Title: Glass Roses

Date: July, 2006

Author: Shades of Hades

A/N: This a rewrite. After I wrote chapter five, I realized there were things in some of the older chapters that didn't make sense in context with the fifth. I will be re-writing other chapters too, but this one needed a major re-haul. Eventually I will rewrite chapter one as well, but I needed to fix the contradictory chapters first. That's what I get for making shit up as I go and not doing an outline. ^^;

Chapter Two: The Dream Sequence

Dreams are a strange thing. Especially the ones in which you die.

As I stand here, coarse rope being pulled tightened around my neck, trap door beneath my feet, this is the only thing that comes to mind.

I don't really understand how I've come to this point. I have zero knowledge of what I've done or who the hell all these people are, but I can tell as a older man in a white wig clears his throat, that with every second that passes, my death loams closer.

I stand rather awkwardly, feet together, nervous fingers closed together behind my back, rope cutting tight into my wrists. Staring down at the people below, people I recognize though I've never seen them before, the surreality of my situation kicks in.

Most of the crowd sneer at me, others look slightly sympathetic as they watch.

One person in particular catches my eye.

Dark hair, brilliant green eyes that look as if they would sparkle on any other day, but today they are dull, lackluster, and cold as hell. His delicate eyebrows are drawn together, mouth drawn taunt across his jaw in sheer indifference. It's like he can't even show how he feels as I stand before him, hanging rope around my neck. I can't decide whether he just doesn't want to show me how he feels, or if he doesn't want to show others.

I'm still deciding when the man in the wig clears his throat. All eyes, including mine find their way to him.

“You have received a fair trail, in which you have been found guilty of the practice of witchcraft, the punishment for which, is death by immediate hanging.” He cleared his throat again.

There were a few moments of silence during which I found it rather hard to breath for the rope seems to be pulling tighter and tighter.

I swallowed hard.

“Do you have any last words?” he finally asks me, all eyes turning back to me.

I try to find words, anything at all, but my chest is heavy, my stomach dropping out of its place, heart beating fast, breath caught in my throat.

“No, sir,” I manage, words coming unbidden as my eyes find that familiar boy, face standing out from the crowd. “Any words I could say would only fall upon deaf ears.”

The crowd began to whisper amongst them selves, just out of my hearing range. I could catch slight glimpses of their conversations, some condemning me, other empathetic.

A feeling of betrayal passes through me as I hear two voices, male and female, not even trying to hide their contempt for me.

“I can't believe I gave birth to such a monster,” the woman cries out in anger.

The man only takes the woman into his arms, conversation after that lost to the thick voices around them.

Again, I was completely unnerved when the man in the white wig cleared his throat, and the crowd immediately seized their whispers.

“Very well,” he says, no hint of sadness present as his fingers tighten their grip on the wooden lever in front of him. His eyes are rather cold and unfeeling, familiar, like the boy that stands out so well in the uneasy crowd in front of me. “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Agonizing seconds tick by and the lever is pulled, my body plummeting toward the ground.

Funny, I was always told your life flashed before your eyes right before you died but the only thing I can see as the rope becomes painfully tight around my neck is black as I spiral back to earth, back to my self, back to my dark bedroom.