One Shots

48. [Patchwork]

Sew.

You have no other worth besides this patchwork of yours.

Continue to do what I say, and sew the tapestry I request.

Else, you will face the wrath of punishments I have in store for you.

***

I quickly unraveled as much as the tapestry as I could before the footsteps grew too close to pretend.

On the outside, she looked like a kind woman. Her hair was sleek and taken care of well, shining a brilliant brown sheen. Her eyes had an intelligent gleam that knew secrets that shouldn't be known. Her attire was elegant, yet simple.

But her words, her intentions, her affiliations...I knew that the moment I finished this tapestry, it would be the last one I ever made.

"Kaltvier, have you made any progress?" She said sweetly, approaching me with her footsteps echoing unnaturally loud against the floor.

Quick...I needed a reason quick...

"I made a little mistake in the tapestry that I didn't detect, so I had to go back to fix it," I managed to say without stuttering. "After all, I only provide the best work for my patrons, especially for someone as esteemed as yourself."

"Ah, a little mistake, is that so?"

She lifted her fingers to touch the threads I was working with, tracing the curled twirls that were made from being tautly wound.

"There doesn't seem to be any mistakes as far as I could see," she said. Her voice was beginning to drip with that poison I was familiar with. I was in danger.

"I-I just fixed the mistake moments before you arrived," I said, weaving the threads as I spoke. "The threads got tangled at this spot here, so—"

My head snapped to the side, and my face burned with an intensity that couldn't have been from a simple slap.

"I do not want excuses," she said again, her voice still sounding sickly sweet. "Do you understand, Kaltvier? Do I have to stand here in order to see the progress being made?"

"N-No, please don't waste your time here!" I exclaimed meekly, forcing my numb fingers to continue working on the tapestry. "It would be a shame for you to have to waste precious time monitoring me!"

She smiled. It chilled me to the bone.

That smile meant that I wouldn't be eating today. Not a crumb of food or water would enter its way to me.

"Leonardo Kaltvier, do not keep me waiting," she said, turning her back. "Lest you want to see your family again. Your daughter, I wonder how she would react to seeing your head on a pike?"

It took everything within me to stop myself from letting out a wail of despair at the thought as she left the room and locked the door behind her.

Amelias...my baby Amelias...

The tapestry and it's undone threads twisted and bunched at my feet, begging to be put out of its half created misery. But how could I finish this, knowing that it's last stitch would be what sent me to my grave?

I would never escape these walls alive.

But how would I die? Would it be from starvation? The silence? The execution if I didn't finish the tapestry on time?

The possibilities were about as immense as my patchwork's stitches.

I had to press forward. She has seen the amount of the tapestry that was completed: if she came back around and saw that there was even less...

I shuddered at the thought, leaving it incomplete.

If there was anything good to have come out of this situation I had found myself in, it was that I found new kindling for my life.

I would not let my life end this way. I had to figure out a way to escape from this sewing room.

This tapestry...if I completed it, I would be dead.

But sewing and needlework was my specialty. And where there is specialty, there is secrecy within those in the profession.

This enchanted tapestry is the key to my rescue.