This is for CommunityInteractive's "W5 Writing: The Flip Side" contest. It's very basic and not really how I wanted it to go, but I wanted to give it a shot :)

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"Choose," the figure before him ordered. Arvos had committed the unspeakable crime, and he had done so knowing the consequences of his actions. Now he knelt before the Grand Juror to receive his sentencing.

"Do you call to the water?" the Grand Juror asked, his black cloak sweeping against the rough stone, the fabric whispering into the bleak air. "An eternity of erosion? An erasure of your existence, one drop at a time?" The Grand Juror crouched and grasped Arvos' chin, staring into his eyes, and although Arvos stared back, he couldn't make eye contact. The Grand Juror didn't possess differentiation between the iris and the pupil; his eyes consisted purely of sclera and black spheres that knew no depth. "The water will strike your skin, sometimes caressing you, sometimes hammering down. Water is life. Water is sustenance. But water bows to no one. Delicate raindrops existed before humans dwelt on the earth, and powerful waves will crash against shores long after our bones have disintegrated and become assimilated into the dirt of disparate nations. Water is so essential to humanity that your sentencing will feel to you like the most base of betrayals."

The Grand Juror remained crouched before Arvos but retracted his hand, and Arvos' eyes caught on the image of burnt flesh before his wrist disappeared within his robe. "Or," the Grand Juror said, tilting his head, the infinite orbs of his eyes boring into Arvos until he felt small, just a mote of dust and no more. "Do you call to the fire? A moment of total consumption? A blackening of your body and soul, an instant wasting away?" He drew to a standing position, and as his cloak shifted, Arvos thought he saw something. Woven into the black fabric, the blackest threads, not sewn linearly but rather in an elegant, sweeping motion.

An endless list of names. For what purpose, Arvos did not know for certain, but he could take a dismal guess.

"The flames will devour your skin, sometimes in bites, sometimes in full swallows. Fire is rebirth. Fire is catharsis. But fire refuses to be tamed. From the wick of a candle to the gorging of entire forests, fire cannot be controlled or contained despite man's best attempts. Just as water has created life for humanity, so too has fire created survival and innovation that have become humanity's crutch. Fire is so necessary to humanity that your sentencing will feel to you like the end of civilization."

The Grand Juror turned to face Arvos. "What death will be your choice, Dissenter?"

Arvos considered the water, the fire. The question was merely the timeline. Would he prefer to die over many moons, or at once?

"How will you die?" the Grand Juror repeated.

Arvos looked up, rolling his shoulders back and feeling the manacles pinch at his wrists. "I will choose the fire, but I will not die. No one dies so long as their name lives on."

He wondered whether his future would exist as thread stitched in someone else's cloak, or if he would one day have a cloak full of others' names.

He closed his eyes, and he waited for judgement.