King ◇ Phan AU

C18

Thankful, noun: pleased and relieved or expressing gratitude and relief

This was it.

It was literally life or death.

Being dragged out of his dirty cell meant that it was time.

Time for life to finish.

Time for Phil to have his last thoughts and his last moves. His last breaths.

The words that Clifford shouted at them hurt:

"Come on you little scumbags! You worthless pieces of trash will be gone in no time, it might not even hurt!"

But Phil knew it may hurt someone: Dan. That was if he still cared, in which Phil hoped that he did, especially seeing as he cared when Phil was hurt before. Every time the king whipped Phil, Dan would step in and help out in any way possible – even if that meant that Dan would get the blame.

He was pulled with his friends onto a wooden platform, he saw all their faces not in fear, but disappointment. They knew –with this short notice – it would be unlikely that Flula would be able to get his team here in time before their execution. If they did, well, that'd be very well planned.

Phil could see at least a thousand people gathered in front of the platform, all of their faces different except for one quality – or what Phil would call flaw – they were all emotionless. No person was laughing at the fact that more enigmas were being rid of. No person was fighting back, defending the enigmas. Not even one person was in pure fear of seeing a dead body. It has happened so often in Evernon that everyone here became bored when it was announced that there was another mass execution. No one seemed to be bovvered that the main people involved with the planning of the King's death are to be ridden of, in fact, Clifford seemed more excited than the emotions of anyone in the town. His hair had somehow changed colour from the last time he saw them, it was now a bright blonde with some highlights of brown peeking through. He was always going to be a person with a passion for catching specials, like he had some sort of burning vengeance he had to clear with them.

"Finally, Lester. No more need to hunt you down." He started, "I remember when I first met you, you were a feisty one. You knew your ways with fighting with your powers, always having a way around every move of mine. It's like you always had a way around everything, knowing all of the guards' weaknesses and strengths. You put a lot of research into your missions, don't you?"

He's right, Phil thought to himself, not answering out loud any of Clifford's questions and statements. All this time, no matter how much effort I put in, there's always a stupid flaw that I kick myself for. But then, doesn't everything have a flaw? Everything in life isn't perfect, so no matter how hard id try, I would never get anything perfect, and that's alright. People will discriminate me, telling me I could do better, but that's not possible. Not even they could make themselves perfect. None of my plans would go fine, so I wouldn't be surprised if Flula can't get down here. These may be my dying moments, but at least I can be positive with them. That's what Dan would've wanted from me – wait, no. Dan would've wanted me to survive, to be honest. But I guess life isn't always fair.

"But even though beings like you are cunning and clever, who wins in a game of cat and mouse?" Clifford chuckles to himself, "the cat, of course."

He nods at the executioner, who grips onto a fraying rope. Phil sees all his friends take their final breaths, Troye – being the youngest of the group – streaming with tears. He has a lot of life left, so the ending of his life being now was a lot to comprehend. Phil knew that he had something to say, something for the crowd to remember. Something to scare the crowd, rather.