This Is How The World Ends

The towers of the citadel towered overhead, black in the light of the noon sun. The people in the crowd pushed against each other, makeshift masks hiding mouths that spit curses and grunts as they jostled for better positions. The only place the crowd hadn’t yet reached was the center of the city, due to the guards in gleaming silver armor that kept them back.

Beyond the boundaries of the guards, a wooden platform had been hastily and poorly constructed. It moaned and creaked as it danced with the winds coming down from the mountains. Two more guards stood at the base of the platform where stairs had been slapped onto the side, just in case the first line of defense failed.

A girl, no older than fifteen, knelt in the dead center of the platform, splinters poking into her knees as she curled in on herself. Over her stood a priest, an executioner, and the king.

The priest read from his holy book in a low drone that somehow carried over the creaking of the platform and the voices of the crowd. The executioner, his face hidden by the black cloth hood, swept a whetstone across his axe. And the king only stood there, staring down at the girl with a look of disgust as she sobbed quietly.

Like he had received some invisible signal, the priest neatly snapped his book short and lifted one hand out towards the crowd. The wind held its breath with the crowd, and they all strained to hear as he spoke.

“Fair people!” He called out. “I have been sent a vision from on high, a warning of the danger that will come if we are not prepared to face it head on. One of our own, this vision told me, will fall victim to the machinations of evil! And this innocent one will bring forth our destruction!”

He paused for a moment, as panicked shrieks rose up from the crowd, though neighbors hushed each other and jostled the more panicked people into another silence soon enough.

“But fear not, for goodness has prevailed!” The priest assured them. “I found the girl the visions told me of, and spoke with her. Understanding the danger her unholy child would bring upon this world, this sweet girl has agreed that we may slay her and, with her, any chance of her child being brought forth into a world it would destroy!” A cheer went up, but the girl only continued to weep bitterly. “Sweet lamb, are you ready?”

“I- I think so.” The girl gulped, trying to catch her breath even as tears continue to stream down her face. The king and priest exchanged a glance, and with a nod from the king, the priest reached over and lay a hand on the shoulder of the executioner in his own silent signal. The executioner shuddered, like some great machine churning to life, and raised his axe. The girl lowered her head, until her forehead rested on the platform.

The metal of the axe head caught the rays of sun not blocked by the towers and sent them dancing across the crowd. It might be because of that, or they happened to glance away, or any of a myriad of other reasons, that they didn’t notice the shift in the stance of the executioner.

With all of the guards facing out and away from the platform, they failed to notice exactly whose neck the executioner swung his axe at until it had already begun to swing.

The executioner’s axe swept over the kneeling girl, leaving her untouched besides a breeze that ruffled her dress and hair. The king only had a moment to see the axe come swinging up and towards him before it separated his head from his neck in one blow. His fear didn’t even have time to register on his face before his head went bouncing off of the platform and rolling across the stones of the plaza. It stopped with a little bump against the heel of one of the soldiers.

As the soldier looked to see what touched him, and as the crowd began to scream, the executioner’s swing carried on, and he pivoted neatly on his heel to drive the axe into the priest’s neck. Unlike the king, the axe didn’t go completely through the priest’s neck, instead coming to a stop solidly in his spine.

The priest’s eyes bulged and he crumpled gracelessly. His holy book fell from his hand and he fell on top of it.

The girl lifted her head from the platform, looking up just in time to see the executioner tug his hood off and reveal that he was not actually a ‘he’ at all.

A woman stood over the young girl, panting with exertion as she brushed a hand through her own close cut blonde hair, white in the light of the sun.

“You can open your eyes, Renata.” The woman spoke finally, and the girl, still sniffling, lifted her head from the platform.

“Wh- Wait, Lilla?” The woman in question nodded, bending to offer Renata a hand. The girl took it, letting the woman pull her to her feet. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn’t let them kill my only sister.” Lilla told her, but her attention wasn’t on her sister, rather on the guards that had begun to rush towards them, weapons out and expressions twisted in rage. She let the axe drop from her hand and drew a sword out instead.

With her weapon in hand, and her sister’s hand still held tightly in hers, Lilla strode forward. Though they came at her two and three at a time, Lilla had no problem holding the soldiers off.

“You shouldn’t have done this.” Renata murmured, even as she followed in her sister’s shadow. “They said I was destined for terrible things. That I would doom the world.”

“There’s a funny thing about prophecies.” Lilla replied, as blood began to appear on any visible patch of bare skin and overpowered the black color of her clothing. “They’re so particular, but so vague. So tell me: Why did the priest believe it was you who would doom us all?”

“Well, he- he never quite said. Only that I appeared in his visions, so I must’ve been why.”

“Suppose he wasn’t fully wrong.” Lillia led them to a stable near the entrance gate of the citadel. She killed the owner with surgical precision and loaded her sister onto one of the horses.

“Wait,” Renata protested even as she was pushed up and onto the saddle, “You know? Then that’s all the more reason to let them kill me! I don’t want you, or anybody else, living in a doomed world!”

“I know.” Lillia mounted the horse behind her sister, and nudged it out of the stable and through the gates, waiting until they were galloping away from the city before she spoke again. “But I care more about you being alive than any of that. If I could keep us alive and safe, even in a world where everyone else was suffering, I’d do it. And so, I did.

“The priest used what he called ‘holy magic’ for his visions. So I figured, if there’s good magic, there’s bound to be bad magic. It took some scouting around, but I found what this old witch called a ‘grimoire’. And I made a deal with a demon.”

“You did WHAT?” Renata screeched, but Lillia only kept her eyes on the road ahead.

“He was a very agreeable sort, I guess to make me want to make a deal more, or something. But he didn’t have to worry about that. I told him, ‘As long as you can guarantee the happiness, health and safety of myself and my sister, and as long as it doesn’t immediately kill the rest of humanity, you can do whatever you want to the rest of the world. I figured, if I bought them some time, humans are a hardy bunch. They can adapt. But you and I, we’re good.”

“We very much are not!” Renata said again. “Didn’t you wonder how I’d feel about all this?”

“I did. I knew you’d be angry, all self-sacrificial and people pleasing like you always have been, but I decided as long as you were alive, I’d live with whatever emotions you have.” Here, Lillia pulled her eyes away from the road, looking to where Renata was glaring up at her with angry tears standing out in her eyes.

“You don’t have to forgive me. After I get us to somewhere safe, you never have to look at or speak to me again, if you want. I’ve made my peace with that. If I had to do all of this over again, I would. Everything we know is gone, and it's- It's all my fault. But I had to. I just-”

Both sisters fall into silence. After a long moment, Renata gently knocks her knuckles against Lillia’s arm, in a silent show of something she doesn’t understand just yet.

They ride on towards some destination unknown, and for the moment, both have everything they need.