Ficlets

A Slow Death

Finally the second reached the first, and still he seemed unaware of what was to come

Everything she saw after was in slow motion. She saw the second figure raise the rope above the head of the first, then slowly lower the rope over the man’s head. Saw him pull the rope tight as the man tried to widen the loop, and take the tension off his esophagus. Saw the two struggle, one for life, one for death, until, after several more minutes of struggling and strangulation, the first man’s movement slowed.

He resisted less and less as he slowly fell to his knees, his hands still at his throat and the rope.

Eventually even the hands fell, and the man fell to the floor, limp and unmoving. Like wet moss, he no longer had a definite shape. All this she witnessed from only a few feet away, but still, she saw only dark silhouette against the fog and heard no sound. Likewise a scream was caught in her throat, had been stuck there from the time she saw the rope to the time the first figure fell dead.

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