Citadel of the Green Death

"Citadel of the Green Death" by Robert Emmett McDowell is a science fiction story about a man named Joel Hakkyt, who is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He must decide if he would rather be a slave on the far-off planet of Asgard or face a gruesome death back on Earth. The story shows Joel in a scary justice system, struggling because his family doesn't support him. He also struggles with who he is and a bad feeling about what's going to happen to him. At the start of the story, Joel is being accused of wrongdoing. His family doesn't support him, and a doctor decides he needs to go to a special facility. As if that isn't enough to deal with, he starts experiencing strange occurrences. He sees an alien guard and gets quick glimpses of a weird world full of lawbreakers and a futuristic society that sees him as unimportant. All this creates a really tense and interesting situation and starts to suggest that there are complicated relationships and disturbing truths about who Joel is and the world he now lives in, pushing him towards a risky alien world.