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Description
If you do not like somewhat graphic violence, there's the back button

Isabelle wandered the streets of Paris in a hungered frenzy, gazing desperately from vendor to vendor for a scrap of food. Her thin fingers clutched possessively at her money purse, the hollow jingle of too few coins jangling in her shaking limbs.

The young woman had a look of melancholy to her, the haunted gaze of one who had suffered the touch of too few Francs or hearty meals passing her way.

She was dirty from head to toe, smears of mud and filth caressing her milky skin in dominating swipes. Her long black hair was lank and greasy, the ends tangled in a mass of creeping knots. Isabelle looked gaunt, her skin stretched prominently against her sharp collar bone and hollow cheeks.

Her clothes were tattered and frayed, the worn patches and loose stitches barely holding her grime smeared dress together. On the few clean spots of cloth the dress was a dark green, fading out to the smudged grey and black which marred the clothing of the poor and desperate. The corset binding her chest appeared several times too big, the tightly cinched red sash binding it to her breast giving the impression of scarlet blood against a blackened corpse. She stumbled on leather swathed feet, the worn hide boots nearly cheese-cloth thin in places.

Fits of harsh coughing crawled from Isabelle's lungs as she continued her search, the exertion bringing a dash of rose pink to her pale cheeks. Her fevered eyes shone on her face, two bright gems of ice-flaked green standing shockingly against her deathly complexion. The colour could be compared to leaves of a red rose coated in a rare frost from mid-summer, a strange and ethereal tone for one so sickly and poor.

Those eyes gazed and hunted in vain for a small piece of meat or scrap of sweet Parisian bread to sate the gnawing hunger rooted in her belly. The crowds around the pestilent and unfortunate woman avoided her gaze, each one turning away with a flair of disgust, an upturned nose or a pitiful glance before once again fading into the crowd.

Isabelle followed the erratic paces of the crowd, trailing after men and women in a hopeless, childlike fashion. As she passed produce stalls her mouth would salivate copiously as her shrunken stomach would send out large growls of insatiable ravenousness at the scents of cooked, fresh foods.

As she stumbled unevenly to each vendor she would be chased away, the owner brandishing a stick or blade at her. Slowly Isabelle would slink back to the shadows like a dog with its tail between its legs. Her famishment continued to reach new points of agony as she meandered along, the streets lined with children and beggars all crying pitifully for change or a small chunk of bread.

She was surrounded by absolute chaos, by the never ending shrieks and hollers demanding the head of King Louis XVI along with that of his Austrian Queen. Voices rose in crescendo of one another, the lamentation for food and water broken by bellows of "Vive le Revolution!"

Fighting the challenges for change and freedom were the synchronized brays of "Long live the King!" followed by the short, stomping strides of His Majesties men attempting to restore order in the streets. They marched in perfect unity, row upon row of harmonious soldiers in a world of anarchy.

This harmony was maintained by the daily volley of muskets blasting, the sounds of steel blades upon tender necks and the creaking of the hangman's noose. Noon was the time of death, the time when Isabelle would break out of her starved state and watch in horror as the Rebels, the thieves, the beggars were strung up on display in the city square, marionettes on the Devil's strings.

Isabelle despised the hangings, the ritualized scenes of death that played every day, the same script read out by different actors upon the wooden stage. She despised standing in the city square as the blood would pool underfoot, the cloying aroma of scarlet copper that would mix so intimately with the bitter, musky scent of death and decay that shrouded Paris in a choking cloud of soot.

She continued her search in vain, growing careless in her desperate quest for sustenance. She clutched at her hands, her fingers drawing dangerously close to the bulging, money drenched pockets of the rich who walked briskly along her path.

As her fingers drew close to yet another wealthy gentleman the monotonous sound of the clock rang, clear and unwanted, through the avenues. In an instant it was completely silent, the unending chaos temporarily muted in the signal of another execution. All bodies froze on the cobblestone as a universal look of resignation struck.

