A Different End
By: Maiden Cobra
Author's Note: Like most of the work I post, (or had posted, but is now being moved to FictionPress.net), this was originally written for my English class. I believe my best writing comes from that class, so that's why I often share it. The following story is an alternative ending to Romeo and Juliet. Please read and review. I value all your opinions. I do not own Romeo and Juliet. It was originally written by William Shakespeare. I do not own the rights to the play, or anything connected to the play. Thank you.
"If you value your life, you'll remain here 'til I come to thee," Romeo growled menacingly to his man. Balthasar looked into his lord's face and shivered involuntarily. Writ deep in those eyes he saw a man pining for release, for joy, for life. He was desperate, he was. And he knew not the extent young Romeo would go to find that joy.
"Yes, sir."
Romeo left him along the graveled path to the monument. Cloaked in darkness, he crept along the well walked path. He was to see his beloved Juliet who had been robbed of life before she could live. Inside the monument was lit well with seven torches burning brightly in their scones.
"How can you burn so brightly and dance so gaily when the only light in this world has gone out? Oh, how you show no respect!" The lights he spoke of with such disdain brought his attention to the granite and marble box set upon a low platform. "My Juliet…mon amour." He walked slowly to the coffin and brought out his iron lever. With a considerable amount of force and effort, the lid began to lift. It was nearly an inch off when a soft rustling caught his attention. He turned on his knees to meet his quarry, be it skeleton, spirit, Devil Himself, or of mortal flesh and blood.
Three torches extinguished simultaneously. Romeo's head whipped about like mercury. A whole side of the room was now shrouded in shadow. Despite his resolve to stay calm, his pulse quickened. Sweat beaded on his brow and trickled shakily down his temples. Something inside him screamed to leave. Another voice told him not to leave Juliet, dead or alive, to the mercy of the darklings. And so, he stayed there, beside the granite tomb, awaiting what fate my be in store for him.
A figure cloaked much akin to his own attire swept from the shadows like an avenging bat from Hell. A drawn rapier flashed in the stream of moonlight coming from the door, then glowed as the figure came into the light of the remaining torches.
"Montague scum," the demon sneered. "Desecrate not my fiancé's eternal bed! Leave her body be and face me like the sniveling coward I know you to be!"
Romeo turned to fully face his enemy. No one would come between his love to his wife. No one! "I am her husband!"
"Rot in Hell!" The next second was all a blur as the dark mass of man advanced upon him. The golden rapier was thrust into his side with a sickening whisper. Romeo's knees buckled beneath him. Suddenly his weight was too much for him to hold. As he doubled over, his hands clutching his abdomen, the assassin bent close. He murmured cruelly, "Let it be known the man who caused your downfall…" The next words were infused with an abundance of hubris, "the County Paris, to whom Juliet was to marry. That's correct, you fool, I am her love! Not thee!"
Paris departed as swiftly and stealthily as he had come. Romeo, mortally wounded, voiced his pain to the Capulet spirits. He imagined Tybalt was laughing at him, satisfied in his eternal sleep that his death had been avenged. Romeo pulled himself up to the top of Juliet's tomb.
"My Juliet, I shall come to join thee." He landed face down on the top of the coffin, drowning in the blood that poured from his mouth.
Juliet awoke with a start. She was very disoriented, but after a few minutes she remembered exactly where she was- stuffed inside a stone coffin in the Capulet monument. With no means of escape! She groaned inwardly, but tried to keep calm- mayhap the drug's time was not yet up and someone would still find her. Then she heard what had initially awoken her. A gurgling sounded from the lid of her prison. A kind of choking noise followed. She lay deadly still, not daring to breathe. Her stomach felt empty save for a two ton stone weighing down the bottom.
"Juliet…" It was barely audible. However, Juliet would know that voice anywhere.
"Romeo! Romeo!" she screamed. It didn't seem that her voice could penetrate the thick slabs of stone. It slowly evolved into a shrill shriek. "ROMEO! Save me! Help me! Darling life! Live! Oh, what is wrong, my Romeo!?! What ails you? Do you not have strength enough to save your love from eternal imprisonment?"
Silence met her pleas. "Romeo?" This time the call was soft itself, barely recognizable to the ear. The silence after that began to tease her mercilessly.
"He's not here to save you, Juliet," it began, "He is here to die."
"What? No. Impossible."
"Not impossible, Juliet. If he is not dead, why can he not answer you? Why would he be choking on his own blood and bile?"
"Huh? No. No. How can you know that? You can't know that! I don't know that!"
"Oh, but you do, Juliet, dear. You do."
"How?" she demanded of the ugly monster.
"Because I am in your head. I'm all in your mind. You control me."
She never wanted to control anything less in her entire life. "Stop it!"
"He's dead, sweetie, acknowledge it!"
"No! Never! Stop!"
"I can't stop until you do."
"I won't. I can't give up!"
"He's died."
"No!"
"You killed him."
"NO!" The sides of her granite and marble tomb began to grow cold. The cold surrounded her until the air inside felt like ice.
"Hello, Juliet." This voice was less mocking. It was more of a caress. Or a sneer.
"Tybalt?"
"Aye."
"Tybalt." Recognition settled unpleasantly on top of that stone in her stomach. Tybalt was dead. Gone. She'd been to his funeral. She swallowed hard. Hadn't she been afraid this would happen before she took the drug? That she would become trapped and the spirits of her relatives would haunt her.
"Dear cousin," his voice sounded like a snake, "accept this fate. Accept his fate. Join us. I miss you. We all miss you."
