The scavenger walked… The snow was cold… The chains clinked… This was his fate. Approaching the gates of life and death… Hundreds of footsteps were with him. All were condemned to die. The scavenger gazed… Five hundred men? No. A thousand? Maybe. He lowered his head. There was no worse of an end.

  The scavenger stared ahead at several large mounds of earth. It was clear, his execution approached. Each step pained his ankles, if that even mattered.

  As the mounds grew closer, a man in a blue uniform with jagged yellow teeth and a smile that could swallow a cow stood upon one of the mounds.

  The man shouted, “To all rebel scum, the National Unity Government of the Arizona has declared martial law! Governor Theodore Kischner has granted us the liberty to execute your punishment!”

  The shackled men stared.

  The man continued with a grin, “We are not devils, only men. Therefore, we have determined a fair punishment for your crimes. To any man who stands by their convictions in support of the fugitive rebel, Mayor Eduardo del Campo, step to the right! Any man who wishes to renounce their support of him, step to the left!”

  For a moment, the shackled men stared at the blue-uniformed man. Still as the powdered snow, they stared.

  To the scavenger, the five seconds that passed felt like minutes. A decision had to be made. Those that were brave around him stepped right... The scavenger stepped left.

  The shackled men now stood in two parties. A rough majority had moved left, the scavenger with the, in the back.

  Again, the shackled men stared, but this time the blue-uniformed man stared back, analyzing the dirt-covered and bloodstained faces.

  The uniformed man then motioned to some of the soldiers surrounding the shackled men.

  Teasley, tens of soldiers shoved their way between the wretched and the condemned.

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  The scavenger closed his eyes. All that he could hear around him was the rattling of metal.

  The metallic sounds stopped after what felt like half an hour… forty minutes maybe.

  When the scavenger’s eyes opened, he looked down. He was shivering. He looked up. He saw the shackled men that were once one were now two. The wretched and the condemned.

  The scavenger glanced at the condemned across from him, they stared back.

  The blue-uniformed man shouted from atop his mound, “May the men on the right please step forward!”

  The damned did as the blue-uniformed man asked, until they stood before a great ditch.

  As their tears fell, the damned stared at the condemned.

  The scavenger looked down.

  The blue-uniformed man screamed with great voracity, “FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE!”

  Gunfire erupted, the condemned screamed, and the sound of corpses falling filled the ears of the scavenger.

  A moment passed.

  A singular tear ran down the scavenger’s cheek… It was cold.

  Then, without hesitation, the soldiers pressed the wretched forward. The scavenger cried.

  As he walked, the scavenger stared. Through the blurring tears, he did not see a ditch. He saw a table and a hill.

  The blue-uniformed man shouted, “To all of you who renounced their support for the rebel del Campo, you shall register at the table, then approach the men standing behind hillock!”

  The wretched slowly slogged toward the table, forming a thinner crowd that could almost be a line.

  Slowly the wretched approached the table, the clerk sitting behind it.

  The clerk asked for their name.

  The wretched responded.

  The clerk asked for their residence.

  The wretched responded.

  The clerk then took out some ink, asked for the thumbs of the condemned.

  The wretched extended their hands.

  The clerk then asked each man was asked a question, "Left, or right?"

  The wretched responded.

  The clerk recorded.

  Then, the chains of the wretched were removed, and they were escorted over the hill. Only screams followed.

  The scavenger was last. He was the most afraid.

  The scavenger approached the table where the clerk sat and identified himself, “Felix Barcas… Vagabond…” Then he extended his hand and had his right thumb printed.

  The clerk stared.

  Felix stared.

  The clerk then asked, “Left, or right?”

  Felix thought for a moment, for he did not know what awaited him beyond the hill. He glanced toward the clerk, and said, “left.”

  Felix’s shackles were removed before he walked over the hill. The soldiers stared at him.

  Felix gazed down from the hill and saw the other condemned. Each of them stared back, their faces contorted with pain.

  The condemned all had one eye.

  Felix walked down the hill slowly. A tear glazed his left cheek.

  Two soldiers grabbed Felix and pushed his head against a stone. An iron was brought just before his eye. Felix stared at a bright orange….

  Felix screamed.