how you look at it.”
“Suicide?”
The room brightened just a little, and I caught a glimpse of one of the figures chained against the wall. That prisoner looked an awful lot like me. The light brightened a little more and I realized that all of them looked just like me.
“Welcome to the Hall of Cain.”
“Cain?” I felt deeply apprehensive. I couldn’t help wondering if the hall’s namesake would make an appearance like Barabbas and the Crucified Thief. Somehow, I imagined the world’s first murderer to be a frightening character.
There was no mystery about what I was supposed to do here on the killing floor. This was a place of death. The sledgehammer was an instrument of death. And the fine pink mist that covered the walls like a Rorschach collage was a testimony on death, written by those who had experienced it. My role here was executioner.
Although the men chained up like criminals awaiting the firing squad looked like me in nearly every respect, there were subtle differences. Each of them embodied something in me that I needed to change.
The first one I approached glared at me with hatred in his eyes. I had been this man once, casting a judgmental eye upon everyone except myself.
“Kill him, and never see him again.”
“I don’t know if I can.” I took a deep breath.
“Just remember the things I’ve told you before. Use them to put this into perspective.”
I sighed and stared into the eyes of a man who could have been my twin. “This is just symbolic. Everything I do here is an exercise in changing the state of my heart. This is little more than excising a cancer.”
“You’re getting it. It seems you’re finally starting to learn.”
“I must die daily.”
“You must,” Connie said. “And here’s your chance.”
“You’re weak!” The doppelganger spat the words at me. “You’re pitiful! You always have been and you always will be. All you think about and care about is yourself. You think you‘re better than most people. You‘re wrong!”
I picked up the sledgehammer, goaded on by my double’s spiteful words. I saw a glint of fear in his eyes.
“Connie?” I said, keeping my eyes firmly trained on the prisoner.
“Yes?”
“You mentioned something about killing these men to save my family. If I bash this guy’s skull in, will it keep Darrell Gene Rankin at bay until I can figure a way out of here?”
“Every step toward your rebirth puts you one step closer to freedom. Asterion delights in games and has set up these little stipulations for success to make the maze more interesting to him and to give you reason to persevere.”
“So the answer is yes.”
“I would pick up that hammer.”
My double realized that I was a lot stronger than he had given me credit for. “You can’t kill me!” There was a note of pleading in his voice. “I’m you. You’re me. We’re both part of the same thing. Killing me would be like cutting off your own hand.”
I froze, remembering that room with all the excised organs floating around in formaldehyde. I remembered the empty jars with my name on them.
“If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.” I grunted as I struggled with the weight of the sledge.
It only took one swing from the twenty-pound hammer to kill the hatred inside me. The mirror image of me that was chained to the wall fell like one of the angels cast out of Heaven. The moment the deed was done, it felt like the hand that had been squeezing my heart relaxed a little. It also felt like the top of my head was going to explode.
I screamed and dropped the sledgehammer, clutching both sides of my skull. Thin trickles of blood ran from both ears and from the corners of my eyes.
“Connie?”
“Change sometimes involves pain, Jamie. It hurts to think about the people we used to be. But this pain won‘t kill you.”
“Let me guess.” I gasped through the pain. “It will only make me stronger.”
“Exactly.”
Once the screaming white-hot needles of agony dulled, I struggled to my feet and moved down the line to the next version of me that needed to be vanquished. Although the weight of the sledgehammer hadn’t changed, it felt lighter in my hands somehow.
“Well aren’t you Mr. High-and-Mighty all of a sudden?”
The arrogance inside me spoke, using the lips of the next clone in line.
“You think you’re so good now, don’t you? All it takes is a little conviction and suddenly you’re Mother Teresa.”
Ignoring the prospect of pain,