In near perfect union, they all turned and began to shamble toward the looming stage for the hangmen in the distance. Vendors bustled about to lock their stalls as the crippled beggars and the sickly rose from their perches against the walls.

Isabelle shuffled among them, just another puppet being beckoned by its Master. She was simply another corpse in a sea of undead, a shambling, mindless creature that haunted the capital's slums. For that truly was the state of Paris, a city of beauty and life now reduced to a defiled morgue occupied only by the walking dead.

Some of these undead were like Isabelle, wandering the cobblestone avenues in a starved haze, their bodies reduced to shambling skeletons of taunt skin and brittle bone. Maniacal skulls would grin beneath the pestilence coated muck of the filthy boulevards, the place where many not destined for the caress of the guillotine or the hangman's noose would crawl back into the earth and forever slumber. Beggar, cutthroat, whore, thief; these would be the only words carved into their wooden tombstones, the last kiss of the maternal society which had never wished them to have been conceived.

The others were finely dressed for their funeral date, swathed in satin and silk and soft velvet of rich colour and detail. Those skulls would be adorned with great gifts of gold and jewels, their leering faces painted with the colors of the living. These were the aristocrats and ladies, the fat, bloating carcasses that would dance gaily with gentleman Death and his army of succubus seductresses in the roasting pits of Hell. Their bones were not brittle; their skin was not stretched across their bodies; their bodies were not plagued with pestilence and gnawing hunger. Their coffins would be made of ebony and lined with red satin, sweet blood roses and dainty perfumes drenching their decaying skin.

Onward they trudged to the funeral stage, the poor and wealthy mixing into a single minded creature. Their footsteps seemed to speak in the otherwise silence, the sharp clicks of rounded heels and muffled boot shuffles whispering "Come see death, come see death."

Isabelle's hunger grew with each maniacal step towards the wooden platform, each closing of the food stalls a sharp jab into her starved mind. As they all filed into the cramped square she found herself wedged between several portly commoners and a baker's stall, the soft, heady aroma of fresh bread wafting tantalizingly into her nose. She whimpered in the confines, her fingers itching towards the sealed door containing sustenance.

The guards stood sentry on either side of the platform, watching the men and women that crowded the square with wary gazes, each gripping his glistening musket tightly in sweating palms.

One by one their fellow guards marched out the prisoners, a long line of ten haggard, filth ridden men that lumbered slowly up the steps to the nooses awaiting them. A few catcalls and jeers greeted the procession of thieves and murderers, the calls emitting from the wealthy and the wicked. The poor watched in silence as brothers, husbands, sons, fathers and lovers marched forward, mourning in their own reserved way as those they loved faced the hangman's noose.

Isabelle watched with a rapid-beating heart as the nooses were wrapped around their necks, the thick coils of rope encasing them like an immense snake waiting to choke the life out of their twitching bodies. Some of the men looked terrified, limbs visibly trembling as their eyes glinted severely in the noon sunlight. Others looked relieved, happy even, to be encased in their noose, absolute peace gracing their hollow features. Two of them simply appeared dead inside, dull eyes staring without seeing into the crowd with slack faces.

She could not take her eyes off of the youngest to be hanged. There stood a boy of what could only be eleven years of age scanning the assembly, rapidly blinking his eyes as he uttered tiny hiccupping sobs as a guard placed him on a chair to give him the height needed to reach the noose. He let out a sharp wail as the rope twisted round his neck, tears streaming down his face.

Isabelle turned away as a church priest began to chant the final words for them, leaning against the stall in an attempt to escape the events that were about to transpire.

Hefty footsteps slowly lumbered across the wooden planks, the unmistakable tread of the heavy set executioner, a heartless bastard who would laugh as the bodies dropped.

The young woman squeezed her eyes tightly, thin fingers curling into shaking fists in her misery.

She heard every prisoner bellow a startled yelp before it was cut off by a distinctive muffled pop or crack, the serenade of many broken necks. The ropes creaked and strained in the silence, the bodies deadweight against them.

