• On the top of a large, marble pedestal, in the middle of a large, white room, a girl, hardly twenty, sat in shackles. Light from a small hole in the ceiling jutted out onto her, making the chains sparkle, as if saying "Look at me! Look at me!". All around her, mutters and murderous glares shot at her like bullets, making her wince several times, until finally the hall quieted as several white-hooded figures began to slink out from behind the riled crowd. One, with his hood down to show his long, silvery, wisp-like hair, came behind them, his feet bare, and his hands bound with soft linen bands. In his hands, he held a book about a foot wide, and two feet long, the very first Holy Bible. The girl turned her weary hazel eyes to the man, her hair, also a bright, silvery white, covering most of her face. Not knowing what she did, she let out a feral growl towards the cloaked figures, making the wings of the bystanders' flutter in anxiety. Slowly, as the hooded men enclosed the pedestal, the wisp-haired man strode quietly yet quickly to the top of the pedestal, his bare feet making no noise. He opened the book to the middle, a large, ornately drawn picture of a bloody child and his mother on the ground, with small demon-like creatures dancing around them in a pile of blood-stained feathers. And for the first time, the man spoke, his voice clearer than any she'd heard before, it rang out like bells across the marble room, and echoed off of the ornately designed ceiling.

    " Hail, council, bystanders, victims of tyranny, hear my plea, oh holy son, oh merciful ghost, oh forgiving father. May we not dishonor your judgment, we shall justify this ones' cruel behavior, grant us this power, oh father, of forgiveness to our sins." The shady figures chanted this with him, making the words ominous, a death sentence. The bystanders' mouths moved with "amen" on their tongues, however the girl had seen something in her peripheral vision, a figure wearing all black, the man seemed to be clearly visible, yet none of the people crowding him took any notice of the way he stared intently at the girl. She looked away, not wanting to meet eyes with the strange man. At last, the time had come, because the older man had pushed her head to the flat marble, and held both of her beautiful wings in one hand, grasping at them roughly, making her teeth clench, as well as her stomach. This is it, she thought, a hint of desperation in her now frenzied thoughts, as she asked herself illogical questions, like what did it feel like to die? And suddenly, like ripping a band-aid off of your skin slowly,her back tore apart, her blood running down her white garments. It felt like someone with a hot iron was tearing out her spine, yanking out her muscles with the hot iron, and sawing them in half while she could still feel them, but a strange thing happened, she also felt free, her mind seemed to float above the mighty clouds that could be seen from the ceiling, and she no longer felt the pain, but emptiness, to fill as she pleased, her eyes sharpened, and her muscles tightened. Suddenly, in one quick movement, she leapt off the pedestal, onto the cold marble floor, though it felt like she was burning from her head to her toes. Blood still ran down her legs, and one single drop oozed onto the floor, which instantly collapsed under her, and she fell into darkness, not seeing as she rapidly swept her eyes across her field of vision. She didn't know that something had gone terribly wrong, she didn't know where she was falling, and her mind suddenly stopped, as if the world was spinning backwards, and she fell limply to wherever she was falling to, her last thought was of the man in the hall, his eyes fierce with determination as he stared, and a memory rippled through her like water, and disappeared as quickly as it had come. Soon, the blackness was that of her own eyes closing.