The Damned

The Damned

Inspired by the Salem Witch Trials

 TW: death, verbal abuse, aggressive themes

She was not careful as her palms cupped the chalice. Wine trickled along the edges, over her fingers, thick as blood as it lifted to tender lips. That well-chewed flesh instantly grew drenched with that sweet, drunken scent as Leona swallowed all within. 

                       She breathed out and licked away the remnants, missing a red drop on her chin and the slick trail trickling the expanse of her pale neck. The bloody wine dripped upon her knees, seeping through the carpet like the dead to hell, its crimson scorning the fabric black.

                       Leona was alone, of course, as she drank and waited for death. 

                       That was the reason for the wine, and the mess, kneeling alone in a room lined endlessly with blades. 

Death. Such a strange thing to consider when it had surrounded Leona her whole life. A mockery, the brittle walls of reality were finally caving in. She had lost her heart to death, and now she would join it among the gray jaws of beyond.

Each blade around her whispered a silent mockery, some rusted, some gleaming as sunlight broke across new steel. All were lethal. 

It was as if they were taunting her.

Do it. End it. Be a coward and do it in silence. 

But she was no fool. Leona would die before a crowd, promising to show them the last waves of rage crashing through her dark eyes as red stained her chin, neck and hands, grin wide. She wanted to look bare of forgiveness under the rising sun.

                        With a slow blink she hummed. It was a silent thanks to the fearful caretaker only minutes prior who had brought Leona the wine. It was clearly pity, a gift to lessen the pain of an axe when her time did come. Or maybe it had been given to Leona to birth a distraction, a focus other than the emptiness of time. Regardless, she took it as one final offering to the human left within her. 

                       The door creaked open, hooded figure stepping through. The white lace over the woman’s face hid any distinct features save for a thin, red smile. A crack in the snowy grace of a holy woman. 

                       “It is almost the rising. Stand, so that we may leave.”

                       Leona did not. 

She could see pale blue weaved through speckled black outside the window, the warped glass making it blurry, difficult to comprehend. But Leona knew. Time had become all she knew. Dawn greeted death, as dusk greeted life. A backwards way of thinking in her small village, trapped in its valley of sin.

                       “Do not make this difficult,” the woman breathed. “You have known.”

                       “I have, and yet I wish to draw out your patience just a moment more.”

                       “Enough, Leona. Rise.” 

                       Leona gave a silent smile as she obeyed. Little drops of wine slipped off her stained dress, trailing behind as she stepped up to the woman. The room was thick with quiet.

                       A tired sigh escaped the woman’s red lips, lace fluttering like a moth.

                       “I did not want this for you, Leona.”

                       “And yet you did nothing to stop it.”

                       “I couldn’t, you know that.” Her voice held a desperate tone beneath that careful placement of tongue. The slow way she’d had been raised to speak so that no evil could find entrance between words. "After you lost. . . we didn't want this."

                       Leona thought it all ridiculous. Her former self, the child within, begged to learn the holy ways, to be the one with a white veil instead of stained skin. Another reminder of how time had forsaken her, taken all. The past remained a cruel memory, it had only taken, taken, taken.

                       “I have lost respect and I intent to strip it clean from every eye upon this town. But you scarcely believe the sun, so let us not speak of the impossible,” Leona's words faded to a harsh whisper, voice shaking with the undeniable fear that itched beneath her skin. She may have been ready and wanting but that did not change the terror that came with the knowledge of her impending death. 

                       The woman swallowed dryly, nodding.

                       “Follow me then.”

                       They walked silently through the old building, once a chapel, now a school for the few children that wandered the streets. The room she had been locked in was the improved training room, somewhere where the male youth could retreat to learn how to fight, to defend.

It was where they were taught lies.

 Leona watched as stained windows passed by, each rift and crevice the last she would see with hot blood still pumping through her veins. Perhaps they were boring anyways. It was a strange thing to realize, one that nobody ever took a moment to ponder upon. It had Leona staring at her surroundings just a fraction longer, hoping to soak in every detail that she had never appreciated before. She drank in the world as if she were starving.

                       “This way.”

                       The woman opened a door and walked through. Her steps made no sound as they met the stone street. Her white attire and flowing movements made her the vision of a ghost, a wisp of a spirit leading Leona to the grave. 

                       They continued through the dim dawn until the town square came into view. Heads turned as the two of them approached. There were no more than sixty in the crowd, the whole town consisting of merely a hundred.

                       In a way Leona was flattered that there were so many choosing to ignore their morning duties to watch her die. What an honor to be their gruesome entertainment, to push away the stock and chores for just a moment longer in the eager hopes of slaughter. 

                       The woman stopped. “This is where I leave you. He shall take you to the block.” She tilted her chin up towards a masked man whom Leona had seen dozens of times before. The executioner. 

                       She said nothing, walking towards him without hesitation. The woman reached out and grabbed her arm, gloved hand pulling her just enough for Leona to turn back.

                       “I am lucky to have lived these years with a sister such as you,” the woman whispered.

                       The wind blew past them softly, taunting as the blades. 

                       “Unfortunately, I cannot say the same.” 

An ache shot through her heart, something suppressed over and over again.

                       Her sister let go of her arm. Leona was sure that if she could see her face, hurt would have flashed across it like a storm.

                       But it was true. What kind of sister did not protect her own when the world came crashing down? 

                       The executioner stepped up, impatient.

                       “Alright now, hurry up.”

                       Leona licked her dry lips. They still held the tang of wine. She turned to follow him, not sparing her sister another glance. 

                       “What’s on you? Looks like you’ve already been beheaded,” the man asked, eyes glancing at her neck where the stains lay. 

