So... this is depressing, isn't it? Would you believe that I'm actually a happy person? Oh well. By the way this story was abstractly inspired by The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
Neither Soma nor Agni were privileged with a trail, for the same reason as Elizabeth, to set an example. It didn't help much that both of them were "heathen Indians." Unfortunately for them, neither could bare a child as Elizabeth could, so both had their execution day scheduled. They were to be burned at the stake in the middle of London. It was a huge day in the minds of all Londoners and visiting noble people.
Yes, come seen the damned heathen Indians burn at the stake! It's a national celebration! We'll all chow down on their curry as we watch their bodies being licked by flames! We'll scream racial slurs as their screams echo off the buildings! We'll celebrate as the life is burned from their bodies, and their souls are encased in an eternal hell-fire for their crimes against humanity!
And to top it off, Elizabeth was forced to watch as her friends expired in the flames.
When the day the she'd been dreading finally came, a butler of the Queen came to her cell door. She knew him well, he had come to despise Ciel over the years. He was enraged that he could not pin any crime he commited on Ciel. No matter how hard he tried, he could not tarnish the Phantomhive name, and he knew that. His name was Earl Gray. No doubt he was ecstatic at this turn of events that had killed Ciel and landed Elizabeth in jail. He smiled malevolently at her as he opened her cell door with an ominous creek. She shuttered as he roughly grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. She nearly fell over with the force of it.
"Well well, the lovely young bride of Earl Phantomhive has ended up in an unsightly place like this." Elizabeth sat silently, staring blankly at the barred wall of her cell. She could feel his anger at her absence of a reaction. He slammed her against the wall, glaring straight into her eyes. She made no movement or noise, just stared straight back at him.
"I could rape you, and no one would care," he hissed at her, his face contorting with rage. She made no sound, just stared him in the eyes with unwavering control of her emotions. She was scared to death, but she wouldn't let him know. He growled and pulled her out the cell door.
"Your little heathen friends burn today," he sang he escorted her out of the jail and into the blinding sun. She had been in that cell for four months, never seeing the light of day for so long had killed her inside, as she was a child of the sun. As her eyes became adjusted to the light, she could feel the light shining from her hair for the first time in months, and she wanted to cry with happiness.
She looked up then, and was greeted by a huge pile of logs, and two high poles. Her heart became tense, and her eyes stung with the oncoming tears. She clutched her stomach, as her knees felt weak. She grabbed Gray's shoulder in a reaction to her dizzy head. He turned around at her touch and, for an instant, worry and regret flashed across his face. Then he was Gray again, and he pulled her hurriedly by the arm to the front of the crowd that was looking up at the poles.
She somehow knew the instant that her two dear friends exited their jail. She turned, and stared at them. The few months of their incarceration had changed them greatly. Soma no longer held the air of a naïve boy. He had aged so much in such a short time. His unusually prolonged youthful innocence had been brutally stolen from him, and Elizabeth wanted to bawl her eyes out. Agni was hard now, harder and meaner than he was ever meant to be. He held a stern countenance, as he stalked over to the poles. Their advance to their death was as solemn as a death march for them, but a circus procession for the on-lookers. Elizabeth wanted to scream at the rejoicing people. She wanted to grab the torch that would be the end of her friends and burn each and everyone of those horrible, heartless people. Two white men quickly tied the Indians to the poles, smirking as they did so. Elizabeth knew in her heart these men were whispering racial slurs in her friends' ears as they did so, mocking them for the last time before their deaths.
She could hear when the first match was lit. It over powered all the screaming and cheering of the crowd and threatened to deafen Elizabeth. The first torch was lit by the match and the whoosh of the oil lighting up almost killed her. She felt her heart race as the torch seemed to float to the base of Soma's pole. Then the second match was lit and the second torch lit. When it hit Agni's base Elizabeth almost fell to her knees. It took almost twenty grueling minutes for the tinder near their feet to catch. She watched as her friends' bodies were engulfed in flame. The stench of burning flesh flirted with Elizabeth's grieving nostrils. She ground her teeth as the tears in her eyes finally spilled out. They flew down her cheeks with enough force to put out the fires slowly torturing her friends to death. The sound of the cheering crowd slowly drifted away from Elizabeth's ears as she looked Soma in the eyes. She could see the pain in his eyes. But neither he nor Agni let out even a whimper.
Soma looked determinately at Elizabeth through the pain he was feeling. His mouth opened and, with great effort, he spoke, "Be strong, Elizabeth, Ciel would not want you to cry so." With that final grunt of a sentence, he passed out from the smoke and pain. Elizabeth looked then at Agni, who was fighting desperately with the pain, trying with all his might not to scream. He noticed Elizabeth and smiled weakly through a clenched jaw.
Elizabeth could no longer watch her friends' souls slowly leave them. The sight was enough to kill her, yet somehow she lived. Maybe it was sheer will to give her unborn child life that allowed her to live through that spectacle. Either way, she screamed, and scraped at her eyes, pealing skin off under her finger nails. Earl Gray jumped at her, and futilely tried to remove her hands from her face. But it was too late, for she had already clawed her eyes out.
I never imagined that I would kill Soma and Agni... They're just so nice! I love them!
Originally I was going to have Elizabeth have a miscarraige, but I like the clawing her eyes out part better. I'm so twisted.