They missed her? Who was 'we' anyway? "What do you want of me?"
"I want you."
"What?"
"I want you here with us."
"You want me to die?"
"Yes, die, Juliet." This time the silence joined Tybalt in his persuasion.
"Come join us," her cousin continued. "it's so dull without a lively young girl."
"Yes, Juliet, join all the other rotting corpses. Join them in the Capulet paradise. You'll be there eventually once this air runs out." She cursed the silence again for its ugly comments.
"Juliet…." Tybalt wrapped his bony fingers about her slim neck. They were like ice and burned her skin. Her hands shot up to pry them away, but when she touched her neck, she felt nothing. But the pressure continued. Her own cousin would kill her. No…He wasn't killing her.
It's all in your head, it's all in your head. She coached herself. Let go! Let go! she screamed at Tybalt. As she continued the chant in her head, she began believing it. He would let go. It was all in her mind. The pressure seemed to be going away. Ah, finally. Her hands traveled to her neck once more. Real flesh and blood, her fingers, came in contact with nothing.
Then she stopped their examination. What had she just felt. Indents in her neck. Like fingers choking her.
Impossible! Impossible! she yelled. Nothing's there!
Or maybe something was there. Mayhap she could not feel it physically. Perhaps what she thought was the pressure on her neck fading was actually her neck becoming numb. Would her cousin break her neck? Suffocate her?
Closing her eyes and sending a quick prayer to whoever would listen, her hands made a third round up her body, to her face. It was cold. Deathly cold. Could Tybalt be succeeding?
No…my hands are cold. It's just my hands. See? It's all in my mind. All in my mind. I can control it.
Then a disturbing thought came to her.
What if I do want to die? To join Romeo. Maybe this would be better. Let Tybalt kill me. Then I can join Romeo and prosper with love in his eternal company.
"Ah, so you admit it now?" The damned silence again. She'd become too involved in her thoughts and had let that pesky silence creep up on her while her guard was down.
"No….yes…yes." She thought she heard it laughing with victory.
"You hear that, ol' Prince?" it addressed Tybalt, "we've won! She's on our side now!"
"No, I'm not!" Juliet screamed. Their side didn't include Romeo.
"Oh yes you are. Because you're happy. You're happy Romeo's dead. Because he's dead, you can live with him. Selfish brat. Blood is thicker than water."
"I didn't want him to die!"
"I never said that."
"You implied it."
"I said no such thing. That came directly from you."
"You're coming directly from me!"
"That's right. I am. This whole scenario's coming from you. From your little morbid mind."
She'd never been called morbid before. Pure, yes. Virginal, yes. Morbid? No. Morbid people embraced death.
Happy people embrace death too.
"See, I'm not happy! Else, I'd want to die!"
"You're not happy because we're here. We bring it to thy attention that you cannot control your own thoughts. You're pathetic."
"I'm not pathetic!…This is all a dream! A savage, savage, dream!"
"If this was a dream, would this hurt so much?" Tybalt's fingers squeezed violently around her neck.
And then they left her. She knew Tybalt left because the air about her became warm and sticky. Musty. The voice left, or was drowned out, by the hum in her mind. She couldn't breathe, though. His fingers still had their death grip on her. Or was he even there? She was beginning to doubt that.
Juliet's left arm began to twitch at the elbow. It burned from the inside out. Then her left leg. Right. Up to her right arm. It burned. Had Tybalt set her aflame? Her chest became heavy. Tybalt was lying on her. Pressing the air from her. But the box remain warm.
Romeo… Was her last coherent thought before the oxygen depleted and her brain began to go. In her last moments, the silence laughed insanely, and Tybalt touched her. Everywhere. It was like a precognition of what death would be like. His cold hands roamed over her body, sending chills up her spine when she could not warm herself. Her body wanted to shake, to warm itself, but she just lay still. Enduring the pain.
She could feel Tybalt smiling. She knew he was smiling. Maybe it was one of those sixth senses people get right before they die. After he touched the last warmth in her body, the Silence took over and gratefully killed the cold.
Paris fled from the monument easily. No one was around. No one on Capulet soil would care that he'd killed the Montague whoreson anyway. His feet touched the graveled path with a light thud. He untied the eye mask that was part of his costume and stuffed it in his doublet. His wary eyes searched the grounds for Romeo's man. There was not one trace of him. He chuckled to himself. The darklings must have scared the poor sod off.
He was straightening his garments when he heard a soft crunching in the stones. He glanced up and saw the beautifully slim figure of Rosaline approaching. Paris quickened his step and came forward to her.
"Good evening, my lady," he kissed her hand then bowed deeply.
She blushed. "Good evening, County."
"Why would an angel travel to a place where the devil picks his victims?"
"To pay my respects to Juliet."
"Ah, my lady, I beg you not visit tonight," Paris began to persuade, "for rumor's been about there're scoundrels taking refuge in the shadows this week."
"Scoundrels? In the monument?"
"Aye. I'd not steer you wrong, sweet Rosaline." The familiarity in his voice and use of her Christian name made her blush more hotly and her knees go weak. "Could I not escort you back to the house where we could be more comfortable?"
"Comfortable?"
"Away from the darklings I've heard haunt this holy soil." This made her rather involuntarily cling to his arm, and he wrapped it around her to ensure protection. She sighted contentedly. "I like it when you sigh so," Paris whispered against her hair. It smelled of jasmine and freesia.
"Yes, my lord," she sighed again, and they walked off towards the house together. Rosaline had no idea of the tragedy she'd turned her back on discovering.