Neck

The digital clock mounted on the wall of the single person cell steadily clicked the minutes away til the next hour. Prisoner 86 stared at it dully. Every hour, a radio signal would be broadcast across the facility, triggering the detonation of an explosive collar, randomly chosen.

It was a facility built to remove obstacles to the central authority, and so it would, as it had for decades prior to Prisoner 86's 11 years of existence.

The clock clicked from 59 seconds, to 60. Two more minutes until the next detonation.

Each cell had a floor to ceiling transparent perspex wall. Prisoner 86 looked at the cell next to him.

Its occupant, a tanned Southerner boy the same age as him had been the unlucky winner of the previous hour's broadcast draw. His body laid slumped back on the singular chair provided to each prisoner, shirt torn asunder at the collar. Above was a grisly stump of charred flesh and bone, strings of tissue and fat mixed with crusted rivers of semicoagulated blood. The head rested at the body's delicately curled feet, the young lad's face frozen, mouth open as if mid-yawn.

Prisoner 86 stared at the remains. Something about the deceased boy, only a few feet next to him, brought strange feelings, stirred something deep withing his young heart. Perhaps it was the feminine appearance of the poor unfortunate, with his long curly blonde locks, and soft pillowy lips, the smattering of freckles across the dead boy's pert little nose and the widened blue eyes staring off into space.

A minute remained.

Prisoner 86 looked down at his own feet, bare as they were. He thought about what death would feel like. What would come after his own collar detonated? His mouth was suddenly very dry, and his heart beat ever faster. Would this next minute be his last? He reached for the single water bottle provided to death row convicts and began to drink, gulping each mouthful down. He emptied the bottle and placed it back, his thirst whetted.

10 seconds left.
9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1.
*click*

The 5kg of plastic explosive shaped into a circle around Prisoner 86's slim neck exploded inwards, the massive shearing force ripping the 11 year old's head from his shoulders in an instant. To the boy, it was as if the world disappeared in a sudden blinding flash, followed by the sensation of falling into a deep and eternal pit.

His headless body slumped back into the chair, tremors reverberating through his pale torso as nerve endings fired off random signals. Blood sprayed from the trunk of the neck, and a dark stain spread across his sweatpants as his bladder emptied.

The clock ticked over to a new hour.