Blood. It coats my bound hands, I am lucky to say it’s my own. I wouldn’t be able to handle hurting anybody else. I’m on my knees right before all of these cynical people. The officers pull me to my feet. But I collapse again, my red hair hides my face as I catch myself on the floor. I am still wearing the disguise they caught me in. It was terrible, but we thought it would do its purpose… It clearly didn’t. My full body is shaking, knowing what is to come. They all do, but I am not cheering like the rest. The second time they get me on my legs, I stay standing, my eyes graze over the crowds of hundreds of people waiting for me with blood thirst. I know that my friends see me now… For the last time, I don’t know what kind of agony they must be in now. My eyes meet Ivan, the young boy who saved me…

I will bring mayhem to everybody if I am not eliminated, that was clear to me from a young age, obliterating all kinds of orphanages. Saving the kids from the mass graves they had entered. Each time I would go further, till they would catch me and lead me to the same room with the same chains. Ivan could never know… Ivan was there for me, we have known each other for many years. He loves frolicking in the woods, like we did as kids. At least he did till he was forced to join The Government, he was ambitious, and the model candidate through and through. He used to come back for me. The longer I look, the more I see. No longer was the little boy I fell in love with, it was a callous little man, uncaring about anything really. His parents were killed by impurity, I should have known. He always believed that purity was the most important, why did it take me this long to notice? So yes, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I deserve to be burned alive. For being this ignorant, but not for evacuating these kids to safety. Under all this chaos, they don’t comprehend that they are humans too.

People are killed for impurity. It is a norm to be a killer, rewarded even for every life they take. There are too many people in this world… or so they say. Yet, they expect me to walk to my demise; they want me to squirm in fright and fight viciously to prove the animal I am. My legs shiver with every step, I don’t know how I haven’t collapsed yet. My gaze never leaves my gravestone. Right next to the blocks of wood placed on one anotherincluding a huge wood structure. They desired to find the most wicked demise for me, the choice was between drowning and burning. And it’s clear which they picked. I clench my jaw, I can’t give them what they want. I am no broken, frail damsel in distress. Head held high, I keep walking. They want to watch, I never understood those kinds of people. They are calling me all sorts of names: beast, witch, pest, monstrosity, some too nasty to say. Without knowing what I did to get here, they just expect me to be an impurity, rather than a person.

I have never seen that kind of hatred in his eyes. In all the time we have spent together, all the times I cured him when he was beaten up, he thinks I’m a monster, a grostequeity. It is disgust, how much I wish it was fear in his eyes. He believes it’s right, he always has. He was only using me… I hate him, but not as much as I hate myself. What could you expect from one who has been taught to hate everything unique? His parents were victims killed. And in the end; Manipulation is the best source of control. For people to follow your regime, they need to believe it is the only solution. This is how wars occur, the way people become corrupt to survive. Ivan was too weak and rotten to the core. I managed to lift my head with the best arrogance I could fester without collapsing. “There will always be dauntless souls who will rebel against you, and you should have never messed with me, you don’t know what I have prepared for you …”

The guards tell me to stand next to the pole as they strap me to it. Then I notice the guard to my right. He was too young and too scared. He is no normal guard, he is part of the resistance, he knew there was nothing planned, he was barely 16, and dealing with executions. I know that I am going to die, I just want to hug him. He will have to see me die, he could die himself, I keep staring at him any longer. I move my gaze back to the crowd before me. At first, I see the little boy standing in the crowd looking at me with glazed eyes, when I blink again I see the monster he has become. I can’t show them my weakness, not before the young guard. They are the monsters here, I’m still standing, and I keep staring at Ivan. My eyes should be what he sees every time he closes his eyes, I’m still standing they light the wood underneath my feet, I’m still standing, pain creeps up my legs and I swallow my cries as I glare at Ivan, I am still standing as the fire engulfs me for the very last time.