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 | Posted On: 10/27/2008 At: 11:16:14 PM |
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So I've been writing this short...short story. But I posted it up here because I need some ideas for the ending. It's not done... Here ya go!!
I stood barefoot on the hot golden stairs, directed towards a million faces all looking at mine in macabre anticipation. The sunlight was almost to the highest point in the sky and the stairs glittered viciously at my eyes. Any other day, they would have been beautiful, today they were menacing. They were thirsty. My brown eyes were closed tightly against their deadly glare, but I could still feel it on my eyelids like they were trying to burn right through them. I would have covered my face, if it weren’t for the fact that my hands were tied behind my back with the sacred cloth. The cloth stained in blood from the many sacred wrists it had been around. I shuttered when the guards had tied it tightly around my own small wrists knowing that my blood would also become a stain on this once beautiful white cloth.
Everyone knew the time was coming, but I had just figured out who the Chosen One was fifteen moons ago. It was always seven sunrises after my day of birth. I had always been so excited because there would be much celebrating for my day, then we would celebrate again for the Holy Day. But I’d dreaded my day of birth and the Holy Day this year. People would stop me in the marketplace and congratulate me for becoming the Chosen One. I had so wished to tell them that they could take this responsibility from my shoulders if they so wanted it. It wasn’t as great as they held it to be, I was terrified. But that would only lay insult on the Gods, because becoming the Chosen One was the highest honor anointed to a woman who had just turned of age. Sixteen summers.
The village had tried to keep it from me for a while, as they did with all the Chosen One’s. There would be whispers around the village, and eyes would glance at me quickly, then away again. It was all very suspicious and I had grown annoyed with all this whispering that I suddenly wasn’t apart of. I had found out when I discovered my mother sewing a beautiful white dress made of silk and lace. Lace was sacred, and used on one thing only, the sacrificial dress. The dress showed off what a true woman I had just come to be, highlighting the finer curves of my body, and allowing the collar to dip down to where any man could almost see only what the Gods were allowed to see on the Chosen One. For if the Chosen One’s virginity was taken from her before her trip to the Gods, she and the man would be killed on the spot.
My mother was so proud of me though, and when she’d finished the dress I’d wanted to try it on, which was against the rules, but even she had said no one would ever know and the Gods turn their eyes away from some things. I had put it on and the silk felt heavenly against my tanned skin, gently caressing it with every move I made. My hands flowed down my body, smoothing out and feeling the soft silk. I twirled once, and the dress fanned out around me and lay still when I stopped. I felt like one of the Gods in this dress, and for once I actually felt proud to be the Chosen One.
“Look mama!” I had said and turned to face her with my arms out wide. When I saw her face my arms dropped automatically, along with my smile and pride. She was crying. Even though she made no sound, the tears spilt over her cheeks as she looked at me. Her hand covered her mouth and she looked down at the packed dirt floor. Then it had hit me like a strong wind. She was crying not because the dress looked beautiful on me, but because she was going to lose a daughter. And, knowing that, I started to cry too. I hugged her tightly and we cried together. I didn’t want to die. I had so many people to take care of, my mama in particular. I had to leave everything behind and join the Gods. It was the highest honor ever given to a woman and I didn’t want it at all. What kind of Gods needed a human life to be happy?! Not any God that I wanted to worship. But I had worshipped them too, and blindly just like everyone else. Every time I saw a girl die, I thought of how honorable it was, and hoped one day I could have that honor. Now that I have it, they could take it back. I knew exactly how those girls felt standing on those hot golden steps. How horrible the people were that stared back at them, and no one dared to help. They would just let it happen. It was merciless.
My legs were trembling as I stood facing the crowd that wanted to see my blood drip down these horribly beautiful golden steps. The two guards on either side of me had to hold onto my elbows so I could stay upright. I had to stand with pride so I could greet the Gods in exactly this position. But my shoulders wouldn’t hold pride, they would only hold fear. My legs wouldn’t hold up my love for the Gods, but I couldn’t kneel in hatred. So I tried to stand, feeling the resistance from the guards as I tried to take a step forward so my toes would touch the edge of the top step.
The Emperor, dressed in a skirt made of gold strips, a shawl of the same strips hung on his shoulders, and his arms and ankles were covered in gold bands, stepped to my right side. I couldn’t move my face to look at him, because it was required of me to keep my gaze straight ahead, but out of the corner of my eye, I could tell his gold was just as bright as the steps. He was aged, the corners of his eyes had crow’s feet and if he were to smile, the wrinkles would appear around his mouth and on his cheeks. But now he was serious, and his forehead was creased in concentration. His skin was dark from sitting out in the sun all day, just like the rest of the village, but his hands would be smooth from never having to lift them to work. In his smooth old hands, he held a sharpened flint knife that caught the sun and glinted on my face, making my blood run cold. I had remembered wishing I could be close enough to touch the gold on the Emperor, now I wished I never had to see his horrid weathered face again.
He raised the hand with the flint knife, and began to chant words that will be long forgotten many millennia from now. As his chanting sped up, so did my heart beat, because soon it would be quiet and then… I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to run. Run down these horrible golden steps and into the arms of my mama, and then we could run into the forest together, to another village. But I couldn’t. I had to stay here; I had to die for tradition. It was my burden to bear and I couldn’t abandon it. So I lifted my head up and the tears that I shed out of fear glittered in the sunlight as they slid down my cheeks. In the crowd, I had found my mama, and her face soaked in tears. But I couldn’t bear to look at her, so I looked up, over all the faces and towards the trees that hugged our village and temple.
The Emperor’s chanting had ceased, and it felt as though the whole world stood still. No birds called in the trees, no children played in the streets, and the marketplace didn’t have its usual chatter. Everyone was here, and everyone held their breath. I felt the cold blade touch my skin and the wind began to pick up, blowing the sound of a woman’s sobs to my ears. My eyes closed in pain against the feeling of the knife slithering across my neck.
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