They cheered with a roar when Gillan was guided and shoved down the road towards the gallows, looming in the distance with dark intent. Gillian held her head high despite the ridicule and slurs the crowd yelled at her with vicious might. Rotten food hurled and splattered onto her, her already dirt covered clothes smudging and wafting with a rancid smell. The people spat and threw stones, children making a game of it, seeing who could hit her the most. the sharp edges of rocks cutting into her already bruised flesh, that had begun to redden and swell. She had been tortured for days, forced to eat molding food, and kept in a cold, damp, dark cell, barely the size of a closet. The days of beatings had made her delirious, the chilled cell making it worse during the night. 

Before she had been carted away out from her cell one last time, Gillian had a visitor. The visitor held a handkerchief to her mouth and nose to guard against the foul smell of the prison, looking at Gillian with pity and disgust. 

“I do not think in your short stay here, you have suffered half as much as I had at your own hands,” her musical voice floated in the air, so pure, so innocent. Gillian loathed it, she snorted, typical that she came to gloat at her, Gillian said nothing. 

The girl sighed, “you still don’t understand do you? You really don’t think you did anything wrong.” 

“I treated you like everyone else,”

“I know,” the girl said sadly, “but all i wanted was for you to treat me like a sister,” 

Gillian laughed, “why? Only because we have the same mother doesn't mean you get to act like you know me. You don’t, you are nothing. Your father was lucky my mother gave him the time of day.” 

The girl gulped, looking straight at Gillian, “so you made my life hell?” 

“You hated me just as much, admit it, you’re not better than me. I’m the victim, i was defending myself,” 

“What about the servants and other court ladies?” 

Gillian shrugged, “that was just fun, only a bit of teasing, and letting them know their place. No harm.” 

“Three maids committed sucide because of you,” the girls voice finally hardened, “we all know now about the abuse you had put the servants through, and if those noble ladies had not come forward with evidence against your-your-” she paused glaring at Gillian, “fun,” she mocked, “hundreds would have carried on suffering.” 

Gillian frowned, “they were just servants, and those ladies were always doing things to me, I was just paying them back.” 

The girl sighed again. “I tried, I did. But you won’t admit it. I’m sorry sister, maybe if I, mother or father had done something differently, you wouldn’t be here. But I can't blame myself anymore, it isn’t my fault that you did this. Goodbye, perhaps time in hell will be good for you, to finally understand what you put others through.” 

That was the last thing Gillian's half sister said to her. Her feet ached as they crunched down on the frozen dirt, they numbed, losing feeling with every moment she stayed outside. But the guards would hardly give her shoes let alone a coat, she tried not shiver under the bellows of the cold wind, she would stride forward to the gallows with dignity. 

Walking on the creaking steps, Gillian was faced with the full force of the crowd, growing anxious to see the evil villian finally be punished. She was placed on a stoll where the executioner looped the noose around her neck, everything seemed to go silent for Gillian, though she could see the mouths of people moving, yet no sound was heard, before she knew it, she was hanging by her throat, choking slowly, she struggled, trying to breath, though it was useless, just when she thought she were about to faint from the loss of air, she was pulled down crashing hard onto the wooden flooring. It hurt, she hissed with pain, her eyes swirling trying to make sense of the blurs around her. When her eyes finally adjusted, there was a searing pain that sliced into her chest that flowed down into a path to her belly. She was cut open, her eyes scanned down herself, seeing her iners falling out, a fountain of blood pouring through a widened gap in her flesh, she coughed involuntarily, a feeling as if something was filling her lungs. 

All she knew for those moments was agony. 

As Gillian took her last breath, she saw the face of her supposed family weeping, she mentel snarled cursing them. She didn’t need their pity, it was their fault, all their fault…