“He cannot die Issac, he cannot die.” This is the phrase I kept telling myself over and over again. Yes, I have decided, I will die, a lot sooner then planned on, too. This is what I thought to myself as I sprinted through the deserted city gates, and down the empty streets. Gates that, time and time again, had welcomed me home, with the bustle and busyness of the big city. But now, I only saw empty or shaded windows in the early twilight, and only heard the distant roar of the ocean waves. Even the guards were off duty, most likely in the cities center, where an executioner waited, surrounded by red robed, masked spectators.
I rushed down the empty streets, toward the dead center, my brown coat blowing out behind me and my boots pounding the stones, drumming with my heart beat, and mocking my desperation. I had to hurry, or else, a precious thing would be lost to this world. Jacob. Oh, Jacob. I didn't deserve him, and he deserved so much more than what I was. Despite this, he had chosen me, and we loved each other with all our hearts. We had done everything together, from laughing and drinking, to fighting and crying. We had been through it all together, it would not end with his sacrifice for me.
When I was charged with the murder of a local bartender and sentenced to death, Jacob had stepped up and claimed the right to substitute. The king had accepted Jacob's claim, sending me into exile. It disgusted me that I had not said something at the time, but I was a coward, and didn't want to die. But now, I despise myself for thinking I could go on without him. Our last night together was spent in the jail cell, I cried, and Jacob held onto me, crying silently with me in his arms the entire night. This morning, before dawn, we were torn apart and led out on our different paths, mine toward the harbor, and his to the block.
I was now pushing my way franticly through the crimson crowd as the sins I was guilty of were read aloud and transferred onto Jacobs head. Then the crowd went silent, still as bloody statues. I was almost to the front, where I could make out the one, tall figure draped in black, silhouetted against the dawning sun, a cleaver raised over his dead ready to silence that pure heart. “Stop!” my voice ripped through the deadly silence and echoed on the walls. Jacob looked up from his kneeling position, seeing me, a mixture of surprise and joy flooded his face, “Issac...? You came?” He rose to his feet with some difficulty, unbalanced, and I saw his hands were bound at the back. I quickened toward him. Reaching him, I turned him around so as to free his heads.
As I did this Jacob spoke softly, “Did you find It?” I paused for a moment then replied, “I did my best, but...” “But?” I sighed, “That...that thing is....not of this world.” As I cut through the last knot, and Jacob turned around, “Wait....oh...Why did you came back?” I took a deep breath and took his hands. Lovingly tracing the red marks the ropes had burned into his wrists, murmuring, “You always had such soft hands... Let me ask you something.” I raised my eyes and looked into his face and stroked a piece of his long hair behind his ear, “What would you do if your heart stopped?” Jacob looked at me startled, “I...I guess I'd die.” “Well,” I said looking back down. “That's how it would be for me if- … if you died. I can't live if you can't, and I wouldn't want to!” I said those last words strongly, passionately, raising my head to look strait into his eyes. His clear face twisted as his beautiful blue eyes filled with tears. He through himself at my chest, burying his face, clutching my shirt, and his eyes began to trickle hopelessly. I put my arms around him as the red sea of onlookers began to whisper and wonder at the strange relationship, the few passionate words of dedication shared between these young men.
“What is this!?!” Roared a new voice from a balcony above us. All heads turned up toward the royal balcony where the king stood. Red faced and furious, demanding an explanation. Without looking at Jacob, I pushed him away and stood square, looking up at the king with a stone face. “I humbly request,” “Stop …” Jacob gasped, begging me softly, “that I serve as substitution for Ja....this man,” I gestured toward Jacob, who hunched over and clutched his chest and gut a few paces away. “Stop, stop...” Eyes streaming, looking at me with such an expression of sadness and confusion, begging me to stop …stop, it almost shattered my soul to look directly at it. “Your Majesty.” I finished, distantly. Jacob exploded, sobbing and screaming at the same time, “You idiot! Do you think it would be any easier for me to live without you! My heart would die too! Yes! It would shatter into a thousand pieces, I'm dead without you!!” Without turning to look at him, a tear rolled down my cheek. In the corner of my eye, I saw Jacob lurch, and begin to reach out his hand to me a cry frozen on his lips. I turned to look at him, smiled sadly, and I felt my heart crack.
Jacob never reached me. It happened so fast I couldn't react, but at the same time, it seemed to last forever. Four heavy guards surrounded him. He struggled and screamed my name over and over and over, each heartfelt, and each another dagger piercing my soul. Until one of the guards cut off his cries with a sickening thud and crack to the back of his neck. I saw him go limp and sink to the ground, face down, lifeless and pale. A small pool of blood surrounding his small, beautiful body. My heart stopped and then dropped. I moved faster then I ever thought possible. In a matter of moments, I was kneeling at his side, shaking him, talking to him, not believing when my mind, sight, and other senses told me the truth. The guards grew dim and everything around me faded into blackness.
It was just me and Jacob, just me and him, banished and separated by an entire universe. Millions, and millions of miles from everything else. I heard my mind and voice deny it, begging him softly to get up. The joke was up. He'd got me. That it wasn't funny anymore! I screamed at him through my tears. That he had promised, that we swore our pure, innocent love to each other forever and to the end of eternity. I reminded him hopefully, of what we had planed, and promises we had to keep. All the little things that didn't seem to matter in the moment, but now were remember as precious memories. I curled over my knees on the ground, and screamed his name from the bottom of my heart to the highest heaven.. My eyes glazed over and my body seemed to go completely numb, as I knelt there, feeling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Just my mind, felt, just my mind saw, just my mind heard itself lie over and over. Lie the horrible truth that Jacob was dead.
Everything snapped back and moved in slow motion again; the crowd whispered and pointed, the king conversing privately with the guards. And Jacob, I looked at him completely numb, tears rolling down my cheeks until they made my eyes fuzzy. A shove on my back turned my eyes away from Jacob and I looked up at a huge, faceless man, who seemed to want me to get up. I rose and stumbled forward, looking into the faces of the crowed. They were all silent now, all faceless, all masked. It was quiet...so quiet.
I felt I could hear the ground beating in time to their hearts. I barley felt my feet, moving on their own to kneel beside the block. Then it all came rushing back over me, and I clenched my fists and teeth as sound and memories flooded over me. The smell of the sea, feeling the tall grasses, laughing with Jacob. Fighting by his side. The feeling of indescribable trust and love when we swore our bond. The confusing feeling when he took my place at the block, him desperately screaming my name. His dead body sinking to the ground, and the whispers of the onlookers. Then... the thought of Jacobs smile, his loving eyes and perfect lips, I would remember that, and hold onto it until later. I looked over my shoulder at his body, still beautiful, despite its dead form. I smiled a little to myself, “Wait for me.” I whispered to him. My fists relaxed, as I resigned, closed my eyes and lay my head once more on the block. For Jacob, the cherub, broken and beautiful as the rising sun in the sea of red, my irreplaceable friend. I smiled, the hatchet swung and I left to meet him again.