In the moments after it was chaos once again, a mass of wailing and swearing and screaming and jeering mingling together as hot bodies jostled each other. Isabelle was abruptly thrown against the baker's stall, her arm smashing painfully through the wooden guard and into the baker's produce.

Her hand clenched around soft bread, the still hot buns steaming gaily between her fingers. She hesitated for a moment, the sounds of snapping bones echoing in her mind. But the hunger drew such thoughts away, the idea of food settling in her shrunken stomach to powerful to ignore.

Oblivious to the danger she dove both hands into the mess of splintered wood, squeezing giant handfuls of baked dough into her trembling hold. She clutched them to her chest, wild eyed and terrified as she began to flee from the crowd. She wove and ducked around the looming figures around her, frantically pushing her way to the exit.

With a tiny cry she burst through the mob, careening on unsteady legs through the streets towards a place she could devour her feast in safety. She stumbled for an eternity on the broken paths before darting into a tiny side alley, settling in the shadowed safety of several broken crates.

She held the stolen goods to her lips, savouring the texture and faint scent being presented in her fingertips. With great reverence she bit into the thick crust, moaning as the rich flavour of the faintly sweet Parisian loaf melted on her tongue.

For the first time in an age, a small smile graced Isabelle's lips.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The crowd gathered at the square, silent as the grave.

A lone figure stood erect on the platform, the noose adorning her thin neck as a pendant of death. She was small on the stage, merely a child in the assembly's eyes.

They did not call, they did not cheer. They simply watched the girl in inaudible horror and awe.

Her ice green eyes glared balefully at the crowd, her hollow face held proudly high on her stage. Her limbs were not trembling, not a tear graced her milky cheeks. She stood straight and eloquently, seeming otherworldly in her stature.

The priest did not utter her final words; a smile did not grace the executioner's face.

And in the silence Isabelle did speak, her voice husky and haunting in its quiet utterance.

"Vive le Revolution!"

The floor dropped beneath her feet, her petite body fell, the rope stretched tight as the shattering CRACK of her dainty neck sounded in the tomblike silence.

The hangman's noose cackled madly as the body swung to and fro.

Description
If you do not like somewhat graphic violence, there's the back button

Isabelle wandered the streets of Paris in a hungered frenzy, gazing desperately from vendor to vendor for a scrap of food. Her thin fingers clutched possessively at her money purse, the hollow jingle of too few coins jangling in her shaking limbs.

The young woman had a look of melancholy to her, the haunted gaze of one who had suffered the touch of too few Francs or hearty meals passing her way.

She was dirty from head to toe, smears of mud and filth caressing her milky skin in dominating swipes. Her long black hair was lank and greasy, the ends tangled in a mass of creeping knots. Isabelle looked gaunt, her skin stretched prominently against her sharp collar bone and hollow cheeks.

Her clothes were tattered and frayed, the worn patches and loose stitches barely holding her grime smeared dress together. On the few clean spots of cloth the dress was a dark green, fading out to the smudged grey and black which marred the clothing of the poor and desperate. The corset binding her chest appeared several times too big, the tightly cinched red sash binding it to her breast giving the impression of scarlet blood against a blackened corpse. She stumbled on leather swathed feet, the worn hide boots nearly cheese-cloth thin in places.

Fits of harsh coughing crawled from Isabelle's lungs as she continued her search, the exertion bringing a dash of rose pink to her pale cheeks. Her fevered eyes shone on her face, two bright gems of ice-flaked green standing shockingly against her deathly complexion. The colour could be compared to leaves of a red rose coated in a rare frost from mid-summer, a strange and ethereal tone for one so sickly and poor.

Those eyes gazed and hunted in vain for a small piece of meat or scrap of sweet Parisian bread to sate the gnawing hunger rooted in her belly. The crowds around the pestilent and unfortunate woman avoided her gaze, each one turning away with a flair of disgust, an upturned nose or a pitiful glance before once again fading into the crowd.

Isabelle followed the erratic paces of the crowd, trailing after men and women in a hopeless, childlike fashion. As she passed produce stalls her mouth would salivate copiously as her shrunken stomach would send out large growls of insatiable ravenousness at the scents of cooked, fresh foods.

