Randomness With Smosh_Fanfics

Writing Project For School

What happens when I have to make my own characters. The prompt my teacher gave us: include "suddenly, I could no longer breathe" somewhere in your writing.

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 The sun was blinding, the heat of it making me sweat, my hair and thin white nightgown sticking to my skin. The chains bounding my wrists and ankles was close to scorching hot, making me wish that I had been one of the earlier ones. I didn't know how long I'd been standing here, watching. Minutes? Hours? I couldn't tell.

There was a reason why they were making us watch. They wanted us to be terrified. They wanted our eyes to be red with tears and our noses runny when they dragged us onto that stage. In more ways than one, this was a show; and the audience wanted to be entertained.

It seemed that every person in the country was here, sprawled out in front of me in thousands of crooked rows. On the ground and closest to me, some of them so much so that I could make out the dirt on their faces, were the peasants. Men pumped their fists in the air, while women clutched their children. All of them were screaming in anger.

The closer you got to the palace, however, the richer people got. Behind the mob on the ground were raised platforms for noblemen and their wives to sit, dressed in lavish fabrics that would cost my entire month of food supplies for a patch of, sipping wine imported from the Isles. None of them spoke or yelled. A few didn't even smile. When you have the power to kill however many peasants you like, I suppose that you'd be desensitized to it.

Above us all, perched in one of the castle's balconies, was the King himself.

I couldn't make out his features from this distant, but I remembered every aspect of his face perfectly. Short brown hair with an even shorter beard, pale skin peppered with scars, a narrow nose twisted from the many times it's been broken in battle, cold hard blue eyes that had stared at me with utter disgust when I had been thrown onto the floor in front of his throne; I couldn't forget it if I tried to.

He stood alone. His wife was long dead, his sons rotting underground, and Princess Jane was most likely pounding on her locked door, her fists bleeding. I doubted that it bothered him. King James the III was known for being cold and uncaring for others. A man like that isn't too bothered by loneliness.

A guard grabbed the woman, Diana, I believe her name was, standing next to me and dragged her towards the stage, leaving me alone on the sidelines. She screamed and begged, but it was no use. The rope was wrenched around her neck, a leaver pulled, and a sickly snap was heard over the roar of the crowd.

It occurred to me at that point that I should be scared. Every other woman had been, and yet I wasn't. Sometime during the last month I'd spent in that cramped, dark, musty cell, I'd accepted my fate, and now that it was staring me in the face, it felt like nothing at all.

I was going to die today.

Behind me, I heard the waves crashing against the rocky shore. I could make a run for it, make everyone chase after me. The guards wouldn't be able to follow me in their armour, and by that point I would have enough of a head start that no one would try to follow me. By the time they got a boat, I would have drowned, gone out on my own terms instead of the King's. It was what Sylvia would do. She would've caused as much of a disruption as she could. They would've had to knock her out to get her on that stage. Her boldness and strength was one of the main reasons I loved her as much as I did. But I wasn't Sylvia, and I didn't move a muscle.

I didn't try to fight as a guard grabbed my arm and lead me up to the stage, my chained feet making it hard to walk without being dragged. The guard, a short, ugly man with beady little eyes that reminded me of those of the rats I fed to my cat, positioned me over the trapdoor and pulled the noose over my head. The course rope felt rough against the tender skin of my neck.

"Alice Smith," the Executioner announced. Alice Smith. The name my father had given me. I hadn't used it in so long that it took me a few seconds to remember it was mine. I don't think I ever told Sylvia that was my name; she'd only ever known me as Annika. "You have been found guilty of the crime of witchcraft. You have turned your back on Christ and worshipped the Devil, committing heinous and treacherous acts. In the name of King James the III, I sentence you to death for your crimes!"

So this is what I get for saving your daughter, I thought as the crowd starting chanting "hang the witch!", over and over again like a mantra, thirsting for the entertainment that would be my death.

Princess Jane had been sick with a fever even the most educated doctors couldn't cure. She'd been days away from death when her nanny, Naomi, had brought her to me as a last resort. Sylvia had been out hunting as I laid her on the table of our cottage and examined her, before whipping up a quick concoction of herbs and leaves that my mother had taught me how to make and forcing it down the Princess' throat. Jane was back to her normal, bubbly self in minutes, and Noami thanked me tearfully before whisking her back to the palace. It had only taken a few hours for the guards to come for me, pulling me out of my home and into the back of a carriage. Sylvia hadn't returned by then. I still didn't know whether or not to be thankful for that.

The Princess must have told her father; Naomi was smart enough to keep her mouth shut. They'd tried to worm Naomi's name out of me, but I'd never relented, no matter how much torture they put me through. Not that it mattered. Naomi was the first one to be hanged, and the Princess had lost the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother.

Now it was my turn to get my reward for saving the King's only living child. My body wouldn't even be buried; they'd thrown in the river.

The Executioner turned to me, his face masked with a black sack. "Do you have any last words?"

My last words. The last chance I had to leave an impact on this world. They'd brought me here to silence me. Any woman who challenged the status quo always found herself on this stage, exactly where I was. The hierarchy couldn't be challenged any more than a woman could be a better healer than the town's best doctors. Not in the King's eyes, or in the eyes of every citizen who's town hall flew his banner.

For a brief second, I let myself wonder if she was here, hidden among the massive crowd before me, her face hidden by a shawl, staring up at me with those enthralling green eyes I couldn't help but get lost in every time I looked at her. God, did I hope that she wasn't. Seeing me up here would hurt her as much as it would hurt me to see her in my place. But, knowing Sylvia, she was here. After all our time together, she probably felt like she owed it to me.

Would she move on from me? Find another love? I found myself wanting her to. She didn't deserve to spend the rest of her life mourning me. Sylvia was the only thing that mattered to me in this world. Her happiness was something I'd gladly die for.

The silence of the crowd hit me, and I remembered that I need to say my words. Should I say something defiant? Something Sylvia would clap for? Or would my silence be more powerful than words?

I looked up at the man on the balcony above me. "Long live the King."

Even if I could see his face, I was sure it would be just as expressionless as it looked from this distance. As soon as it was clear that was all I was going to say, he raised and dropped his arm.

The crowd roared. A lever was pulled. The platform underneath my feet dropped. The rope pulled taut around my neck. And, suddenly, I could no longer breathe.