Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - Fifty-Five

Fifty-Five

“Stop it,” I screamed, “I said stop it! I-can’t-breathe.” I let out a moan, as Ludmilla wrenched the ties of my corset so hard I thought I heard my rib crack.

“I’m going to die today anyway, just give me a few more hours,” I sobbed, arrows of sharp, searing pain stabbing at my rib and causing me to double over, which hurt even more.

“Oh, dearest, I wanted you to die the same way your brother did: suffocation. It is a shame there is pond this time. Oh, wait, there is a lake over-”

My arm swiped through the air and smashed into her cheek. All the energy drained from me, as I sat there panting and gasping, tingling, curling and uncurling my fists. She had just confessed to killing my brother. She had really killed Benjamin. I swallowed, but my throat hurt in the intolerable heat and I craved water.

The walls were thin, because I could hear the screeches and crashes outside. I could feel the fire, feel the heat. I could feel my heart thumping with guilt; I had caused this, this civil war. It was a living nightmare, and I half expected the Zeppelins to bomb us, to torture me furthermore. I looked up at Ludmilla slowly, my murdering nanny who now held me hostage in a room which only she had the key to.

“I looked after you when you were an insufferable little brat. This is how you repay me?” Ludmilla laughed. I was shaking.

“You murdered my brother,” was all I could whimper softly, injured, tears streaking down my cheeks, “And now my innocent friends are going to die because of your plan to kill me too.” The thought of my poor friends dangling on a tree because of me caused me to crease up in more agony as my rib screamed at me.

“Don’t you have a conscience?” I couldn’t even yell now, my voice was so hoarse. Ludmilla, my nanny, a person my parents trusted, shook her head.

“Please, Ludmilla, send for my husband. He will give you a handsome sum for my ransom. Please… I’m begging you…” Here I was, the Kingston Heiress, begging, on the floor, fighting with pain.

"I never did anything to you.” It was my final hope, I could barely breathe and my eyelids and limbs were drooping.

"I know,” Ludmilla snapped, rubbing her still glowing cheek. It gave me little pleasure to see I had made Benjamin’s murderess suffer; the stinging sensation coursing through my body saw to that.

“But your father did.”

*****

I lay there, dying. Ludmilla had lashed out, giving me a cut lip, swollen eye, and crimson snakes slithered out of all the slashes across my arms and stomach, and she had left me to die, unrecognisable, my broken body left to be eaten by the raging flames outside. My rib was completely shattered. I had lost my fight. I had lost my will. I had lost my will to live. I was so weak I couldn’t even cry any more; it hurt too much to shudder and shake.

I didn’t scream as the wall collapsed. I smiled, because my death was coming; the dancing flames would consume me quickly and release me from my misery. I couldn’t believe this was how I was going to die, and that I would die so young. I would never see my family again, my baby sibling would never know me. I would never make my own family. I would never know if Bobby had loved me. I would never see my country win the war. I couldn’t believe I was going to die because of my father, and one woman’s stupid desire for revenge on him, because he had killed her parents too. At least I would be with my twin Benjamin in heaven. My twin Benjamin, who was drowned by Ludmilla and Natalya, his nanny and his cousin. Ludmilla hadn’t left without telling me that was true.

And then I heard it; the horrible sound of a man in distress.

“Elsie. Elsie. Elsieeeeee.” John was whimpering my name over and over. I let out a sob that seemed to strangle my throat. I could survive. He had come to rescue me.

I rolled over slowly on the floor, pushing myself up on my hands and knees. I looked out onto the scene, coughing as the smoke swirled around me, and saw all the villagers running and screaming over the dead, injured and missing. Four limp bodies hung from the great oak tree, which my husband was moving towards, slowly with horror. The smoke seemed to have burned away my vocal chords, so I forced myself to get up and stagger after him, into the flames and over the rubble of the fallen wall.

A huge explosion caused John to fall back on his walking stick, shielding himself. He turned around and surveyed the scene. I could see tears streaming down his cheeks. Had he mistaken me for Rain, swinging from the tree, since she had blonde hair, which he would presume me to still have too? Would he even recognise me, brown-skinned, black-haired, beaten and broken?

I leant against a post; I didn’t think I could move much further, for torture was cruelly ripping my body to shreds. I couldn’t breathe. I felt so dizzy. My legs were wobbly. I clutched onto the post.

“Elsie!” I looked up, and all the wind was knocked out of me as John hurled himself at me, sobbing wildly.