The fire had finally died.
What remained in the pit was no longer a blaze but a smoldering grave. The flames had eaten everything they could, leaving only curling smoke and the grotesque remnants of what once were men.
Some had been burned so completely that only ash remained, nothing but dark stains scattered across the charred earth. Others were half-consumed, their twisted bodies frozen in their last desperate struggles.
A blackened hand reaching upward, fingers curled as if pleading for someone, anyone, to drag them out. A face half-burnt away, mouth locked wide in a scream that would never end.
The pit had become a gallery of horror, a grotesque canvas of justice and vengeance.
Around the rim of the pit, the crowd began to quiet.
The roar of voices and chants, the wailing and sobbing, dulled into softer sounds. Many had collapsed to their knees, overcome with emotion, their tears pouring freely as they buried their faces into the shoulders of loved ones.
