“A man with one watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure.” – Lee Segall

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There it was at the end of the hall. The skull glittered brightly in the distance. Its eye sockets round and smooth, carved to perfection. It was faced towards the low ceiling of black granite, and Charlie knew that it meant to signify hope. Once Charlie’s muddy, bloodstained hand closed around the back of that skull, there would be hope.

The bell knolled the time to be half an hour till two in the afternoon. He tightened his grip and kept going. A half hour more.

Hope to be free. Hope to defeat the army awaiting him on the other side of the mountain. Hope to rally Charlie’s fellow brethren in hope to build a new world. Hope to finally free Charlie’s family.

He could feel his legs aching, begging and screaming for something at which he did not heed. The world around him closed once more.

Almost there. So close. Charlie’s footsteps muted purposefully the sounds of Zak and his gang coming down behind him. It blocked out the fear. The hangman’s noose. If what Charlie had discovered in the caverns of ancient Rome were correct, then the moment Charlie touched the skull, he would be lifted to the topside, and the rest of the Aztec catacombs would collapse, taking his greatest enemy with it to a damned hell at last. Never to touch Charlie again.

His arms trembled from the strain, the sweat from the anticipation rolled from his glands like bees from a hive, running in rivulets down from his hairline, down his freshly shaven cheek, and plopping plop plop plop onto the cloth of his pants.

Charlie’s entire body screams with triumph as he leaps those last few inches. Charlie could feel his body suspended in the air; the dust motes swirling around him like ancient victory confetti.

The bell knolled again, and though his mind was elsewhere, Jared’s body tensed and the sweat turned cold. His door clanged and chattered before slowly opening; two men standing in the blinding light. They begin to walk forward, into the six by eight foot room, their faces carefully neutral and their eyes on the man on the cot in the corner.

Suddenly, Charlie’s ankle is shackled. Fingers, only four as the fifth had been cut off in a pitch-dark knife fight when their adventure had first begun, closed around the heroin’s ankle and pulled him to an abrupt stop, flopping him harshly to the ground. “No!”

“No!” He cries out, raising his eyes to the men, refusing to let this go. The men nod and grasp at his upper arms, pulling him to his feet. He lowers his eyes.

“You’ll never escape! We’ve got you now!” Cried Zak as he starts pulling back on Charlie’s ankle, grasping his calf with his other hand. Charlie kicks out, wrenching his shoulders to the side and moving onto his back, vaulting his feet into Zak’s face. The nasty crack that followed confirms a newly broken jaw. Charlie flips back around and starts to get to his feet, only five inches from the skull. “I’m so close.”

“I’m so close! Please!” He pleads with the men, looking into the faces in brief intervals before lowering his eyes. The men exchange glances, slowing their gate to allow the man time. They are almost to the end of the hallway, the door leading to a certain future.

“That ain’t meant for you, dirt.” Another of Zak’s gang snarls as he steps over the whimpering Zak to stomp on Charlie’s outreached hand. He shrieks aloud as a bone crunches and jabs a wild finger into the back of the goon’s knee, pinching at the tendon found there. The man cries out and falls to the side, allowing Charlie to crawl forward some more.

“Not time! It’s not time! Hope!” He begs as they keep walking, almost at a snail’s pace. The man on the left sighs and shakes his head.

“You had two years to come to terms.” But he had already lowered his eyes. The door opened before them.

The air seemed to freeze. There, right there, was the gleaming skull made of mined emerald, nearly two thousand years old. With it, he could feed the world, finance a new empire, do whatever he wished. His fingernails, broken and bloodied, scratch the dust on the surface, not quite touching. Charlie puffs out his chest and bends his spine outward as he leans up, feeling the movement of more enemies behind him. It doesn’t matter, for his fingers—

The book is taken gently from his hands; gently but quickly. He gapes at his empty hands, his arms breathing relief at the ending of their constant tension from holding the book. His legs no longer scream now that they have finally gotten to move after months, years of not being used. The sweat now staining his collar and pants turns colder.