As she stumbled unevenly to each vendor she would be chased away, the owner brandishing a stick or blade at her. Slowly Isabelle would slink back to the shadows like a dog with its tail between its legs. Her famishment continued to reach new points of agony as she meandered along, the streets lined with children and beggars all crying pitifully for change or a small chunk of bread.

She was surrounded by absolute chaos, by the never ending shrieks and hollers demanding the head of King Louis XVI along with that of his Austrian Queen. Voices rose in crescendo of one another, the lamentation for food and water broken by bellows of "Vive le Revolution!"

Fighting the challenges for change and freedom were the synchronized brays of "Long live the King!" followed by the short, stomping strides of His Majesties men attempting to restore order in the streets. They marched in perfect unity, row upon row of harmonious soldiers in a world of anarchy.

This harmony was maintained by the daily volley of muskets blasting, the sounds of steel blades upon tender necks and the creaking of the hangman's noose. Noon was the time of death, the time when Isabelle would break out of her starved state and watch in horror as the Rebels, the thieves, the beggars were strung up on display in the city square, marionettes on the Devil's strings.

Isabelle despised the hangings, the ritualized scenes of death that played every day, the same script read out by different actors upon the wooden stage. She despised standing in the city square as the blood would pool underfoot, the cloying aroma of scarlet copper that would mix so intimately with the bitter, musky scent of death and decay that shrouded Paris in a choking cloud of soot.

She continued her search in vain, growing careless in her desperate quest for sustenance. She clutched at her hands, her fingers drawing dangerously close to the bulging, money drenched pockets of the rich who walked briskly along her path.

As her fingers drew close to yet another wealthy gentleman the monotonous sound of the clock rang, clear and unwanted, through the avenues. In an instant it was completely silent, the unending chaos temporarily muted in the signal of another execution. All bodies froze on the cobblestone as a universal look of resignation struck.

In near perfect union, they all turned and began to shamble toward the looming stage for the hangmen in the distance. Vendors bustled about to lock their stalls as the crippled beggars and the sickly rose from their perches against the walls.

Isabelle shuffled among them, just another puppet being beckoned by its Master. She was simply another corpse in a sea of undead, a shambling, mindless creature that haunted the capital's slums. For that truly was the state of Paris, a city of beauty and life now reduced to a defiled morgue occupied only by the walking dead.

Some of these undead were like Isabelle, wandering the cobblestone avenues in a starved haze, their bodies reduced to shambling skeletons of taunt skin and brittle bone. Maniacal skulls would grin beneath the pestilence coated muck of the filthy boulevards, the place where many not destined for the caress of the guillotine or the hangman's noose would crawl back into the earth and forever slumber. Beggar, cutthroat, whore, thief; these would be the only words carved into their wooden tombstones, the last kiss of the maternal society which had never wished them to have been conceived.

The others were finely dressed for their funeral date, swathed in satin and silk and soft velvet of rich colour and detail. Those skulls would be adorned with great gifts of gold and jewels, their leering faces painted with the colors of the living. These were the aristocrats and ladies, the fat, bloating carcasses that would dance gaily with gentleman Death and his army of succubus seductresses in the roasting pits of Hell. Their bones were not brittle; their skin was not stretched across their bodies; their bodies were not plagued with pestilence and gnawing hunger. Their coffins would be made of ebony and lined with red satin, sweet blood roses and dainty perfumes drenching their decaying skin.

Onward they trudged to the funeral stage, the poor and wealthy mixing into a single minded creature. Their footsteps seemed to speak in the otherwise silence, the sharp clicks of rounded heels and muffled boot shuffles whispering "Come see death, come see death."

Isabelle's hunger grew with each maniacal step towards the wooden platform, each closing of the food stalls a sharp jab into her starved mind. As they all filed into the cramped square she found herself wedged between several portly commoners and a baker's stall, the soft, heady aroma of fresh bread wafting tantalizingly into her nose. She whimpered in the confines, her fingers itching towards the sealed door containing sustenance.

