ONE BULLET- ONE DEATH

    She knelt in the snow and waited. Her hands bound behind her back, her ankles bound after she knelt; she waited. The snow was cold on her bare legs as was the north wind as it played over her nude body. She had come here to be executed and she knew that these were the last minutes of her life. A beautiful day, blue sky, bright sun, fresh clean snow ready to receive her lifeless body. A Chinese beauty she was, too young to be here, small firm breasts whose nipples were erect from the cold, narrow but shapely hips, slender legs, truly a mans dream. Caught in the web of a cunning boss who had included her in his schemes without her knowledge she had already watched as he paid the price for his actions. She waited for her turn to feel the rifle muzzle between  her shoulder blades. Noises behind her, the crunch of footsteps in the snow, a metallic snicker and a click warn her that it time. She has time to take a deep breath before she feels the cold metal touch her back. The breath is her last action.
    She hears the click of the firing pin as it strikes the primer of the round nestled in the chamber. The round fires and the bullet moves down the barrel. It makes the jump from the steel to the flesh of her body and begins it’s journey of destruction through her. Her backbone shatters and the spinal cord is blown apart. The blood vessels nested next to her spine are ripped open. The slug tears the right side of her heart open as the fragments of bone become deadly missiles that spray to the sides of the bullet’s path and each one cuts it’s own path through her lungs, heart, and the large blood vessels connecting them. The bullet and the bone fragments open a path for the hot expanding gasses to follow. Blasting down the narrow paths opened for it the gas washes through her flesh and  violently rips and tears until the narrow paths become huge gaping wounds. With her lungs pulped and her heart shattered she is already dead but it is not yet over. The copper and lead slug hit’s the back of her breastbone  and drills through to exit her body in a spray of blood, flesh, and bone. She feels the impact just as she sees the bullet impact the snowy hillside and throw up a fountain of white. She also sees the red spray of her blood as her body falls forward driven by the force of the shot. Her last breath is forced from her body and takes with it her life. The lifeless body lands in its own blood and bounces slightly before it lies there, still and already cooling in the snow.