

Six men donned in black stood in an arc surrounding the marble platform on which the prisoner lay, blood dripping from the numerous cuts and stabs along her stomach and legs. She was draped completely in white, her blonde hair still elegant in the face of certain death. She was shackled to the platform and was tied with a rope across her stomach. Her eyes, though, that's what confused Johny. While everything else about her seemed peaceful, it was those solid black eyes that unnerved him even more than the men that surrounded her. She stayed completely silent as the man in the center approached her, drawing a silver dagger and pressing it to her throat. He smiled at her a final time as he pressed the cold weapon into her skin, drawing the first drop of blood from her. He quickly yelled and, with a single motion, flicked the dagger through her neck, flaying open her throat and killing her after a single, pathetic jerk and an ear splitting scream. That scream still echoed throughout the world when the man withdrew a shining chalice of gold. He held the object up to the grotesque wound, allowing the spurts of blood which still flowed out the wound to fill the cup, overflowing the edges and painting the ground a dark red. The man stepped away from the girl and rose the glass to his lips. The world shook as the blood flowed into his mouth.