Photo by Peter Gnas
SACRIFICE = choosing to give up something of import, or accept disadvantage, or pay personal cost, or otherwise surrender on behalf of or for the sake of something/someone else. Sacrifice often entails loss, but -- even though usually voluntarily given -- in such high amount or at such steep price that the cost is far more than the deprivation of loss.
LOSS = being deprived of or kept from something that one has had or wants. Loss typically entails deprivation, usually against one's choice or even will, and often includes failure or defeat or negligence.
WE WHO ARE ABOUT TO DIE is about sacrifice, not just loss. We're really looking for these submissions to dig a little deeper than losing an old girlfriend in battle or the chance of retiring a rich man, or, or a countless other losses experienced in dozens of other heroic adventure tales. And don't forget that: these are supposed to be heroic and fantastical adventures wherein the hero chooses to pay the cost -- no matter how steep up to, including, even beyond death. If our hero doesn't have much of a choice in the matter, where's the sacrifice? If our hero simply loses out on something he never had but has only ever fleeting held as a mirage of a dream (unlike obsessing over a goal which her entire life has been dedicated toward achieving), where' the sacrifice?
Here's some well-known ancient tales of heroic sacrifice to stir your creative muses: Biblical: Samson in the temple. Mythology: Hector vs Agamemnon. History: The 300. The Alamo. Drama: Seven Samurai.