The guards stood sentry on either side of the platform, watching the men and women that crowded the square with wary gazes, each gripping his glistening musket tightly in sweating palms.

One by one their fellow guards marched out the prisoners, a long line of ten haggard, filth ridden men that lumbered slowly up the steps to the nooses awaiting them. A few catcalls and jeers greeted the procession of thieves and murderers, the calls emitting from the wealthy and the wicked. The poor watched in silence as brothers, husbands, sons, fathers and lovers marched forward, mourning in their own reserved way as those they loved faced the hangman's noose.

Isabelle watched with a rapid-beating heart as the nooses were wrapped around their necks, the thick coils of rope encasing them like an immense snake waiting to choke the life out of their twitching bodies. Some of the men looked terrified, limbs visibly trembling as their eyes glinted severely in the noon sunlight. Others looked relieved, happy even, to be encased in their noose, absolute peace gracing their hollow features. Two of them simply appeared dead inside, dull eyes staring without seeing into the crowd with slack faces.

She could not take her eyes off of the youngest to be hanged. There stood a boy of what could only be eleven years of age scanning the assembly, rapidly blinking his eyes as he uttered tiny hiccupping sobs as a guard placed him on a chair to give him the height needed to reach the noose. He let out a sharp wail as the rope twisted round his neck, tears streaming down his face.

Isabelle turned away as a church priest began to chant the final words for them, leaning against the stall in an attempt to escape the events that were about to transpire.

Hefty footsteps slowly lumbered across the wooden planks, the unmistakable tread of the heavy set executioner, a heartless bastard who would laugh as the bodies dropped.

The young woman squeezed her eyes tightly, thin fingers curling into shaking fists in her misery.

She heard every prisoner bellow a startled yelp before it was cut off by a distinctive muffled pop or crack, the serenade of many broken necks. The ropes creaked and strained in the silence, the bodies deadweight against them.

In the moments after it was chaos once again, a mass of wailing and swearing and screaming and jeering mingling together as hot bodies jostled each other. Isabelle was abruptly thrown against the baker's stall, her arm smashing painfully through the wooden guard and into the baker's produce.

Her hand clenched around soft bread, the still hot buns steaming gaily between her fingers. She hesitated for a moment, the sounds of snapping bones echoing in her mind. But the hunger drew such thoughts away, the idea of food settling in her shrunken stomach to powerful to ignore.

Oblivious to the danger she dove both hands into the mess of splintered wood, squeezing giant handfuls of baked dough into her trembling hold. She clutched them to her chest, wild eyed and terrified as she began to flee from the crowd. She wove and ducked around the looming figures around her, frantically pushing her way to the exit.

With a tiny cry she burst through the mob, careening on unsteady legs through the streets towards a place she could devour her feast in safety. She stumbled for an eternity on the broken paths before darting into a tiny side alley, settling in the shadowed safety of several broken crates.

She held the stolen goods to her lips, savouring the texture and faint scent being presented in her fingertips. With great reverence she bit into the thick crust, moaning as the rich flavour of the faintly sweet Parisian loaf melted on her tongue.

For the first time in an age, a small smile graced Isabelle's lips.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The crowd gathered at the square, silent as the grave.

A lone figure stood erect on the platform, the noose adorning her thin neck as a pendant of death. She was small on the stage, merely a child in the assembly's eyes.

They did not call, they did not cheer. They simply watched the girl in inaudible horror and awe.

Her ice green eyes glared balefully at the crowd, her hollow face held proudly high on her stage. Her limbs were not trembling, not a tear graced her milky cheeks. She stood straight and eloquently, seeming otherworldly in her stature.

The priest did not utter her final words; a smile did not grace the executioner's face.

And in the silence Isabelle did speak, her voice husky and haunting in its quiet utterance.

"Vive le Revolution!"

The floor dropped beneath her feet, her petite body fell, the rope stretched tight as the shattering CRACK of her dainty neck sounded in the tomblike silence.

The hangman's noose cackled madly as the body swung to and fro.