I walked barefoot. The ground beneath my feet was scratchy and pebbly, making every step ache with new blossoming pain. My head; down, my hair falling past my knees, obscuring my vision.I felt choked, the world around me closing in- closer closer, squeezing me in its grip.

  I stumbled, nearly fell- a foot, ragged with a dirty cloth encased around it had tripped me.

  “Death to the sinner!”

  A pain, searing, scorched my brain- the piercing high pitched sound- it was so painful, it was everywhere. A crowd, roaring, screeching insults, loud- louder! I could not bear it anymore! Tears, warm, flowed down my dried face- I felt like a squeezed lemon, shriveled, dead.

  For certain- dead at least was what I was soon to be, and no one to attend my funeral.

  I was a sinner, I had killed a high standing noble- a duke, in cold blood. There was solid proof, clear evidence, and the court judged me guilty- I was sentenced to death. Yet I was no sinner, I was not guilty, I had committed no crime. I was framed, by the one closest to me, my best ever friend, and now, I was to die by the blade of the guillotine.

  “Walk faster you wench! Have you no shame? We all wish to see your death, quit your stalling, your life is forfeit by your own hand!”

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  A hand roughly pushed me forward from behind, and now I fell, sprawling across the dirty ground, my teeth pushed hard into my lips. I tasted blood, and as I looked, I saw it dripping from my mouth, staining the ground below me a sickly red. I was then grabbed, and raised, by the scruff of my neck, and steadied, standing, before being dragged by the chains binding my wrists, dragged forward, and I nearly fell again.

  Laughter, manic and gleeful, resounded around me. I felt their gazes, the gazes of the commoners, scorning, hating, despising my every dragged step.

  The two guards in front of me, covered in armor from head to toe, never looked back and never said a word, merely dragging me forward, onward towards my death. The two behind me, less adorned, shouted and yelled, pushing and maiming me for every missed step. I felt pain all over, a dull thumping in my head, my consciousness waning, would I fall asleep?

  Another push, a harsh shove, I fell sprawling again. Would this eternal pain never end? Would this cycle just continue, onwards and onwards and onwards forever? I feared the blade would never reach my neck.

  But then, there I was, on the platform, my head placed between two wooden planks, sealed shut, I could not move, I could not escape. My head wouldn’t move, no matter how hard I strained, yet I knew the blade stood high above me, ready to fall. I felt a tingling sensation on my neck, and I believe I almost felt it, the sharpness of the blade far above me.

  “Drop it” a deep, familiar voice uttered dispassionately.

  ‘Hein’ I thought, and then I heard a loud snap, then a crack, and I felt no more.