Lying on the cold floor of my detention cell, the moonlight peeks through the window, illuminating my hair. Once scarlet, now it's nothing more than a few strands of white. Tears trickle down as I remember my mother's final wish,
"Live your life."
I was only ten years old, yearning for the warmth my mother gave before she was taken. Ripped from hands. As I lie withdrawn, my eyes dart to my sore feet. Blood seeps slowly from the torn flesh, little by little, pooling on the ground. The moon is slowly obscured by clouds. Darkness swallows my cell. The emptiness feels all too comfortable now. I trace the tear tracks on my face, then the burnt flesh on my body, remembering the pain of living.
"HEY!" a voice shouts, followed by the sound of the metal door opening.
I slowly turn my head, and notice a distorted person staring back at me. My vision is blurry from being tortured every day from however many days I've spent here.
"Here. Drink it," the guard snarls, his voice filled with animosity.
He tosses a small vial near me. I struggle to sit up, my whole body is sore, aching. I stare at the vial for a moment as death looms over me. I cautiously lift it to my mouth with my trembling hands. I tilt my head back and pour the drink into my mouth.
It's unpleasant.
I feel it burning my insides as it passes down— painful.
Poison– of course. Foolish to hope for otherwise.
The guard sneers. Though I can't see his face, I can feel his hatred for me. He shackles my hands and drags me to my execution stand.
"I will finally obtain peace in death," I mumble, struggling to move the muscles in my legs.
With each step I leave a trail of bloody footprints.
"What? Did you say something, vermin?" he tugs the shackles hard.
I stumble almost tripping over. I'm not sure when things started going downhill, but it would be a lie to say I had lived a good life. I spent most of my time in agony and the ones to inflict it are my so-called family.
Without my mother to protect me in her embrace, I was left to live in the cold, in the dark– away from the outside world. I was confined to my room half of the time. The other half, I spent in the library.
It was the only way for me to remember my mother. I would re-read the stories that she used to read to me. To feel nostalgia, to remember her soothing voice.
One day, I was forced to be engaged to a dreadful man because it was beneficial for my father's business. My fiancé was caught having an affair with my sister. My father–the ever so amazing and honorable–swept it all under the rug. Swiftly put an end to all the rumors. My ex-fiance and sister were betrothed.
I was nothing more than a tool to be used and discarded. It was anything but living– painful and awkward.
It's laughable how they used my name, my face, my silence– cliché. Every atrocity they committed had my name as the golden stamp of approval. They scrubbed their hands clean, with my blood. They made me a villain of war I had no hand in.I sat in my room unaware that I was already sacrificed.
They gave me a title I didn't even know till the day I was arrested.
They called me a "Butcher", the "Damned", "The Witch".
Lies fabricated and pinned on a body no one even knew. My "family" forged my name, my handwriting, on the orders that turned heads among even demons. Something so sinister.
As I'm being led to the guillotine, I can hear the audience cheering. It's almost as if a festival is taking place. We approach the execution stand, the guard hauls me, such force that I collapse to the ground. I keep a neutral expression on my face. I don't want to give them what they want.
I kneel and push my head through the guillotine. As a result of the poison, my cloudy vision progresses to blindness. I can taste iron in my mouth. Blood flows down my cheeks in place of tears. People casting hateful remarks.
They are ecstatic, as they are freed from the horror. But little do they know, they've walked into a trap, and shall suffer a fate of rats swollen with plague.
"Any last words?" The executioner asks.
I look in the direction of the seats where my supposed family would be.
With a soft sore throat and hatred that has been burning in my heart,
"I curse you all, you pigs," I utter with the strength left in me.
I close my eyes, waiting for the cold blade to touch my neck. A soft eluding whisper. It isn't from the crowd—something from within.
The sky wails with thunder, and the wind blows in a roar as a storm rages. The sound of the storm drowns the whisper. I didn't hear what it said properly.
SLING—
The blade falls.
A pointless death, a pointless life, many trials just to end here.