Hangdemon

All fourteen of us were assigned a number; a lucky draw that didn't come with much luck, because whoever got the highest number would die first. None of us knew that. We were sitting at a table and feasting. By our elbows lay cards with numbers on them. Nobody cared to discuss what they were for. Then someone approached the one with the highest number and divulged the truth and soon we saw that person no more. And in a matter of minutes, all of us were sent to death but I couldn't remember how I died. I just knew that when it was over, I saw everyone again as though nothing had ever happened. We laughed it off and drank and chatted. Then the cards came again and this time I had the highest number.

I heard that death may not be easy this time round, that they changed the way they killed us every time. I remained at the table with the feast, until someone came to fetch me. I followed that person, whose face I couldn't remember, on a small road towards a large, empty area encased by wire fences. People scattered about with their children and checked out whatever lay within, as though they were in a zoo. As I and my unknown companion approached the fence, I could see that the area wasn't in fact empty; it was deep and long, like a moat, and contained stagnant, dark water.

My companion instructed me to climb upon a ledge where sat a sort of demon—a puck. It tied a noose around my neck and put a canvas bag on my head, but before the bag covered my eyes entirely I could see down in the swamp a pack of crocodiles with their noses out of the water and their teeth wanting. Then I was pushed off the ledge, and I fell and fell and I wondered what it would feel like when my spine finally snapped, and whether I would end up high enough so the crocodiles couldn't reach my corpse. Then my eyes opened and I was out of the dream and my heart was pounding.