The Price of Life by Lindsey Mirabella

Reece wasn’t evil. He knew that the people in the village thought otherwise. He’d heard
the whispers, seen the dark looks, felt the glass bottles shattering against his back when they
were thrown at him. But he wasn’t evil, no. He was… a survivor, yes a survivor. Not evil, he just
did what he had to survive.

Reece heard the procession before he saw it. The sounds of festival music came drifting
over the hill, though to Reece it seemed more of a haunting sound than festive. Just barely
audible over the music came the sounds of chanting. Reece couldn’t hear their precise words
from this distance but he knew what they were chanting. They were chanting for death, for the
ending of a life, so that the Directorate’s power was upheld.
“It seems larger than usual,” said Tark.

Tark, like Reece, had been part of the revolution before they were captured and thrown
in the dungeons of the Directorate. They had both been doomed to the same fate of the poor
soul who was now being carried above the heads of the coming procession, but that was
before. Before they had been offered the choice. That one cursed choice that could either save
or destroy your life. How Tark managed to hold on to honor and keep his head up, Reece would
never know, but somehow he did.

Five years ago, the peasants and middle class had banded together to revolt against the
choking hold of the Directorate. The rebellion should have been snuffed out quickly, yet the
conflict lasted for four years, until the Directorate finally stomped out the slowly dwindling
rebellion. The rebellion had been started so that the people could break away from the
Directorate, to gain the people’s freedom; all it did was make it worse. The Directorate just
continued to take, tightening their leash on the people more and more, slowly choking out
remaining hope and replacing it with fear. The Directorate never killed on the battlefield, just
took prisoners. Prisoners were valuable. Prisoners were used as a demonstration.

As the procession drew nearer, Reece could clearly make out the different sections. The
front of the procession was full of the nobles. The ones privileged enough to pretend that this
time of day was one of celebration and revelry. Reece watched the noble class as they
swaggered up the hill. They were dressed in all of their finery, the women in long dresses in a
multitude of colors. Their arms, necks, and hair, covered in jewels and precious medals,
sparkled in the sunlight. The men were dressed in similar fashion, they had on their best jerkins
and capes, embroidered with gold and silver thread. The nobles sang and drank and chanted as
they climbed the hill to the tree. They enjoyed death. As the procession moved along it thinned
toward the back, where the people from the village trudged along behind the carried cage that
bore the unfortunate man whose life was about to end. The difference between the villagers and
the nobles was always a stark contrast. The villagers trudged along, defeated, their eyes
downcast angry and broken. Instead of bright colors and jewels, the villagers were draped in
rags in shades of grey and brown. Their clothes hung loose on their too thin frames. The
villagers were usually the friends and family, weeping and crying out their final goodbyes as they
followed their loved one as he was carried to his death.

Reece and Tark would have to be especially attentive today, occasionally the onlookers
would try to stop a hanging. Reece never knew why; breakout attempts were never successful
and it just caused more deaths. More deaths sacrificed to that tree. That twisted evil tree. Reece
figured if there was one evil thing in this world it was that tree. After each hanging the bodies
were thrown in the cavern formed under the tree’s roots and left to rot and decompose,
becoming nutrition for the tree. Reece swore that the tree didn’t just act as a mass grave but
actually hungered for the fresh meat each day.

The procession continued on, the crowd finally transitioning from the bloodthirsty
revelers, who treated the hangings as a time for celebration and indulgence, into the mourners
who still sympathised with the revolutionaries in a silent, defiant vigil. There was normally a small crowd of mourners, but there were a lot today. Once again Reece couldn’t help but
wonder who the miserable soul was to get this turnout.

The mourners parted as the doomed man was carried forward in a gilded cage that
seemed to glow in the sunlight. The cage itself was beautiful, Reece assumed that was to be a
mockery of the hideous act that was about to be committed. The man in the cage was nothing
impressive. He was painfully skinny, obvious proof of the harsh treatments in the Directorate’s
dungeons. He had long matted hair and an even longer beard. He stared forward like the picture
of calm, but Reece could see the grim panic in the man’s sunken, haunted eyes. As the cage
passed the gates, the man suddenly leaped forward toward where Reece was standing. Before
Reece could react the man spat in his face.

“You traitor!” the man growled “You said you would never join them. I should have
recognised you for the coward you were!”
Reece drew in a shocked breath “John!?”
“You didn’t recognize your own brother. Pathetic. The village was right, you are evil.” John’s
voice dripped with pure loathing as he was carried past Reece and into the clearing with the
tree.

