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The rope is new, but not as good as previously-used would be: not as thick, not as strong, not worn smooth by months or years of soaking and drying and being pulled through tackle. It doesn't matter. He won't need it for long.
Finding the right branch on the right tree takes longer than finding the rope in the market had, even with the rush of pre-Shabbat shoppers. For this, he has no useful experience to guide him. It takes time, time during which he remembers the past months of learning and belonging, time during which he tries not to think of the coming hours of humiliation and execution. It doesn't matter. He's in no danger of losing his resolve.
It's not tied the way the Romans would; but then he wouldn't want it to be. He improvised. It looks a little like sailors' knots, which stirs more memories, but there's no urge to dawdle, reminiscing. He reaches up, grips the bough; hoists himself level with it, arm muscles straining and protesting; and slips his chin into the loop.
The drop is swifter than he'd expected. Instantly, it seems, the bit of slack above him is taut and twisting as he kicks, and the rope has slammed into his throat as solid and vicious as the thrust of a spear-butt — but it isn't over. He's swinging and twitching and his hands are clawing at the twined hemp and he's still alive.
After what feels like an endless moment of pain and panic his body remembers to try to breathe, and it's a new agony: it feels like things are broken in his throat, and the very air burns all the way into his lungs and out again. He's gasping, each breath too slow to soothe his hysteria, too shallow not to be followed by another. A swallow is thwarted halfway into its motion by the rope's strangling hold, and he chokes and gags, new torments. If he could get enough air he'd be coughing, so it's an ironic mercy that he can't. His mouth gapes open, and he feels like a fish when the nets are pulled into the boat.
With each kicking spasm of his legs, the cord tautens, and for an instant after he makes that connection, he tries to still them; then he's flailing with renewed vigor, half-wishing he'd set the knots closer to the tree's trunk so he could kick off for leverage. Every imperfectly-woven twist — every snapped-off fiber of the rope — cuts at his neck, biting like thorns. His own fingernails are digging into his flesh, trying to burrow under the noose. He can feel strength bleeding out of him, feel his legs moving more sluggishly each time he kicks, feel his arms growing heavier with every breath that tears free of his throat. Better to fight for death, though, than hang limply waiting for it.
Wetness slicks his fingers, and he tries to lift one to look but all he sees are black blots that pulse larger and darker with every beat of his traitor heart, and an impression of the glowering overcast sky at the edges of his vision. Lifting the finger to his mouth instead takes what seems all of his remaining strength; he tastes blood.
He's swinging more from momentum now than from the increasingly-stunted movements of his legs. They keep moving, though; he can feel them twitching, and thinks of doves at the temple when burnt offerings are made. It would almost be more effort to stop his legs' motion entirely, anyway. They ache whether they're moving or not, both from exertion and with stabbing prickles like when he's sat too long in one position. His arms are tingling painfully, as well, nettles under the skin. The flesh-crawling sensation climbs steadily up from his hands and feet, though, instead of subsiding when he tries to shake them and only barely succeeds.
His vision is a void, now, without color or light or even darkness, just... nothing, as it must have been before the world was made.
Another sound, and perhaps it's only the madness of the threshold of death whispering through the latch, but it sounds like footsteps approaching along the brick-hard clay path. He raises one arm, feeling weaker than a newborn babe, yet somehow more capable than just moments before; he's unsure himself whether the gesture is warning or beseeching. The footfalls stop.
"Hetairos," says his imagined visitor; and oh, it sounds like him, it sounds like his companion in this torture of slow death he's brought on them both. It can't be, it cannot be... and yet he can't help his cracked lips from forming "Rabboni," the title he'd long felt in his heart but never could bring himself to voice until now, when his voice has already expired.
The voice comes again, saying "Oh, my dear brother," and then his name. He knows it can't be real, and that he's even more despicable for thinking the one he betrayed could ever speak to him with compassion or forgiveness now. Tears well again, anyway, hope a brighter agony even than the renewed burn of salt in his eyes.
A finger traces one of the tear-tracks on his cheek, then, and his eyelids — and he can see.