Executed for Sedition

We were under some sort of oppressive regime, in a place where either you were totally on the side of the government or they were going to find you and put you in a camp.  And I was in a basement where people were hiding out and trying to fight back.  I think technology played a big part in the conflict, and the government wanted it.  So these people were either trying to get a hold of the tech and spirit it away, or maybe advanced technology had been forbidden and now the underground was working to develop it in some manner.  Either way, there were a bunch of us -- I don't know how many -- trying to plot a way out of the country.

We heard a sound upstairs, like someone was coming in, and we got really scared.   But it turned out to be this woman, just a normal lady in a coat, no uniform.  She was very calm, trying to reassure us that everything was fine.  I remember being confused, because it still felt as though we were under an aggressive dictator at war.  Being an American, a comparison to Nazi Germany popped into my sleep-muddled head.  Right or wrong, we have stereotypical images of that place and era, and I knew my underground gang was in a country like that, which had also gone to war with its neighbors.  Then this woman tells us no, the war is between other people over there, across the water.  She says nothing is spreading, no tyrant has the people in his sights.  I wanted to believe her, but we were convinced that we were completely controlled.

One of my comrades in hiding told her he did not believe it, and it seemed like his words set off a trap.

The woman hadn't moved, hadn't changed her pleasant demeanor, but now a troop of soldiers were marching down the stairs.  They wore the dark uniforms of secret police or storm troopers.  The soldiers radiated heartless menace.  They stomped down into the basement and circled us.  One evil man led them.  We knew him as the dictator, like some Mussolini come himself to round us up.  The soldiers fanned out and one came up to me.  I closed my eyes as he put something metal -- it must have been a gun -- up against my neck.  I just wanted whatever was going to happen not to hurt.  It started to feel so warm on my neck just then, and I got so scared that I woke up.

What bothers me now is how I just closed my eyes and cowered like a rabbit.  I should have ducked, or kicked the guy, or fought somehow!  I knew the soldier was going to kill me, and all I did was hope it would be painless?  I wouldn't act like that in real life, would I?