YAWP: A Collection of Short Stories

Hollow

November 13, 2017

I had reached an ultimatum. Either I leap into empty space, or the barrel of the gun would find the base of my skull and relieve me of the ability to live. I pondered the black hole that stretched from the west end of the crowded courtyard to the east. The pit seemed miles long and infinitely empty when I stood so close. I was seven men from death, ten paces, and I could be killed within the instant a bullet rang from the Nazi soldier, a boy no older than nineteen. His face impassive, a remote statue among the dead. His hand clutched the trigger loosely as if the weapon could fall from his grasp to the forest floor and would never notice. He was paid, I supposed, not with money, but with pride. He was part of the Third Reich, placed as executioner in the camp. I knew that the moment I tried to flee, I would be gunned down and strung up like an animal, a grim albatross to others who tried to escape death. I swallowed, feeling the chill in the air like a knife against my spine. I took a lasting look down the line and witnessed men who were very similar in their likeness. The men that had survived this long were strong, or had been before they began to starve. They could not be described as lean; they were practically shells, carcasses seconds from tilting forward into an unmarked grave. Just the sight of their eyeballs rolling in hollowed eye sockets made me feel the hollowness of my own withered bones. Skin clung to nothing, their ribcages appearing to float. I could sense their fear, their knowing. It was then, as I examined the frail, translucent skin that lined their arms and legs, that I heard the gunshot. It rang out in an echoing boom that I knew would be heard in the darkest corners of the places we slept.