The Fall of the Executioner
He’d never slipped in a trial before.
He faced seemingly endless terrains, in the eternal darkness of The Entity’s realms. Snow and grass, concrete and stone, slick with rain or sticky with blood. None of them had ever made him so much as falter, in trials past. He paced over them all, his booted stride unstoppable, steady as a wave cutting through an endless ocean.
But today it was mud. As the survivor he’d been hounding flailed over the stone ledge and he followed, his boot hit something hidden in the sludge. He slipped, and between the weight of his metal head and the shiver of something spiteful in the air, he wasn’t able to keep himself from falling. He hit with a splat of hollow iron on wet earth, stars bursting before his vision as the wind left him in a gurgling rush.
For a moment he lay there, stunned. Rain pattered down, cold against his iron face, cold against his blood-caked skin. And then, finally, he choked in a breath of moist, muddy air, and stirred, trying to rise.
His body hurt. The mud was slick under his hands as he attempted to push himself up. Worst of all, his face was well and truly stuck - one of the large, planar sides sunk an inch or two into the muck. This was a punishment, he was sure. Small, petty, cruel - something more subtle than The Entity’s usual means, but frustrating enough nonetheless. Unless - and the thought chilled him more than the cold water seeping into his clothes - unless he was just losing his edge, like a blade hammed too many times against a hard, dull surface.
Impossible. He sank down again, a low growl rumbling from his throat. He’d never faltered in his duty. He was the Executioner - the punisher of the guilty, inflicting pain upon those who had caused pain, and torment upon those who had tormented. He’d pursued such foes long before The Entity had brought him here, and he’d performed with righteous determination, even to the degree of ignoring his new master’s will when necessary, to get the job done.
Maybe that was why...
Something flashed out of the corner of his eye. He stopped struggling, falling still as steps and whispers drew closer, just outside the field of his vision. A snarl of anger coiled in his chest: the wicked dared approach him! He needed to stand, to run them through with his blade and punish them for their countless days of wrongs and cruelty; pallets smashed against his face, blinding light shined into his eyes, sharp stones driven into his flesh. He wanted to hack them all to pieces, Entity and its hooks be rotted.
But he was still stuck - still aching and short of breath. It would take too much struggle to get up and after them, even assuming he could free himself on his own. Rather than hear their mocking laughter at his torment, he lay in silence, waiting for them to pass, hoping that his stillness and the filth that covered him would be enough to hide him from their prying eyes and shining lights.
He should have remembered that The Entity glutted itself on hope. And despair.
“Hey, guys! Look...”
A light shone against his back.
“Is that..?”
“It is! But what’s he doing?”
“Is he alright?”
“Hey….” someone nudged his boot, and he growled in warning. If only his blade were in his hand….
“Don’t touch him!”
“Is he hurt? I’ve never seen him fall before.”
“Scary…”
“We should finish up the gens and get out of here.”
A silence as the rest of the group considered this. Yes, he thought bitterly, finish your tasks and be returned again. He would fell them like the rotten trees they were. He strained to reach his blade, but it was too far, several inches out of his reach.
“Careful, he’s moving!”
“I think if he could hurt us, he would have done it by now.”
“Maybe his back is broken.”
A thrill of fear went through him at that idea. He didn’t feel broken, but…
“The entity will take care of him. Just leave him be, and let’s get out of here.”
“You guys go.”
A silence. Out of the corner of his vision, The Executioner could see their forms, all as dirty and worn as himself, turn and look at the speaker.
The Executioner didn’t know their names. He didn’t know anything about them at all, he realized, not their faces nor connections, or even what crimes had brought them here. The visage of the speaker was dirty, scared, but determined, even when greeted with the accusing stares of their teammates.
“You’re crazy.”
“Always crazy.”
“You can use my medkit.”
The namecallers fell silent, staring at the forth survivor. A small, metallic clank of red metal hitting the ground filled the space between them. The crazy survivor smiled, a small, grateful thing, and for the first time, in years of violence in cold, The Executioner felt something new.
A seed of doubt, lodged deep in his core.
What had the survivors done, to warrant the punishment he inflicted on them?
The others moved off, their feet sucking and splatting in the mud. He was left with the crazy one, who remained behind him, opening the medkit, presumably checking its contents.
“I’m going to touch your back, and look for damage” they said.
The Executioner rumbled a threat, but didn’t move, even as the survivor bent over him and he felt gentle, warm fingers probing his spine.
“All this blood,” the survivor murmured. “Is it yours?”
