I found my humanity in the barrel of a revolver. 1/6. My mind did the necessary mental gymnastics and arrived at a 16.67% chance of my life coming to an end.

My finger flirted with the trigger as a flood of memories swept across my mind. The butterflies my first day of elementary school. The day I discovered Rocky Road ice cream. My first awkward kiss. I don’t know what hurt worse, the rejection or the tooth she chipped by turning away so suddenly.

“Do it already!” Ryan exclaimed.

Click.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until Ryan greedily snatched the revolver from my shaking hands. “Didn’t think you had it in ya, Rudy,” he said, handing the gun to Sam. “How ’bout you, Sammie? Do you have what it takes to become a Zealot?”

“Don’t call me Sammie,” Sam said testily. “That’s what they call me.” He squeezed the trigger. Click.

“Now that you’ve proven yourselves,” Ryan said, “we get our revenge. If we do this right, they’ll never see it coming.”

I realized now I could never let that happen.