The scarlet pimpernel
'Twas cold that October day. The sun glinted painfully red against the hungry the mouth of Paris' seductress. It was difficult to tell if it was the sky or blood that gleemed from her painted lips. She's lured many unwilling victims to her bed then captured and stilled their hearts as she took their head. The blue blood soaked the streets of Paris, flowing through the streets like water after a storm.
The young Countess Jeanette De Jardin mounted the steps to the Mistress which her parents had climbed so few months ago. She raised her eyes to the blade. It was sloped and caked with blood. Her eyes had lost their tears long ago, red and bloodshot. It would be all too soon when the blade of justice would grace her neck with the kiss of death. She shuddered as a breeze blew past. She could almost feel the steel against her neck now. She looked up at a passing bird. It called gaily at her.
She wished to fly like that bird. Away. Away from it all. The blood, the murder, the pain of Paris. They would never be free.
"Nature should cease to exist in times like these," she thought bitterly. Someone pushed her. This seemed to be some sort of signal to the jeering crowd who immediately took this opportunity to get in their last jests to the unfortunate victim who was soon to be no more. She raised her bound hands against the torment as if to stop it but it did no good. The crowd got louder with each step. It seemed to press against her as if to will her faster to her death.
She stood up straight against the board and offered no complaint when she was roughly strapped down, calmly, coolly like a lamb to the slaughter. Her head was pushed down hard against the crook in the wood plank where she was to rest her head for the last time. It seemed to strangle her as she laid there. Somehow, she hoped that she would choke before the blade dropped. It would only be a matter of seconds before her neck would be severed and her soul would be lost in purgatory.
The volume of the crowd reached its apex and she felt like screaming as her last attempt to hold onto life. Suddenly, there came a shout from the back of the crowd. A gun shot and a swish of rope and she was sure she was dead, but as her eyelids fluttered open, she realized she was still staring into the bloody basket that would surely soon catch her head. She couldn't see what was going on and it scared her. But her head was securely on her body and to her great displeasure, still securely in the vice.
Dozens of shots, shouts and screams as the crowd shattered in shards, flying this way and that trying to escape that inane laugh that echoed above everything. Someone struggled with that rope in grunts and groans, swishes and swipes until it collapsed with a blunt thud. The inane laugh echoed again. Why this laugh?
It was a gay sort of laugh, happy and light, yet victorious and daring. Why should it not care so much now? She felt the weight lifted off of her neck and she sighed in exhaustion as her world tilted upright. She felt the straps being pulled from her back. Then someone grabbed her wrist and began to run. She followed breathlessly after, unsure of what had just happened. She turned back to see her unconscious executioner's hands tethered to the rope that held the blade up, his fingers looking like fat blue sausages.
