[ WP ] A man on the death row realizes his fault and experiences guilt , for the first time on the night before his execution .

It all seemed so simple. 
 
 I pull out my blade, stick it in the other guy's gut a few times. He dies, the cops come and take me. After an unnecessarily drawn-out trial, I receive the sentence of death from a jury of my peers, like they were my peers to begin with. I live on Death Row for a few months or years while my lawyer makes appeal after appeal trying to save my ass, but the ruling remains the same: Death by three-stage lethal injection. After feeding me whatever the hell I want, they take me out of my cell, strap me down to a gurney, ask if I have any last words ( “ Get a fucking move on! ” ), and then send me into oblivion by means of three little syringes. 
 
 It ai n't so simple anymore. 
 
 I do n't know why it did n't hit me then, when I had my knife in the guy's gut, blood flowing out of the wound. Why it did n't hit me when the jury laid down the death sentence. Why it did n't hit me for all those fucking months and years I was in this hellhole, locked up with only the guards and the killers and the rapists for company. Why it did n't crash down on me until just a few hours ago. 
 
 I fucking killed a man. 
 
 This was n't just some nobody off the street. He was someone with a family, with people to come home to. People fucking *cared* about him. He meant the world to somebody. 
 
 And I destroyed that somebody's world. 
 
 The chaplain has been telling me that God is infinitely forgiving, that even on the cross His own Son forgave His executioners for killing Him. But that was just a man; sure you can argue if he's God or not, but he was in the form of a man. 
 
 I killed the world in the form of a man. I am a destroyer of worlds. 
 
 There is no forgiveness for me.
