The Law: Year 2076

Public executions were always something I avoided. Still, when a group of kids from my college were scheduled to die on 2076 New Year’s Day, I was expected to go. It was a government requirement. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t participate?

As I stood in line outside the courthouse, I focused on everything except the gallows. I strained in the fog to see violent murky waves behind the crisp white seawall. The wind reeked of salt and dead fish. The leaves of decorative wrought iron trees clanged like wind chimes. All my senses filled with the present, but my mind wandered back to what Mum had told me.

“I don’t care that it’s a civic duty, Ella, it isn’t right. The guilt I still feel after cutting that thief’s final support…” she had trailed off, “I was forced to give a punishment that didn’t fit the crime.”

My turn came too quickly. An officer gave me a pair of cutters. There was no way to avoid looking at the gallows now. I reluctantly searched for Dom.

He hung in the middle of the twelve students charged with stealing. Why would he have risked his life for electrical parts and scrap metal? My own friend, the one who had both laughed with me and talked me down from anxiety attacks, hung there above my head. Only two ropes tied to his harness needed to be cut before the only thing suspending him would be the noose.

Dom locked eyes with me, his expression surprisingly warm. If he had glared at me like a hardened criminal, I could have disowned him as my friend then and there. Instead, a flood of emotions escaped from the imaginary box I kept them locked in.

“A punishment that didn’t fit the crime,” Mum believed, but I wasn’t like her. I understood The Law and built my life on it. It kept everyone safe. It kept me from becoming corrupt despite my rebellious emotions.

A woman beside me cut a rope, which snapped up the pulley system and dropped Dom’s left side. He grunted in pain as his body weight shifted. My chest ached at the sound, like my heart was rotting me from the inside out.

I tried to smother the sorrow inside me, tried to stuff it back into the little box, tried to hide it… but it had finally grown too large. Rules I had held so tightly to my whole life suddenly meant nothing. All that mattered was my newfound conscience, if that’s what the wretched voice in my head was.

The cutters slipped from my trembling hands. Shame hit me instantly when everyone in line eyed me condescendingly. “Who is that girl?” they must have thought, “Is she a rebel or a coward?”

I was both.

Another scream rose from down the line. I winced. Could the officers tell I was sympathizing? I backed away from them in panic, and my back hit the ropes of the gallows. All I was doing was making myself more suspicious.

“Don’t worry,” Dom said in a hushed, hurried tone, “Help is coming.”

Help? That was it! I could tell the officers what he just said, whatever it meant. Instead of an evil girl overcome by emotions, I could be the hero who stopped a criminal plan. That was the right thing to do. I always swore I would stop a villain if I had the chance.

No, I didn’t do it. I stood frozen, my body unwilling to let the next person in line cut Dom’s rope. I couldn’t live without him.

“Cut a rope and move along, ma’am,” an officer said.

“I’m sorry,” was all I could respond.

Past the officer’s head, past the seawall, something flashed in the water. A shadow was there and gone again in a short break of the fog. The thieves murmured behind me. Another gap in the fog rolled by and the shadow flashed again, terrifyingly close. Help is coming.

A blinding beam of light shot from the water to the top of the gallows. My eyes stung. Everything suddenly turned dark and spotty. I ducked with the crowd. The beam hissed through every noose in one fell swoop and left a charred streak on the courthouse behind. Every prisoner fell free.

Dom nudged my arm, briefly, before he joined the fight that had begun. My soul screamed to follow him. The overwhelming urge to stay close to Dom mixed with fear of what kind of punishment I would face if I stayed.

They snatched weapons from the blindsided officers. Panicked cries rose from the dispersing crowd. Dom ran. I ran. He jumped and disappeared into the sea, his friends following close behind us.

I jumped, too. Yes, I went through countless pros and cons in the seconds before jumping, but it was still the most spontaneous thing I’d ever done.

A wave knocked me back against the concrete. My brain raised a final plea, “Stop this. Remember The Law.”

Dom came up for breath. I launched off the wall to catch up. Pure adrenaline got me close enough to grab Dom’s ankles. We did this exercise all the time on swim team. I could almost imagine that all we were doing was an exercise in the pool… until we came up for air and got slapped by ocean water.

Helicopters whirled into the area. Gunshots burst into open fire on the water, muffled by ringing in my ears. Red leaked into the water around me. Red? Before I could process it, Dom twisted out of my hands and I swam headfirst into metal. Dry arms pulled me through a hatch as my dream-like consciousness faded away with a stabbing pain in my skull.

Green light penetrated my eyelids. Unintelligible voices hurt my ears with their volume. I rolled onto my side, opened my eyes, and watched the grimy floor warp under me… or maybe I was just dizzy. Someone walked in front of my face. I rolled onto my back again and squinted at blurry green neon lines. The two thin light strips stretched as far as I could see down the tunnel I laid in.

Why was I wet? My hair clung to my forehead and my clothes swashed against the floor.

A black silhouette blocked out the light over my head. I focused on his face… Dom’s face. Dom. The gallows. I had been outside the courthouse. What had happened?

“Take it easy, you’re safe,” Dom said just loud enough so I could hear him over the other voices amplified by the tunnel. He pressed something on my shoulder.

“Where…” I murmured a question, but it didn’t come out right. My throat and nose burned like I had inhaled rocks.

“Our submarine,” he answered knowingly, “This is that secret project I’ve been working on for months. I told you it would be worth the wait.”

I jerked away from him. He was a thief. He had betrayed his country, betrayed me, and I had found out in an invitation to watch him die. That’s what happened when people gave into evil.

He raised his eyebrows as if shocked by my fear. “What are you doing?”

