1 My Home

There's something oh so terrifying about being dragged to meet someone. A sickness in the stomach, a stillness in the heart. Even though those people were my "Old Friends", it didn't reassure me, I knew what they would do. They were all good people, every one of them, and I knew it would hurt them to what they would do. At last, I was thrown onto the floor of my courtroom, the place where I has danced the night, the cold, the darkness away with friends, strangers, family, all of them equal and unknown in their ornate masks, all enjoying themselves in my old home, with its glowing chandeliers, it's warm orange lights, it's paintings of all my ancestors, standing for millenia upon millenia.

They started at me, my friends. Did nothing but it for minutes, their eyes full of pity and pain. I looked back, held their gazes, it would not do for a host to be rude to his guests. All I wanted was to see a shred of anger, of scorn, for that way I could hate them, want revenge on them...

And yet I saw none of it. Only people too sad to speak, to share emotion, to even cry. It broke my heart, seeing what I had done to them. In the end it all came down to me and my shivering chained hands to speak first

"I will accept my punishment." I whispered, no sense of strength in my voice, none of the power in it I had hoped for. Feeble. Weak. I hated it.

"Why would you do this Friday? You knew what we would have to do." Came a sad voice. It came from the left. Dark hair and skin led many to believe that his appearences were the darkest part of him, but after seeing the eyes that sucked you in like a void, you would quickly change your mind. Kasan. Always the calmest and most logical out of our merry band, and yet now he sounded broken, too sad for words. That struck me, pinned my heart against a cold steel wall and struck it with a hammer, over and over, each word a nail driven in.

But I spoke again "I will accept my punishment." My voice returning, if only slightly. Kasan's eyes dulled and he became silent again. And then came the words which I dreaded more than anything. "High Lord Friday. You stand accused of 17,672 cases of murder, more suspected. How do you plead."

"Guilty"

"The suspect pleads guilty. He is is to have his title stripped of him, all his subjects killed, and be sent to the lowest depths of the Underneath, where he shall remain for eternity." The noise of something falling was heard to my right. Promise had fainted.

I stood, bowed at my friends, as the floor, my floor, broke apart, swallowing High Lord Friday into the depths of the underneath.