Awake

There was a ray of light shining from somewhere above him. He was lying on the dank, hard floor just out of reach from the light. Everything was silent, everything was still. He could tell it was nearing dawn. He could see the gray sky above him, slowly turning from black to blue. He stared upwards to the crack in the ceiling of the cave, the one place he couldn’t possibly reach. Unexpectedly, a dark figure blocked the light. He squinted in the darkness, trying but failing to make out a shape. If only he knew what it was he would have cried out for help, but he didn’t dare risk lure an unknown monster into a cave with no escape. But it seemed that, even in his silence, the shape had heard him. When it moved away a rope was hanging down to the floor, a small noose, just big enough for a foot, tied on its end. As quickly as he could he stood from the stone floor and hung tightly from the rope.

Slowly but surely he was pulled up into the daylight. When he finally left the cave he stumbled onto the ground, covering his eyes, blinded by the sudden sunlight. He took a breath of fresh air, free from the dampness of the cave below. As soon as he stood he felt several hands shoving him, making him walk forward.

The world slowly came into focus. He was in a large stretch of seemingly barren land, covered only by a thin layer of sunburnt grass. He could see no one before him, but he clearly heard the thud of many footsteps behind him. Once he tried to turn his head and look at the people who had saved him from his prison underground, but a slap on the back of his head told him that for some reason these people did not wish to be seen. He walked this way for miles. The soles of his feet were aching; his neck and back were burning from the harsh heat of the sun. His throat was parched and his pace soon became slower, but when he tried to stop, the shoving from behind him resumed. In the distance he could see a thin stream of smoke rising into the sky. Maybe that’s where they would be heading.

It was evening when they reached the camp. He was almost fooled into believing it deserted, if it hadn’t been for the bonfire burning in a pit in the ground. He stopped at the edge of the fire, and for once the shoving did not come. He finally saw the people following him as they spread out in a circle around him and the fire. They stood shoulder to shoulder, grasping each other’s hands and each humming deeply, swaying in unison from side to side. Only one spot was left empty, and it was directly in front of where he was standing.

A nearby tent opened and a woman walked out of it, tall, imposing. She stood in the empty space of the circle, but held hands with neither of the people beside her. As soon as she took her spot, the humming stopped.

“Do you know why you have been brought here?” She had a deep commanding voice. As she spoke, every single person seemed to shy from the fire, afraid of her. Everyone but him.

“No,” his voice seemed to instill as much fear as hers. Everyone had taken a step back.

“You have been charged with treason against your queen. Do you deny these charges?” Her eyes seemed to burn like the fire. There was a great anger behind them, burning red as hot coals.

“I don’t know what you are speaking of. I can guess you are the queen by the way everyone shies from you, but I have never set eyes on you before.”

“Do not take me for a fool! I know perfectly well what you did, as I know that you are lying! You took my son’s life and you would have taken mine as well if my mother hadn’t found a way to stop you!” She had stepped closer to the fire, the flames almost licking her skin. She was extremely beautiful and extremely terrible to behold. Her long black hair falling to her waist, her bronze skin seeming to burn with the light of the fire.

“I have done nothing to you! I have never tried to murder, much less a child. You have the wrong person. Let me go.”

She slowly circled the fire until she stood beside him. She took his chin in her hand and looked straight into his eyes. “Do you really think I would mistake my own husband?”

It was as if a spell was broken. Suddenly, a flood of memories crossed through his mind. What had been blank was now replaced with images, people, places. He remembered being thrown into the cave, the very same cave he had discovered on their journey. He remembered the sound of her mother’s voice as he dragged him there across the fields, high pitched and piercing, telling him how he would never see sunlight again. He remembered his anger, how the people spoke of her affair. How they doubted that the child was even his. He now remembered how he had poisoned her water two days before; making sure it would take her and her wretched unborn child from this world.

He smiled. “So you survived.”

“Yes I survived. But you won’t.” She pushed him into the fire. The flames licked at his skin, and before long he was screaming in agony. She was still standing by the edge of the pit, looking at him as he burned, before his eyesight went. Her eyes were still burning with anger as hot as the fire that was now consuming him. It was the last he saw of her.