By Ben Gleason
The towers of Zai glissen in the distance. A group travels in tight formation through a frozen wasteland toward the shining city. With them travels a man; a prisoner. His breathing seems to crack in the sub zero air; his limp body held tight to a cart with metal wire. The snow seems to lessen as they near the capital, and the frigid weather bears away to vicious sunlight. The gates slide open in a dead silence, leaving only the footsteps of the group to be heard.
The cold, harsh light of the city shins on the faces of the group members, but only the face of the prisoner is hidden in shadow. The echo and clamor of the shopping district fades away to the cold silence of the upper residential district where the wealthy live with their families, feeding off the suffering of the unfortunate. The sound of boots on melting snow echoes off the houses as they make their way down the street, past the glistening buildings, to the lower housing district. The area where the poor live in fear of the cold and what might happen if one of them were chosen. The party makes their way down a side street, their leader stopping at the door to their designated site. The prisoner is strapped to a table, and the grimy ropes cut into his frozen flesh. One of the members stops to pause, staring into the eyes of the man whose life they were about to dessicate. The hesitation was slight but notable. His conscience is strong, too strong in the eyes of his superiors. But regardless, they cannot argue with his results, as he was by far the most effective leader in Zai. It was this conscience that whispers, ever so faintly in his ear, guiding his heart and his mind.
“No.” heads turn to the leader, his voice echoing off the walls of the site. Expressions of confusion and fear reflected on the faces of his fellow group members. “I won’t stand for this.” The leader’s voice is strong and unyielding, the voice of a man who had accepted his fate.
Several of the other group members’ hands itched toward their weapons, and words such as “heresy” and “traitor” drifted through the congregation, feeding the blaze like kindling feeds a hungry fire and growing to a burning conflagration in their midst. The leader’s heartbeat hastens, but that is nothing compared to the deafening ringing in his ears. His conscience fills his head, chasing out the feelings of fear and regret and straightening his will. One of the more green members in the group lunged. His hand moved without thinking, and his arm jerked forward as if being pulled by an unseen force, like a merrionette on string. He was not in command, nor control. But the leader did nothing, only accepting his fate given to him by society. His anger was overtaken by the hopeless feeling that no matter what he did, he would lose; no matter how he pushed back, his voice would be smothered by the torrent of Zai.
His body fell limp atop the prisoners. The officer responsible for this turn of events stared blankly at the blood now splattering the prisoners face. The others shift with unease because such an event was not a common thing. In fact, none of them had heard of such treason at all. None of the other members had a conscience; it was this fact that held them from the higher ranks, but it was this same fact that made them the perfect subordinates. This lack of conscience was the reason for the lack of panic, of sadness, and of fear. They all knew what the price for disobeying the councils wishes was, and they all knew that price was one the leader had been well aware of in the moments leading up to his demise. The air in the room seemed to loosen as if the tension of the ordeal seeped out through the window, which was still slightly ajar. With a slide of metal on ice, the door to the site opens and the group shuffles out in tight formation, through shivering cold of the poor district, up to the upper housing district, past the houses houses of the rich and fortunate, past the shopping district, the clamor and ring of the shoppers fading away to nothing. They make their way to the gate, under the looming archway and out into the frozen wasteland. Two short of when they last entered, their boots and tunics left a trail of blood.