short story

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Hi, I wrote this and just wanted to share it and see what people thought. The second hand seemed to be moving unusually slow. Each time I glanced up at the clock it seemed not to have moved. I suppose this was a good thing. As the minute hand moved ever closer to the twelve I was watching my life tick away before my eyes. No one had come to visit me in my final hours. Well, a priest had come, but he didn't have much of a choice. They made him come and try and comfort me in my last hours. My family had disowned me, and I didn't blame them. If my sister had done what I had, I wouldn't want to see her again either. In the time that I had spent here only two others had come to see me: two visitors in three years. The first was my layer, but he wasn't much use. I pleaded guilty and there was nothing more he could do about it. My other visitor was most unexpected. My father's bother came to see me, and I think he was the only one at my execution, apart from the guards of course. But my uncle sympathised with me about my crime. In fact, he was the reason I didn't kill myself in my cell. He came and saw me last week, just after my punishment had been decided. Death, it would be, revenge from the others. Vengeance from the grave. I didn't blame them; I knew it was what I deserved. An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; a life for a life. That was the natural order. That was just the way it went. Not surprisingly, I didn't feel afraid of my death looming before me. I had faced hopelessness and the deep seemingly infinite darkness of despair so many times before. But there was a light that had shined though it all: he was gone and I was in control. I can't remember if I even told my father's brother why I killed him. I guess he will never know. The minute hand had just reached the eleven; five more minutes to go. A guard has just entered my cell, cuffing my hands behind my back, telling me it is time to go. Go where? I wonder. Go to the Death Chamber, the room feared by all the inmates ... except me. That is where I will make my final escape. That is where I will finally be able to escape my life. The executioner takes a strange amount of care with his procedure. He is gengle and even rubs numbing cream into the place the needle will go. He is so kind to me even though I am about to die. I am lying on my Death bed, perfectly healthy in every way. But that injection will change everything. What is known as a device to save people's lives will kill me, but not destroy me. I am dying before they even administer the injection - or did I just not feel it? Everything goes blurry and my eyelids get heavy. I cannot keep my eyes open, so I am left in the darkness. I cannot hear anything, and any sense of smell has vanished. I know I am dying, and I notice that as my breathing slows I begin to feel fainter and fainter until ... I can see them, sombre and silent, taking my body from the Death Chamber. Suddenly I see someone I did not notice before my death. Crying silently, watching my body, I see my uncle. He whispers something that only my dead ears can hear: "I'm sorry for what he did, but now you're free." copyright amymelissa