“No! No I was so close. I had time!” He yells wildly. The two men on either side of the distraught one guide him forward anyway, the one on the right handing the heavy book to another man standing beside the door.

The air is sweet and crisp, so unlike the air of the catacombs. Was this now the topside? Had he actually touched the skull without realizing it? Were these men his brethren, leading him to his family? His new world? To freedom.

The two guards saw what the middle man would not. The gallows stood ominously against the bright background. No crowds stood around it, modern times calling for some privacy. They lead the man up the steps.

“State your name.” A man standing by the lever asks sternly, holding a clipboard and a pen. The man in the middle looks around with wonder, his eyes roving wordlessly through the trees and the bees, the flowers and the sound of trickling streams far away.

“Charlie” He responds absentmindedly. The guards on either side shake their heads.

“His name is Jared.” The one on the left corrects. Jared doesn’t respond, still lost.

Yes, they were recording his name. Taking it down for the books of history. Here now was his future. He had reached the skull. He had to have. For where was he now? That Jared they spoke of only lived during the night, when Charlie went to sleep and had terrible nightmares of murder and thievery. Where the world wasn’t full of mystery and adventure. Only cruel reality and hatred. Yes, he must have touched the skull, for he was Charlie.

“Jared, you stand here today for execution for crimes of murder and theft. Proven guilty by the court of law of this town, do you agree?” Jared does not respond, mumbling to himself and wondering why they talked to the man of Charlie’s nightmares and not Charlie himself.

“He does” The guard on the right finally tells the man with the clipboard. He writes it down hesitantly before stepping back to let the trio step forward. The noose is fitted around Jared’s neck, and his entire body seems to freeze. His eyes widen and his sweat turns cold again.

“Wait! This is daytime. I’m not in my dreams. You have the wrong man.” He starts to babble. The guard on the right raises his arm, pulling the sleeve down and glancing between the watch on his wrist to the agonized face of the doomed man.

“Five minutes to two-thirty p.m.” He announces.

“No! No I’m Charlie! Not Jared! I’m not Jared!” Jared screams, starting to struggle. His hands are already bound, his legs trembling on the trapdoor below him. The robe is thick and rough against his neck.

The guard from the left stands in front of him, gently locking eyes with the man. “Charlie is a book character. You are Jared. I’m sorry.” Jared closes his eyes as a single tear leaks out.

“Please, please let me be Charlie. I’m both. You can’t condemn both.” The lever begins to be pulled.

“We didn’t. You did.” The guard moves away as the trapdoor gives.

Charlie and Jared are gone.

“Two-Thirty p.m.!” Is the final time.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Closing Note:

As a potterhead and as a book-lover in general, I have read the deaths of thousands of characters. Ones that I’ve loved and ones that I’ve hated. And I wrote this, killing off my own main character who I loved, though I knew him for so little a time, to help me come to terms with the death of a character.

Why is it that the death of a character bothers us all so much?

The pang that hits straight to our hearts.

The tears that burn at the corners of our eyes.

The slight tremble of our shoulders and the ache of our temples as the excitement, dread, agony, and revelation press down on us as we read the words that end a character’s life.

Why do we read these things? Why do we let them affect us so? Why do the authors let them die? They plan for it and then carry it out, but why?

And I realized that what Libba Bray once said was true.

“Because.”

We read to get that taste. When we read, we live with those characters. We are their Siamese twins, their fortune tellers, the ones who walk beside them always. And they beside us.

We live their lives, say their words, and in those moments we find; no matter what kind of life that we’ve had, that that character’s life is better. We get to live as them for a few precious seconds. And then it is gone. When that character dies, we must face the fact that that small journey has ended and it becomes an addiction. That’s why we keep opening those books and turning those pages. To keep living those few precious seconds. Dying a thousand times only to live a thousand more.

Why?

Because.

--This story was also written for the purpose of a writing contest I am currently participating in. I thank the contest runner greatly for the opportunity to participate and also for passing me on to the next round. Your prompts are leading me down paths I’ve never dreamed of traveling. Thank you.