There is no peace in the world of sanctioned murder. The Ministry of Death had rendered that truth into a cold certainty, one that I, an unremarkable man, had come to accept with trembling resignation. The line I waited in was long, stretching beyond the dim, flickering lights of the corridor and into the distance where shadows pooled like ink. Each soul in line had a unique burden to bear—an intent to kill, legally filed, accepted, and, in the cases of some, anticipated with both dread and dark satisfaction.
I was one of the many. And yet, in that moment, I felt a chill unlike any I had before. The stranger ahead of me—his broad back cloaked in a threadbare coat, his features hidden by a low, wide-brimmed hat—stepped forward to the counter. The gray-haired official behind the glass window peered up through thick spectacles. There was a pause before the man spoke.
“Name of target?” the official asked in a voice drained of all emotion.
The stranger’s answer struck me like a thunderclap, reverberating through the hollow of my chest: “James Ferrick.”
I froze, a cold sweat prickling my spine. James Ferrick—that was my name, my very identity. I swallowed hard, but the air in the room seemed to thicken, to congeal into something unbearable. A year from now, I would be dead.
The official nodded mechanically, typing the name into the register. His fingers moved with eerie precision, unfazed by the horrific revelation. I watched as he stamped the approval in a book that was full of such names—names of the dead to be, victims preordained by the ministry’s bureaucracy. With a cold smile that betrayed no true humanity, the official handed the stranger a slip of paper that would authorize the killing.
I staggered back in shock, my knees threatening to give way beneath me. The stranger had finished his transaction and turned to leave, his dark eyes meeting mine for a moment. The flicker of recognition in those eyes—an acknowledgment of the fate already sealed—sent a ripple of icy dread through me.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. All I could hear was the slow, steady thrum of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. And in that moment, the truth became a solid mass in my throat: My life was now measured in days, weeks, and months—a year to be exact.
A year passed in the blink of an eye.
I kept my distance, I kept my life as mundane as possible, but still, I was haunted. The stranger had haunted me too. That name echoed in my head every day since the ministry granted him permission. But then something twisted the plot. I received a call from a cleaning service, one that I had been employed by in the past for occasional odd jobs. This one was different. It was urgent, requiring the participation of my team, specifically for the removal of junk—an infestation of malicious entities that, in certain urban areas, preyed upon the living. A week’s work, they said. Three days of grueling labor.
The location: the very house of the stranger who had filed my death warrant.
I arrived at the house with a crew of three, all of us suitably trained for the bizarre work we were to undertake. The house itself was a peculiar one, an old Victorian mansion in desperate need of repairs. The front door was ajar as if it had been waiting for us. We entered with little ceremony.
There, standing in the dim hallway, was the man who had condemned me to death. The stranger was no longer quite the figure he had been—a shadow. He was… human. He offered a small, polite smile as we entered. We exchanged pleasantries; the initial discomfort faded in the dull monotony of our work.
Over the course of three days, I learned things I hadn’t expected to know—things I hadn’t wanted to know. He wasn’t a monster. He was not a killer by nature. He had a quiet gentleness about him, an air of someone who had merely made a grave mistake. His life, he confessed, had been one of regret, one of lost opportunities, and an unrelenting spiral into an unforgiving existence. He spoke of the death he had sanctioned not as an act of passion, but of necessity. He was an anxious man, deeply sorrowful for what he had done, even as he prepared himself to fulfill his grim duty.
He laughed once, a bitter sound that bounced off the walls. “Funny, isn’t it?” he mused, staring at a patch of peeling wallpaper. “The Ministry lets you decide who dies, but it doesn’t let you choose how you live with it. I’m just trying to live with it. That’s all.”
By the final day of the job, we were no longer strangers. He had, without intending to, become a man I could sympathize with.
But that final day was looming.
When the work was done, when the house was cleared of its infestation, the man handed me a glass of whiskey, the amber liquid swirling in the fragile light. He sat across from me, his eyes weary.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said softly, his voice almost an apology. “You’re wondering whether or not to kill me.”
I nodded, the weight of my own guilt pressing against me. My heart thudded in my chest.
“The thing is,” he continued, “I know what I’ve done, and I know what’s coming. But I can’t make it easier for you. That’s not the kind of man I am. I’ve signed my own fate. What about you?”
It was then that I realized what he was offering: a choice—the choice. He knew, as I did, that if I killed him now, I would escape my own death. I would survive, but it would cost me everything else—my soul, my morality, and my future. If I didn’t kill him, then I would fulfill the death sentence the Ministry had issued. My fate would be sealed, my life extinguished within the span of a year. But I would die with my integrity intact.
There was no easy answer. There was no clear decision.
I stood up, the glass in my hand trembling. I looked out the window, the sunset casting long shadows across the earth. He watched me, his face unreadable.
I had a choice. But it was no longer the choice I had once imagined. It wasn’t as simple as life or death.
There were only consequences. And they were mine to bear.
The question lingered in the air between us—one that would never be answered. Would I kill him? Or would I die by his hand?
The answer would come, but not yet. And perhaps not at all.