                       “What is death without a drink to keep me company?” 

                       “Seems like not much got in your mouth.”

                       “If only you could shut yours.”

                       The executioner shoved her forwards. 

                       “Don’t understand why you’re so snappy ‘bout it,” he murmured. “You knew this was coming.”

                       The words echoed through the marrow of her skull.

                       “You knew this was coming.”

                       Of course she had known. She’d known from the very moment they burst down her door in the middle of the night. The memory remained as vivid as the sun behind her eyes.

                       Pain had consumed her.

                       Candles gradually snuffed out, the wind outside blowing in with its cruel breath. Sharp cries echoed from her daughter, still slick with birth. 

                       Leona held the babe tight to her chest, eyes wild with love as they took in the sight of her creation. Words could not describe the joys felt, the otherworldly love that trembled through her heart, even as she took in the unfortunate reality of her daughter’s face.

                       There were suddenly men, eyes blazing as they entered her home. The midwife yelled, tugging a blanket over Leona, her skin a mess to the elbows. 

                       The new mother tugged her child to her chest, hiding her as best she could. The babe’s cries dulled beneath the clatter.

                       “Show him to me Leona, we already know,” one of the men barked.

                       “Her. You will have nothing to do with my daughter.”

                       The men mumbled, wicked words spilling from their lips as they took in the scene before them. This was not how it was meant to happen; Leona only wanted to hold her child, not face the wrath of raving townsfolk. These men only held accusations on their fiery lips. 

                       “Syd has seen this abomination, you know she cannot be, Leo.”

                       The man was stern but beneath it all his voice was pleading. He didn’t want his own flesh and blood gone, but it was law.

                       “Syd?” Leona breathed out. Tears flashed in her eyes as the baby wormed around in her hold. “Syd brought you here?”

                       As if on cue a small boy stepped out from behind the speaking man, his hands stuffed in pockets of patchwork, boot toeing the ground. She hadn’t even seen him leave the room, too distracted by the agony of birth. 

                       “He ran to me the moment he saw her.”

                       “You pig of a man,” Leona spat. “You turn my own son on me, you feed him lies!”

                       “I preach to him the truth. I have told him nothing but. Now give me the child.”

                       Leona held the babe tighter, turning away from him. 

                       “What did you tell him? What have you told them?” She shouted, voice quivering as she stared at the cluster of men behind him. They each stood ready, she could see the glint of a knife. The barrel of a gun. 

                       “It is no secret. Do not pretend, not now. We have suspected your use of witchcraft, of bargaining with the devil… this… this solidifies it all.”

                       “I have done nothing of the sort. I do not share a lick of evil in my blood, please you must know that!” 

                       “Show me the babe.”

                       Leona shook her head, tears falling as her breath stuttered. 

                       The man stepped forward and ripped the child from her arms with little force. Leona was far too weak to fight back; she had lost too much blood, too much time. She cried out a warbled plea.

                       It fell on deaf ears.

                       All she could do was watch in horror as the man turned over the child and stared at her face, the flesh smooth where eyes should have been. The men around him gasped.

                       “She has no eyes.”

                       “The devil has taken them so she cannot see the light.”

                       “A vile creature.”

                       “A daughter of sin.”

                       “Devil child.”

                       A slap to her face sent Leona back to the present.

                       “Don’t fade out on me now,” the executioner said, grinning.

                       “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

                       She stepped up onto the platform, eyes set on the chopping block in all its wooden glory. She’d been waiting. Months upon months had stumbled by. The two had kept an eye on her, thinking the death of her devil child would send her back to humanity.

                       Oh, how wrong they were.

                       By killing her daughter, they had swept away any bit of humanity left. All she knew now was rage, the yearning to make these men suffer worse than she.

                       And that’s what this was. This was her chance to reign hell upon them all.

                       The executioner pushed Leona to her knees before the block as three words fled Leona's lips against her varied will.

"Give her back."

He laughed, a sound rough as tangled roots.

                       “You'll be joining her soon enough. Take a good look at the crowd, it’s the last you’ll see of them.”

                       She smiled at that. Then she laughed, grin wide as she leaned forward to rest her neck on the curve of wood. 

                       Unease spread through the eyes of the crowd. Murmurs of insanity, blasphemy, witchcraft once more. All these eyes that had watched Leona grow up. They fed her, taught her, laughed with her on warm summer days. Each one held a memory against their skin of when she was nothing more than a foolish girl. All before a man came along and left her with a child, before another came and murdered his own.

                       But what more could she expect? How could she ever have believed that they cared for more than just her body? Her innocence and purity among their secluded town? Because why wouldn't it matter?

                       The murmurs fell away as the sun peeked over the horizon.

                       “I say that this land may finally earn some peace,” the executioner said, huffing. “It is over, Leona Hargrove. May you join the devil and dance traitorously through eternity.”

                       He lifted the axe. The sun reflected off of it right into Leona’s eyes and across her reddened teeth.

                       As the axe swung down, she let out one loud, bitter laugh, the reality of her situation finally sinking all the way to her scarred core.

                       They were all fools.  

There are only two requirements to the birth of a new god.

Sacrifice, and emotion so bone-deep that even death dare not touch that soul.

Leona just so happened to fill both. Her own death, and the knowledge that no one on earth holds more anger and sorrow than a mother who has lost her child.

And her child, oh, she found herself whole within Leona now, a burning reminder of what could never be forgiven.

 The crowd cheered as the axe’s blade hit wood, completely unaware that by the next sunrise a chao god would be born, her rage unimaginable and her grin split wide, smelling of wine.