

The night before my execution was the longest night of my life, in a life filled a third of the way with long, fearful nights. At first, I sat in the dark, my spirit still hollowed out by all that had transpired. Hours passed and my mind began to race, pouring over every detail. Where did we go wrong? What should I have noticed earlier? How could I have stopped this?

Could my father have lived if I didn't convince him to fly in the face of the status quo?

He could have been working on his maps right now with none of this worry, while I, like a dutiful daughter, could have been running his business, the both of us prosperous and content as long as we turned a blind eye to the world. It had been my foolish goading all along that led to this.

That revelation was when the wall of grief hit me and the tears I had been holding back since I had first found Ahrun dead poured out. I shouted at the top of my lungs, kicking and tearing at the bare accommodations in my cage. I was innocent! Why wouldn't they listen? Surely someone would come and listen?

But nobody ever came that night, not even to tell me to be silent. I was left to boil in my anger and grief, no doubt another mental torture ordered by Oroshu, or perhaps a security measure to ensure nobody learned of the hasty mockery of justice they were planning for me.

When they came for me, I was too hoarse and fatigued to protest much as I was stripped and dressed in the white linen frock of the condemned. "Please, can I just talk to someone?" I remember asking one of the guards in a strained voice. They merely continued on with their duties, completely ignoring my futile pleas.

I moved in a surreal dream as they escorted me from the prison to a curtained black coach. The noon sun blinded me a short time later when we emerged from the carriage at the location they had chosen for my death. I could only stare in disbelief and move involuntarily forward as I was forced to walk down the path flanked by guards.

The screaming faces of a crowd gathered for the execution pressed in on me on all sides. Some of them were familiar, people I talked to every day. Some shouted in excitement or anger while others looked on in shocked fascination. 'Could she really have done it?' I'm sure they wondered. The fetid rain of rotten vegetables and garbage was a telling sign of their belief.

The slow, seemingly endless march ended at a makeshift platform prepared especially for me. Gazing over the scene and taking in the familiar crates and podiums, I finally realized where I was.

It was the square of the slave market.

At that moment, the square was eerily empty of traders and flesh to sell. No one ever called it a 'slave market', despite that being what it was. 'Permanent employees' were merely drafted and processed here. Unfortunate individuals would be forced into contracts and brought here where their lives were auctioned away. I remembered passing through here all those years ago, a teenager fresh from the wounds of betrayal.

That day, I saw the bodies of crucified criminals displayed proudly next to the docks, their twisted corpses still nailed to stained wooden crosses while their broken, misshapen legs dangled below them – an example for all to see, a hidden message to all slaves who ever thought of rebellion. I would join that gruesome puppet show as a powerful warning. This would be my fate. The realization made me shudder.

They must've paid a fortune to clear the square for the 'event'. Thinking back on it, I can almost admire their creative choice of execution grounds for me.