I didn’t dignify him with an answer. I needed to get out. My limbs wobbled as I attempted to sit up and my body suddenly made me aware of the sharp throbbing in my shoulder.

“Stop,” Dom ordered, “They shot a hole in your shoulder. Let me help you.”

He forced me back down. My head lolled so I saw his legs bent in an awkward position as he sat beside me. One side of his pants was ripped at the knee, and a bloody cloth was knotted on his calf. He was shot too.

I remembered seeing the water turn red. I remembered how I got there.

“Leave it alone,” I croaked, “I deserve it.”

He didn’t look up from his work as he answered, “That’s your head injury talking. You’re going to be okay.”

“You don’t understand,” I sobbed.

My emotional outbursts had never been that bad. Occasionally, I had stayed up crying through the night, lamenting all the people in my life who had been put to death. Never had I let a single soul know that I was doubting. I had always locked up my feelings when it counted. For fear of seeming angry at The Law, I didn’t even comfort Mum when she lost her property in debt to the government. I had always done everything right, knowing that one slip up in front of people could turn me into the monster I feared already lived inside me.

I should have just cut a rope. Instead, I had severed my self-control.

Dom eventually stopped touching me and said something about getting up, but I couldn’t move. With my best friend beside me, I cried until I had nothing left to feel.

I woke up again under green neon lights. This time, there was also a soft yellow lamp mounted to the wall, giving the illusion of morning sunlight. Two triple bunk beds were crammed into the tiny room, and I bumped into everything near me as I carefully crawled out of my bottom bunk.

A handwritten booklet titled Project Mayflower: Our Escape fell off my bed. “From Dom” was scribbled on the cover with his signature smiley face.

They were fleeing the country, the booklet explained. Dom and everyone else had risked their lives to build this boat. They were done watching their friends and family be victimized by a “cruel, corrupt government”. They believed it was time for change.

International travel along with any form of contact with another country was banned over twenty years before. These rebels were sneaking across the ocean to plead for help. They couldn’t overthrow their own government alone, so they decided to commit another level of treason by partnering with a foreign army.

I couldn’t read anymore. My shoulder ached. My head hurt. I knew I wouldn’t find fresh air here, but I decided to try.

The submarine was so long the hallways felt unending. Though I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Dom, I asked some strangers where I could find him. They pointed me to the “viewing deck”, which turned out to be a long room along the side of the submarine with depressingly small windows showing nothing but black water.

Dom sat alone at a metal table, sipping on a bottled drink. He looked up and smiled weakly at me. What was that look for? I sat across from him and accidentally bumped his legs because of how small the table was. He winced.

“I’m so sorry!” I said, remembering his injury. He just laughed dismissively and stared at his drink. A heavy silence followed.

“You still hate this. Don’t you?” he said.

My face contorted into a scowl against my will. I didn’t want to talk about this.

“Can you please just… get over yourself?” he suddenly snapped.

“Excuse me?” I exclaimed, “I haven’t even said anything.”

“I know you,” Dom lowered his voice, “You don’t have to say anything. The only reason you followed me is because you felt guilty. Am I right?”

I didn’t have time to respond before he cut me off.

“For a few minutes, I almost thought you were having a wake-up moment. Then you really woke up and threw a pity party, which I sat through every hour of just hoping you would let me talk to you.”

“Well, I’m here to talk now,” I retorted.

“Yes, you are,” he said, “and you’re going to tell me you hate this. That you hate me for being a part of this.”

“I hate myself,” I corrected him, “These people must have manipulated you into joining them. I don’t have any excuses for what I did.”

Loudly, like a maniac, Dom laughed, “You didn’t even DO ANYTHING, ELLA. You stood under me, panicked, and maybe felt sorry for me, but you didn’t break any of your precious government’s laws.”

“I wanted to, though, can’t you see? I’M SICK. I’m a sick human being who deserves punishment, even if it was only in my mind that I broke The Law. I’m trying to have integrity!”

“Legalism isn’t integrity,” he shook his head, “Integrity is doing the right thing at all times, at all costs. You’re so afraid of doing something wrong, but if you would just open your eyes, you would see that The Law is wrong. The government gave you a rulebook for life, and you followed it without question.”

He reached across the table to hold my hands, “I’m begging you. For once in your life, allow yourself to question something.”

I gazed blankly at him. It was true that I never questioned anything before. Doing so felt wrong.

Dom cared about me. Mum cared about me. She had tried to warn me against the execution. As I thought about it, I got the feeling she would support Project Mayflower.

The Law had always kept me safe, right? I couldn’t tell anymore. The more I thought, the sillier it seemed to keep a death grip on something warned against by the people who loved me.

Dom squeezed my hands before letting go. He picked up a cane from the floor and stood.

He sighed, “We won’t keep you if you don’t want to stay. You won’t know enough to put us in danger if you tell anyone. We’ll cross paths with a ship tomorrow, an ally, and I already told the captain to surface and let you out. It can take you home. Take time to think about what you believe before then.”

“Oh, okay,” I said lamely, “See you later…”

Left alone, my mind and soul went to battle again. I didn’t cry or panic in any way. I just thought, as logically as I could without the comfort of The Law.

The next day, we surfaced to meet the ship. After meeting with our captain, I found Dom on the viewing deck again. The windows displayed brilliant blue water this close to the surface and illuminated the room with a peaceful glow. I sat beside him this time so we could both see the windows.

“Guess I should say goodbye,” Dom steeled himself.

I only grinned.

The captain’s voice came over intercom, “Prepare for pressure increase. We’re going back down.”

Dom looked at me like he didn’t believe what he was hearing. I nodded in reassurance and he put his arm around me, being careful with my shoulder.

We watched as the windows slowly faded to black.