The air was suffocating. A thick mist of hatred and fear hung over the town square as the crowd gathered, faces twisted in a grotesque union of sorrow and fury. The accused stood on the wooden platform, wrists bound with rough, fraying rope, neck encircled by the noose that promised to end everything. His body ached from days of beatings, but nothing compared to the gaping hollowness in his chest—the betrayal that stabbed deeper than any blade.
Above him loomed the royal family, draped in resplendent silks that glimmered under the pale light of a sun reluctant to shine. The king, his features carved in stone, stepped forward. His voice rang out, cold and unyielding.
“Here stands the deceiver,” the king proclaimed, his tone devoid of hesitation. “A false savior who brought ruin upon our lands. A traitor who dared to consort with the darkness, poisoning the very people he claimed to protect.”
The crowd roared in agreement, a wave of sound that crushed the accused. He clenched his fists against the tremors in his limbs. Not fear—not of death. It was the despair, the crushing weight of knowing that those he had bled for, fought for, now clamored for his demise.
Among the faces in the crowd were villagers he once called friends, those he had saved from the jaws of feral beasts born of the Dark Mana. Mothers clutching their children, children he had shielded from unspeakable horrors. Yet now, they screamed for his death with the same voices that had once whispered gratitude.
“I only ever wanted to protect you,” he murmured, the words escaping as a fragile whisper. No one heard them. No one cared.
The queen stood beside the king, her gaze icy and detached, as though she observed not a man but a pest to be eradicated. The prince and princess, cloaked in feigned righteousness, cast disdainful looks down at him. It was all politics, of course. Blame had to be placed. And what better scapegoat than the one who had wielded forbidden power, the one who had dared to challenge the unrelenting decay of their kingdom?
The executioner approached, a hooded figure carrying the weight of death on his shoulders. He tightened the noose, the coarse fibers biting into the skin of the accused’s neck. The accused did not flinch. He stared ahead, into the eyes of the crowd, seeking a flicker of understanding. A spark of doubt. There was none.
The king raised his hand, signaling for silence, his lips curling into a sneer as he leaned forward. "Still clinging to hope, are you?" he asked, his tone dripping with mockery. "Do you have any final words, traitor? Any last plea to save your wretched soul?"
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“May the gods forgive you,” the executioner muttered, too low for anyone but the accused to hear. It was neither consolation nor apology. Just a statement of fact, as mechanical as the tightening of the rope.
The accused lifted his gaze, his voice cutting through the suffocating silence like a blade. "Gods? I see no god. None of you are worthy of salvation."
His heart pounded in his chest, not from terror but from the unbearable weight of loneliness. The weight of knowing that his life, his sacrifices, had been reduced to this.
The king’s hand fell. The executioner pulled the lever. The trapdoor beneath the accused’s feet opened, and the world fell away.
Pain erupted, sharp and blinding, as the noose snapped tight around his neck. His body convulsed, struggling instinctively against the inevitability of death. Spots danced in his vision, and the world dimmed, the jeering faces of the crowd blurring into nothingness. His thoughts drifted, unbidden, to the faces of those he had lost. The laughter that once echoed in his memories now tainted by screams.
As his vision faded, a final, agonizing thought clawed its way to the surface:
If I had another chance... would I still save you?
The crowd cheered as his body stilled. "Burn the dark mage!" a voice cried out, and soon the chant spread like wildfire. "Burn him! Burn the dark mage!"
The villagers surged forward, their faces contorted with a feral hunger for vengeance. Torches were raised high, casting flickering shadows across the square as they hurled accusations into the fading twilight.
"This is for my son, taken by the beasts you brought here!" one woman screamed, her torch flaring like her fury.
"The gods cursed you, and now we'll cleanse you in fire!" bellowed another.
The executioner hesitated as the mob swarmed the platform, pulling the lifeless body from the noose with a mix of trembling fear and blind hatred. They dragged him like a discarded carcass, placing his broken form atop a hastily built pyre of splintered wood and dried straw. The flames licked hungrily at the base, growing stronger as villagers fed the fire with anything they could find.
Smoke rose into the darkening sky, carrying with it the acrid stench of burning flesh. The mob’s cries became a cacophony of triumph and wrath, drowning out even the roar of the fire. Their faces twisted with the grotesque satisfaction of watching what they believed to be the destruction of a great evil.
Above it all, the royal family watched in silence, their expressions unreadable as the flames consumed the scapegoat they had condemned. To them, the act was not justice but necessity—a calculated end to silence dissent and redirect the people's rage. The king stood motionless for a moment, then leaned forward slightly, his voice low and dripping with venom. "Sorry, brother. Why didn’t you just die back then? Why did you live? This is all your fault. Don’t blame me."
The sun vanished completely, leaving only the glow of the fire and the lingering echoes of hatred to mark the end of the accused. Above, the royal family turned and departed, their duty fulfilled, their scapegoat sacrificed. The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving the world cloaked in a darkness that felt eternal.
But in the abyss where his soul lingered, something stirred. A faint flicker of defiance. A whisper of forbidden knowledge, ancient and unyielding.
This was not the end. This was not the end. This was not the end.
Darkness had arrived.