|| Lenia, last ||

|| Lenia, last ||

- Burn the bitch! Kill it with fire!
- Why are we burning it? Rip its head off!
- Skin it alive!

The demands tickled her ears. If only they were made true – especially the one about her head. But she knows, they know, nothing would ever satisfy the crowd more than her screams splitting their ears.

It has been a long time coming.

Needles pushed out of her scalp – oh, that was her hair. Out went handfuls of hair to make her bald, and all she could manage was a measly grunt. It was no longer glossy and exquisite; she could care less for that mop.

Rocks. Heavy pelting of stones hit the ground, and she felt with her feet how close they were, how some rolled to her. A moment of sneering passed at how far away those cowards must be-

The moment died with a hefty smash to her skull.

The entailing bout of madness, characterised through glee, echoed the diseased laughter she had heard once. She felt the vibration of it in her throat.

But she could no longer hear it.

No cry, no tear and no sigh bothered to even take the initiative and express themselves.

So, so tired. As if a spell had broken over her - perhaps it was the fact that she was freed from being able to cringe at her own words - she screamed it all to end.

Let the fires of heaven burn!

Just to excite the crowd a little further. The responding roar took a swinging increase and the rocks increased from dozens to scores.

Heaven… What a wish. Her place was to walk the Stairs forever.

When one could not see, they no longer bothered to count the number of days passing simply because mentally keeping count was such a hassle. Especially with the daily absentminded searches to sustain herself.

But then, why had she been counting them? Her eighteenth nameday it was today. Tonight. The sun was set. It was night. Everyday noting the level of warmth of the sun on her back. Ears perking for birdcalls.

Persistent for a miracle that would never happen. The reason for her travelling, making herself known as a musician. The one thing her mother had praised her infinitely for, for she had no talent in the flute herself.

The one thing her mother would recognise her for.

Even with the memories fragmented from that night, she had never explicitly heard her dead. Had believed it so, bitterly swallowed it so.

But there was no proof! No proof at all! How that agonized her – a torturous thought that her mother could still be out there, suffering by just breathing as she had been these last four years.

A miracle that would never come.

- I had a daughter, once.

It was the voice of a resigned woman. More so than herself. Which would have been quite a spectacle; was such a thing possible? To be worse off than she was.

- A lovely girl. Where is she now…? When was the last time I saw you?

No, God. How could you ever be so cruel?

Laugh harder, you bastard. Laugh, laugh your guts out, and I will eat them.

For some insane reason, she decided to play along. For some insane reason, she paid no attention to the fact that she could only hear the woman tied to the stake on her left.

- What was her name?

A tremble, a sigh, she could feel it all. A shaking of the head.

- I should have let her go. I should have told her everything. Run away, Lenia. Run before he takes you too.

Her chest cleaved into two. Caved in, crumpled and wailed. Her mother. Left alive, broken in the head, caught in the wheel of suffering, replaying that night for four years.

A cruel miracle. Did such a thing have to exist?

Where was her flute? She must have the damn thing to revive the woman to her senses. To restore her to that magnificent woman she once was – the continued murmurings of the woman next to her wrought her fingers to scrabble on the ropes binding her. Futile. Everything was so futile. Everything was done too late. Everything was done. Ended. Her mother, ended. Her life, ended.

Perhaps both of them had been already dead four years ago.

Her feet are starting to burn. From her mother there is no shriek. Only increasingly frenzied mutterings.

As a last comfort, her scrabbling is not all gone to waste.

Aching fingers grasp a cold hand.

As the fire burns, the hand stays ever cold.