It was, for now. The corners of his face were iron and sharp, and every time a pallet slammed into him, they cut deeper into the flesh of his shoulders. He couldn’t explain this to the survivor, though, so he said nothing.
“I don’t know if spines should bend this way,” the survivor said, lingering somewhere at the small of his back. “I don’t feel anything broken or swollen, so I assume it’s just how you are. Or how you’ve become.” The survivor shifted a bit, looking at the blade lying just out of his reach in the muddy grass. “You wear that metal thing, and drag your sword around. I’ve seen you prop it up, when you think no-one is looking. Even one of them would be heavy, on their own, but you always have both…well. It’s enough to explain your back, anyway.”
He growled a little. Of course they were heavy - heavier with each death he caused. Just as he punished the damned, so too he was punished, in turn, for the pain he caused. But he wouldn’t expect a human to understand that.
The hands remained on his back a moment, warm against the chill of the weather and damp. “Are your legs hurt?” the survivor asked. “Your neck?”
The Executioner hesitated a moment. And then he sighed, the noise wet with mud and rainwater. He shifted his weight, slowly, so as not to startle the crazy one, and made a show of pushing against the ground, unable to budge his suctioned-down face.
“Oh, I understand. Okay, just...hold still a moment, and I’ll see what I can do.”
The survivor changed their position, working their hands - fingers worn and calloused from endless hours working on generators - into the muck, and under the edge of his triangular face. “On three,” the survivor said. “One...two…”
They both heaved on three, The Executioner groaning as he shoved with all his might. Slowly, with a great sound of squelching, his face came free, and eventually they both fell back, shaken but victorious. The Executioner was on his feet in an instant, his entire right side coated with muck, a grumble of relief escaping his chest.
The survivor had scrambled up too, and took a step back. “Forgot you’re so tall,” they said under their breath, casting him a furtive glance.
He gave them a look, and bent again, pulling his blade free with another squelch.
An echoing clang made them both jump. The forest blazed with light - three generators completed at once. The Executioner rumbled with displeasure - The Entity was going to punish him for this failure, he knew. But the trial was already lost, on his end. Even if he went after the survivors with full force, he doubted he’d finish them in time.
And anyway…
He looked at the crazy one - the one who still lingered near, knowing full well that he was put here to punish them. They looked back at him, clearly nervous, but hoping for...something.
“You can keep this,” they said, setting the red medical kit at his feet. “Maybe you can use it for your shoulders. I don’t know if it can help you, but-”
Another flash and clang, further away now. Four generators done.
The Executioner stared at the little red box. It didn’t make sense. He was supposed to punish the wicked, but this survivor clearly wasn’t wicked. Wicked people didn’t help fallen enemies.
If this survivor wasn’t wicked, how did he know if the others were?
Was everything he had done until now...a mistake?
Or perhaps it wasn’t a mistake. He looked at the survivor - dirty, but uninjured, and he looked at himself, his tunic soaked in his own blood. The Entity fed on hope and despair. Perhaps it was not only the survivors it was feeding off of. Perhaps the bulk of its nourishment came from himself, and the others like him - the ones who were eternally in pain, with no tools or allies to heal them. He thought of Evan’s hooks, and Spirit’s severed limbs. Sally’s ruined face, Lisa’s...everything. The entity had broken them all - far, far more than it had broken the survivors.
The last generator clanged into light. The Executioner gave a rough sigh, and turned, marching towards the gate as the crazy survivor followed.
He didn’t look at them as he opened the gate. Didn’t look at any of them as they ran past, unharmed and unable to believe their good luck. He knew the crazy one lingered, wanting to meet his gaze, but he didn’t give them the satisfaction.
At last they were gone, and he strode through the grass with The Entity’s displeasure heavy on his bleeding shoulders and the trial-realm collapsing in sparks and ash behind him, taking the offered medical kit with it. Only once they were all back around their fire, and he lurked in the shadows, watching, did he look at their faces, and let himself wonder. Why had the crazy one helped him? Why had the other left their precious kit, to possibly aid in his recovery? Would they even remember, in the next trial, that they had done these things?
Would he remember?
Not once in past trials had he questioned the world he found himself in, in all the endless days of work and violence. But now, for the first time, he found himself wishing for more knowledge. Wishing for a way to escape this world, as killer or survivor.
Or, failing that, for a way to forget the questions that now hung over him like dark crows. The Entity fed on despair. Now more than ever, he didn’t want to give it what it wanted.