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The warm, amber lights of the fire might have been beautiful once, comforting even, but as the girl stood on the pile of logs and fuel, with her hands clasped together- perhaps in last minute prayer?- all she could feel was the scorching hot flames licking at her feet.
Her hands were not bound- she could run, but where to? She had no family, no lover, no friends. Her only companion was her beloved cat, but even he abandoned her when she failed to provide food.
She had no one to mourn her, no one to feel saddened at the news of her passing - not even herself.
As the flames grew more aggressive, catching on the elaborate frills and layers of her over-the-top lolita-style dress, she raised her head to the sky. The pressure of the heat pushing onto her face was unbearable.
Her legs ached, her body was frozen, sweat dripped down her forehead as tongues of fire continued to warp their way around her body — but she didn't run, she didn't cry, she didn't even scream.
The worst part wasn't the pain... it was the absence of it.
Not physical — there was, in fact, plenty of that — but emotional. She should be afraid, terrified, she should run, no one was stopping her, she could escape all she wanted with just a few aching burns.
But she didn't.
And so she stood on the flaming pyre, as the flames finally engulfed her body, and instead of screaming, running, crying, she endured it.
Perhaps it was the same folly that sentenced her to death that was to blame for her lack of emotional reaction — her natural instinct to lie and manipulate.
After all, if fooling others was so easy, would it be so absurd to assume she couldn't do the same to herself?