Pity Execution
His vision faded immensely by an elongated sleep, a man in his mid-40s awoke slowly, his eyes barely adjusting to the unusually dim light he now was seeing.
"Wha…" He exhaled, a small yawn escaping his mouth.
Overhead, a small light bulb was beaming down around the whole enclosed area, overlaying a similar light lying about five feet away. He realized then that they were both the same light. He was looking into a mirror.
Straight across from him was a foggy and rather broken mirror at least several years old since its creation, an ominous stain of blood coloring the bottom half a faint crimson. Peering directly in the mirror, he viewed himself standing, wearing a tattered white shirt and ripped brown pants. He saw his night clothes fold across his dusty body, only in more terrible condition than he remembered.
Looking away from himself and to the left part of the mirror, he stared at something glassy. Upon examination, he saw it was another mirror, very closely positioned behind him. He reached his hand back and touched the smooth glass.
"Huh…" He whispered, puzzled by the fact that the mirror behind him seemed to be in more pristine condition than the one in front. The mirror standing right in front of him had several shards of glass missing, and the glass which still clung to the base was in many pieces. Meanwhile, the mirror he saw was behind him was in pristine condition, and the glass looked to be a lot thicker than the first mirror he had seen.
In the midst of these observations, the man was jolted by a loud buzzing erupting from an unknown source.
"Hello Dawson…" A cold voice spoke, causing the man referred to as Dawson to shudder with the very sound of it.
"I'm sure you do not yet know the situation of this glorious moment…" The voice mentioned, causing Dawson to grow increasingly curious of the meaning of the word "glorious" as this stranger used it.
"After more than ten years of belittling yourself with trivial doubt…after such a long time of plunging into the greater evils a human could bring himself upon …today I am committed to making you finally look at yourself and see how weak you are to life's ways…" Strangely compelled to follow the voice's prompt, Dawson gazed at himself in the mirror, no longer looking at his clothes, but his skin. Skin that he understood had been grayed ever since the difficulties arose.
"Yes, Dawson…you and I both know there is one thing about your appearance I did not inflict. You did…With your drugs." Dawson lowered his head slightly, but found, to his shock, that doing so suddenly caused him pain in the back of his neck. Like something was rooted there.
"Now for your test…" The voice echoed as Dawson proceeded to reach his hand to the back of his neck. He felt something very bulgy. Upon returning his hand to his face, he was shocked to find blood staining his fingers.
"You having been asleep for more than a day on a strong anesthesia, I have been able to surgically insert an explosive grenade into the back of your neck, having taken extreme caution to place the pin to the grenade outside of your skin…" This debriefing greatly startled Dawson, the truth gradually becoming clear. The stranger was capable of killing him.
"The pin is located outside of your neck, and the very tip of it is positioned inside the glass of the mirror behind you. The only way to release the pin is to shatter the glass of the mirror completely, but you must do so without pulling the pin. So wandering is out of the question…" Dawson reached behind once again, carefully feeling the width of the pin the voice was referring to.
"Stand tall, Dawson, and deliver the final assault on your addiction. Or simply attempt to leave the problem behind without confronting it… Your choice…" This final statement was followed by a blare of static, which was proceeded by complete silence. Dawson stood, absorbing the information into his distraught thoughts, before looking carefully around.
"I can't believe this…" He whispered, covering his mouth with his hands. With every breath he felt the bottom part of the pin move within his neck.
"Okay….." He assured himself, slowly raising his hand. Angrily, Dawson curled his fingers into a fist and reared his readied hand forward. Quickly, he smashed it blindly into the mirror behind him. With a crash, some of the glass was displaced, but a good deal of it found its way into the side of his fist.
"Hsssstt…." Dawson's teeth clamped in pain as the shards penetrated his skin. He looked down cautiously and saw he was already bleeding.
"Damn it…" He cursed, hesitating for a moment. Within seconds he had his fist sunk once again into the glass, though higher up on the mirror than before. He not only felt the glass scratch into his hand, but some of it was falling into the back of his knee, inflicting more damage. Blasted into a fit of rage due to pain, Dawson began to nonsensically pummel the mirror that was behind him, glass shattering everywhere his fists connected.
"All at once, that's what I always say!" He cried out to himself, attempting to ignore the great pain his bloodied hands were causing him. Continuing to hammer the glass and screaming, he did not hear the creaking of the mirror's legs.
"Whoever you are, I'm done playing!" Dawson shouted after elbowing the very middle of the mirror twice, leaving the stub in the middle of his arm red with blood. Just as he was about to inflict a relatively seismic blow to the mirror's glassy surface, he steadied his breathing just long enough to hear the legs of the mirror behind him start to give way.
"Oh…Shit!" He blurted out, feeling the grenade inserted into his neck begin to be tugged with the mirror's fall. It was then Dawson heard the metallic sound as the pin was pulled. Immediate horrification overwhelmed his sense.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…!" He cried out, but his screams were muddled by the sharp sound of an explosion. As the grenade behind his throat exploded, his entire collapsed outward at blinding speed by the force of the explosion. Blood and ripped skin dived everywhere onto the ground, including on the now fallen mirror that was shattered to pieces.
As the remains of his decapitated body stood motionless, it began to fall backwards. Finally, Dawson's form plummeted onto the fallen mirror behind him, the scattered glass shards stabbing into the lifeless shell of a man.
Static overwhelmed the silence of the chamber once more...
