Ellyn

It is amazing how one does not worry about the amount of breaths taken in a lifetime till it is to late, Ellyn reflected bitterly as she stared at the damp stone floor beneath her. One did not worry about how one lived until the very moment when one took their last gasping breath of air. Perhaps, she thought, if she had known then, what she knew now, things would have gone differently. Maybe she would have never become what she was now. A defeated, power-hunger girl, barely twenty one who was awaiting death for all the wrongs she had done to countless people.

There was no avoiding or preventing it, she was going to die today. In fact, she had somehow accepted the fact that she would never see the light of day again after today. In those long hours that she had spent in the small damp cell, she had had time to think. Perhaps what she was feeling was what countless others had felt by the power of her hand. Had their minds been racing as they tried to think of all the ways to escape? Had they also dwelled on what they would have done differently if only they had had a second chance? Yes, she thought, they must have. And for once, she almost felt pity. Something she had not felt since she had made that vow long ago; a vow that she now regretted.

She heard the thumping of the guards’ boots as they made their way to her cell. Now, every sound, ever image was clear and defined to her. Sounds she had not noticed before, she now heard loud and clear. She heard the jangle of their keys as they began to unlock the door. She only had an hour left at the most. That is, if they decided to list the long list of crimes she had committed. Murder, conspiracy, and treason were just a few of them.

She stared meekly at the guards’ boots as they lifted her roughly off the ground, taunting her the whole way. They roughly shoved her out of the cell, each of them catching one of her wrists in their iron grips. She had no chance of escape; she wondered why they even bothered.

She barely noticed as she was pulled out from the jail into the open air. People hurled insults and jeers at her as she was loaded into a wagon. Her hands were tied behind her back with a coarse rope and it began rubbing in the places were she already had sores. She kept a calm, collected face, her head high. It would only be worse if she collapsed into tears. Yes, she thought, how great it would be if I was put to death nobly, not crying like a child. It would not due for the ‘Evil Queen of the North’ to be in sobbing at her execution. She hid her emotions behind a mask, a mask she had perfected since the day she had taken the throne.

She gritted her teeth as someone dared to throw something at her, narrowly missing her head. Before, no one had dared to even utter a word before her without her permission. Before, her very name had struck fear into the hearts of everyone, a subject of her kingdom or not. Now, well, now she was just a laughingstock. People held no fear for her in their hearts anymore.

Closing her eyes tightly, images danced through her head of her life; each memory vividly playing out as if she was experiencing them again. She let herself fall into them, letting them envelop her as she remembered…