Reece’s heart seemed to stop. No, not John, it couldn’t be, John was supposed to be
home safe. He had promised when Reece was captured to stop fighting and stay safe. But it
was; it was him, Reece hadn’t recognized him through the dirt and matted hair, and skeletal
appearance, but the voice was the same. Not his John! No wonder the crowd was so large.
Everybody loved John. He had always been the strong voice of hope in days of darkness; the
one who reminded them of their faith; the one who encouraged them to continue trusting in the
Lord through hardship. John, shouldn’t be here, John wasn’t supposed to be captured like
Reece had been.

Reece would never forget his day of shame, the day he was sent to guard the very tree
that had doomed him the day before. Each prisoner was offered a choice. The day before their death they were offered a chance to save their life. Join the Directorate or die. A simple choice.
The revolutionaries were supposed to choose death, they all swore they would when they
joined. Death was better than helping their enemies. Reece had told himself that when he got
the choice he would choose death, no matter what, death had to be better than shame, but
when the time had come and they had asked, Reece’s willpower had crumbled. He had watched
the hangings everyday from this spot ever since. His eternal punishment for revolting against
the Directorate. His eternal punishment for surviving.

Reece tried to harden his heart and not care, like he did for every other hanging, but he
couldn’t. This was his baby brother. The one who had played with him when they were young.
The one who had laughed teased him. The one who had fought with and supported him. Reece
should go, he should stop the hanging, save his brother. He watched as the executioners
dragged John onto the platform where the rope dangled from that terrible, evil tree. He could
pretend that there was an attempt to break his brother out and then he, himself, could save his
brother. He would be caught, they were always caught. The executioners slipped the noose
over his brother’s head. If he was caught they would be hung together. One executioner started
to list off John’s crimes as the other readied to pull the leaver that would send him to his death.

The tree wasn’t that far, if Reece acted quickly he could catch the executioners by
surprise and cut the rope before they could drop the platform beneath John’s feet.
The executioner finished listing John’s crimes and raised his arm to signal the drop.
John cried out to God, one final prayer for his soul. John knew where he was going,
somewhere better, but even despite this and a lifetime of trust and belief in the Lord’s plan, John
called out for mercy.

“No!” Reece yelled, jumping forward and pushing into the crowd fighting to get to the
platform. He was so close; he just had to cut the rope and fight off the executioners long enough
for John to get away. He could redeem himself. Save his brother, finally feel that he could let go
of his shame. Die, but do it with his head up.
He was almost through the crowd, he could see the stairs that lead up to the platform.
Soon John would be safe.

The platform dropped. John’s scream was cut off abruptly as the rope snapped taut.
Reece stopped in his tracks. John just hung there, his eyes open, staring at nothing. His neck
bent at the wrong angle. Reece should have been with him, wished he was with him. There
should have been two bodies hanging there. The world sounded muffled. All Reece could hear
was his own heartbeat, one that should have stopped along with his brother’s. Oh how Reece
wished he’d had his brother’s courage. His brother’s faith all those years ago. At least then they
would be together.

Someone grabbed Reece’s shoulder, shaking him out of his trance.
“What are you doing!” shouted one of the executioners, reaching for his sword.
Now was the time, Reece could prove that he loved his brother. He could be hung next
to him. All he had to do was fight back and stand up for what he used to believe in. The man he
used to be. Reece looked at John’s broken body one more time; John’s lifeless eyes continued
to stare. He had been here one moment and then gone the next. So quick, it was probably
painless.

“I.. I just wanted… I wanted to get a closer look as you got one step closer to getting rid
of the revolutionaries.” The words spilled out of Reece’s mouth before he could stop them. He’d
chosen himself, chosen to survive. Shame crushed his heart as he looked away from the
hanging body. Once again he’d failed his brother, once again he had chosen himself.
The executioner grinned, “that’s the spirit! Now get back to your post before I have to
hang you too for negligence of duty.”
Reece stumbled back to his post. Defeated, broken, his heart ripped in two. He couldn’t
even put the one person he loved the most in this world before him. He deserved every horrible
thing that life decided to throw at him. Maybe the village had been right about him, maybe he
truly was evil.

No! No, Reece wasn’t evil. He was worse, he was a coward.