Josh awoke from his fitful sleep, back still cold from the stones upon which he lay.
A sharp chill was in the air. Josh knew from the dull gray light there would be no sun today.
Or if there was, he wouldn't see it. He shed a single tear at the thought. He knew he was going to die, but he hoped to see the sun.
He was at the end of a long journey, filled with peril and suffering, and which had met with complete and total failure. He had risked his life and lost it.
The cause for which he had done so had turned out to be just as terrible as the organization he opposed. Now, as he sat in this dingy cell, awaiting execution (which was in just a few minutes), he reflected on all he was going to miss. His family, friends, everything. It hurt him to know he would never see them again, but it hurt him more to know how much they would suffer at never knowing his fate. To them, he would simply disappear, and the pain of loss would be extended for years and years.

 Desperately, he had wanted to see the sun rise on his death. The thought had given him a small hope that some good
might come of this. An omen, that's what he was really looking for. So far, he couldn't see even a glimmer of the sun through the smog-choked clouds. As he heard the footsteps in the hall, the realization finally hit home that there was nothing he could hope for, that he was powerless to change anything, and that his life and death would truly mean nothing. He was like a flower about to be crushed by a tank, unable to even signal to anyone that he was ever there to begin with. It was in that realization that he decided he was going to make this as difficult for them as possible. Josh knew he couldn't possibly escape, but he had absolutely nothing to lose. He was going to try and take someone down with him, that at least then he might be remembered for something.

 The guard approached the cell door, and Josh walked up to the door and put his hands through the bars, so that the guard could slip on the cuffs. This guard was young, little more than a boy, really. He had also been as nice to Josh as these guards are allowed to be. Josh didn't want to hurt him, but if he was going to make a stand, it would mean hurting potential innocents. This went against everything he believed in, everything he had fought for. However, he was pushed to the brink of sanity by his impending doom, and it was exactly that kind of pacifist idealogy that was responsible for his fate. His mind had simply snapped. The guard had shouldered his rifle to to cuff him, and when the guard leaned over to put the cuffs on, Josh moved faster then he ever had before, grabbing the guard's collar, and smashing the guard's face into the bars as he could. It made a lot of noise. The guard fell to the floor, dizzy and spitting out blood. There were three teeth on the floor. Josh reached through the bars, grabbing for the keyring. The guard wasn't yet aware of his surroundings, and offered no resistance. Josh got the keyring off the guard' s belt, and slipped the key into the lock. The clang of the bars sliding open brought the guard back to his senses. He would die if Josh escaped, so now one of them had to die immediately. Josh saw the guard picking the rifle up of the floor as he came out of the cell. He drove his bare foot into the guards face, stomping him back into the floor. Josh felt the nose of the guard squish under his heel, and shuddered as the guard screamed. Still, he was beyond pity at this point. He snatched up the  rifle and ran down the hall.

 As he rounded the corner he ran into three guards, rifles out. He pivoted on his heel, pulling himself around the corner as a blaze of gunfire erupted in the hall. Some of the bullets struck the stone walls, sending shards of stone flying. Josh knew as he knelt behind the corner that he had been shot in the back. It felt like he had been shot in a dozen places, but only one of the bullets had hit him. The rest was shrapnel, which had shredded his shoulder. Strangely, he went numb, getting a rush that made him feel invincible. In reality, many of the nerve endings in his wounds had simply been severed, and would be excruciatingly painful if he lived long enough for them to heal. He held the gun in his good arm, moving it around the corner and firing blindly into the guards. He heard at least one of them scream. One other had returned fire. He risked a quick glance, confirming that one of the guards was down. One guard was trying to pull him away, while the other covered their position. He pulled his head away just as another volley of fire came from the last guard. He was about to fire again, when he felt a strange, hot pressure on his ribs. He looked down to see a knife sticking in between two of his ribs on his right side. It couldn't had pierced his heart, but as he inhaled in shock a sharp pain confirmed his lung was punctured. His eyes followed the knife to a hand, and up an arm to the severely disfigured face of of the young guard. The guard was bleeding and dizzy, failing to realize he slipped the dagger into the other side of Josh's ribs, to kill him instantly. The wound was still a fatal one, but it gave Josh time for a final act. He swung his arm around, pushing the barrel of the rifle into the guards torso, and fired several rounds. In an instant, the guards eyes glazed over, his heart having been shredded. Josh felt a feeling he never had before: righteous vindication.

 Josh collapsed to the floor, to weak to move, and waited for more guards to shoot him to death. His blood pooled on the floor, mixing with the blood of the guard. Josh heard a voice around the corner yelling, and instantly recognized the General. The General had interrogated him, tortured him, and ultimately sentenced him to death. Although it felt like the execution order was long ago, it had only been yesterday. The weight of the situation was skewing Josh's sense of time. The next thing he heard was the translator.

"Throw down your gun now!" The translator demanded.
"Just come in and finish the job!" Josh replied. He knew he would die in a minute or two. He had no reason to fear them.

 A document hit the floor beside him. He thought for a second a grenade had been thrown, and had tried to duck down behind the dead guard. This ripped something in his chest, as the dagger was still buried in his ribs. The wound began to flow a lot more freely, and Josh got dizzy. He was going to bleed out, right now. He tried to swing the rifle around the corner to fire at the General, taking him down as he died. That would have actually made a difference for his cause, but again he was denied the opportunity to make a difference. The gun had become to heavy for him now, and it simply clattered to the floor as he fell face first into the open hallway, widely exposed. They could easily kill him now. He closed his eyes and waited for the order to fire.

 Strangely, nothing happened. Josh opened his eyes to see they were actually just taking the gun from him, instead of shooting him. His eyes fell to the document they had thrown. Extradition orders: He was being transferred back to his own country. He was being sent home. The execution had been aborted. They were just coming to ship him back to his family. As the guards rolled him onto his back and tried to pull the dagger out of him, he let out a scream of pain and frustration. At least, he tried to scream. His lung had filled with blood, and a gurgled rasp was his final cry to the world. HIs last though before succumbing to the darkness was that, in typical fashion for him, his strongest efforts to make a change succeeded only in thwarting himself. 

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