Had there not been a hand tugging on my sleeve, guiding me up those stairs, I would've surely fallen off the side. I couldn't see anything when I entered the room—nobody in a position like mine could.

The guards had pulled a black cloth over my head, with only tiny holes punched in with knives to allow me some air. They tied a rope around my neck, just tightly enough, and connected it to the cuffs which kept my hands firmly stuck to my back. If I struggled with the cuffs, I choked myself.

I knew I wasn't the only one.

The room they took us into must've been big, almost vast, like the inside of a cathedral, because the captain's voice carried an echo when he spoke. "Now," he said when he had all of us gathered on the platform, "the current time is five minutes to eight. When the clock strikes eight—and we'll know when it does—we'll start the process." He sounded like he was reading off of a script, so palpable was his sense of dispassion. "For six hours, between eight o'clock and two in the afternoon, you'll be staying here. Assuming you're still alive when the clock strikes two, you'll be free to go. No more solitary, no more prison time of any kind being mandated. You'll be free to go as soon as you're able. If you're still alive."

A guy next to me tried to say something, but it was hard to make out his words. He must've been covered up like me.

Then I felt the coarse texture of a rope being wrapped around my neck, pressing up against my jaw in a way that made me immediately uncomfortable. And to think, I was supposed to suffer through it for six hours. Someone who probably wasn't me—for now I'm not entirely sure if I remember making sounds or not—whimpered, like a dog, but he didn't seem to be crying at least.

"Gentlemen," the captain continued, "I don't have much more to say to you, except that if you die within the next six hours, your death will be ruled an execution by hanging. It will be as if the prison saw to the conclusion of your death row sentence. Now, if you'll excuse me..."

I heard footsteps, and then a heavy metallic door closed shut.

I could only see thin rays of light coming from the ceiling, and occasionally I thought I caught a glimpse of a guard's figure pacing back and forth. I didn't know how many men were on the platform with me, and I still don't.

Standing upright for six hours was not the hard part. After all, most of us were used to working on our feet through the morning and much of the afternoon. Either that, or we were stuck walking about like zombies in our cells, cushioned to make sure we didn't injure ourselves.

No...

I realized soon enough that in spite of the chillness of the air, the extremely narrow space between my face and the sack over my head had begun to grow irritable with heat. Was I breathing too much? Too rapidly? I don't know. I don't know when I showed the first signs of panic, but my cheeks and forehead began to sweat, and I wondered if the plan was to make me collapse from dehydration, strangling myself with my own noose.

"Something—" I remember saying to myself. What did I want? I tried to move around, as little as I could, but as I'd said before, movement only tightens the rope which connected my neck to my cuffs, not even counting the noose.

Time moved strangely, as I'd had no concept of how many minutes were passing. No clock, no windows to be seen, no way of knowing when the hour of my release came. The other men with me didn't fair any better, but for a while it seemed like we were going to do fine.

Until... the trap door...

Something broke, or snapped, and someone must've had the door beneath his feet slide out, and he fell. He fell until he came to a sudden stop. Because a noose is not supposed to strangle—it's supposed to disconnect.

How many hours until the next body fell? How many necks snapped? How many would by the end?

When would it end?

I don't know.

I still don't know. 

I can still feel the rope around my neck.

How long have I been—