I was ready for it. I would not speak. I clenched my jaws and held my eyes tightly closed, trying to clear my mind and think, but there was nothing to do. I was bound and blind and there were at least ten people around me. I knew the mechanics of death better than anyone, and I was caught in the gears. This was the System, after all; a day hadn't gone by that I couldn't remember death there with me, just walking along .... 'Give me his neck,' the voice said. A new set of hands - hard, cold hands encased in creaking leather gloves - took me by the hair and chin and bent my head painfully to the left. There was an endless moment of silence as I knelt there, held in place by two pairs of strong hands, thinking 'do it, do it, just fucking do it'. Something stabbed into my neck like a fragment of glass being dragged along my jugular, a pain that went on and on.