The Punishment

Author's Note: This was a creative piece that I decided to write for fun. There isn't much behind it, but it still seems to be an entertaining piece to read and write.

On October 14th, 1349, the dusk had fallen, and darkness engulfed all of the land. A little shack, in the small English town of Bursbury, was busy at work. The tinted windows spontaneously flashed with bright colors from sporadic explosions and a small shadow scurrying back and forth could be found. In a normal neighborhood, these acts would be quite suspicious, but in this particular community, events like these were not uncommon in any way.

The shack was wooden, with the most obnoxious shade of orange one could ever imagine. The paint was peeling to a large degree, hence the paint was put on eighty years ago, eighty-two to be exact. If you traveled past the rickety door which was held on by a single hinge, you would see a small women hobbled over a rusting kettle. The women would be about 5’2” if she didn’t have the hunched back, but with the back problem, the woman was 4’7” at the most. Her complexion was that of a ghost, and her age was told by the extreme amount of deep wrinkles that lined her face. She wore a tattered cape which tied around the neck, a black dress that was darker than the night itself, and brown shoes caked in mud with holes by each of the thumb toes.

The air of anticipation surrounded the shack, and the lady was in total concentration as she stirred her brew. Muffled words were muttered from the woman’s mouth as she rotated the spoon round and round. A sudden explosion of green erupted from the cauldron and licked the wooden panels above her. She had finally succeeded. Her witchcraft was ready.

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Chris struggled inside the oversized cage that rattled from the ceiling. Why must this happen to me? What have I done? Though the latter question had been answered many times he still didn’t understand. Could passing through a neighborhood be that bad? Apparently, it was, because that was the reason he was inside the cage.

The way Chris got into this predicament was actually quite simple, and seemed very foolish. Chris’ mother was on bed rest for she had been diagnosed with the dreaded Bubonic Plague. She hadn’t much longer to live, but Chris and his family was determined to squeeze out every moment from the rest of their mother’s life. Recently, she just ran out of herbs prescribed to her by a local plague doctor so Chris was to walk across town to retrieve the medicine. Unfortunately, a mysterious, and supposedly haunted, neighborhood acted as a divider between Chris’ neighborhood, and his destination.

As he cut through the divider, Bursbury, as stealthily as he could, he was captured by three men that must have all had a stature of at least 6’5” and 250 pounds. As Chris struggled to release from their firm grip, they took him to what was apparently a headquarters of their neighborhood. What neighborhood has headquarters? Obviously, a very obscure one. Anyways, they stuffed Chris into a metal cage which was later hung to the ceiling.

After waiting in the cage for what seemed like two days, but was only an hour, a masked man entered the room. His hair was a deep black, and was slicked back. A black cape wrapped around his body, and the mask brought an aura of mystery to the man. Each step of his was authoritive, and his black leather boots clicked on the cobblestone with each step.

“Why are you here, my boy?” The masked man asked.

“Uh-uh-I…” Chris was quickly interrupted,

“Give me an answer!” Chris somehow managed to lurch back in the confined cage.

“I was caught cutting through your neighborhood.”

“I see, I see,” The masked man shook his head in disappointment. “Now why might one do that?”

“You see, my mother is very sick, and I needed to get medicine from our plague doctor, which is on the other side of Bursbury.”

“But why must you be so disrespectful of our land?”

“I’m sorry sir. I had no intentions of doing wrong.”

“You may have had no wrong intentions, but you still did it. Wrong doings must be punished. We at Bursbury take punishments very seriously,” Chris had just put two and two together and started to quiver. “Tomorrow morning your punishment will take place. A witch by the name of Ursula has prepared a special spell for you. If she succeeds, which is most likely, you will be turned into a grotesque ogre, and will be placed in our dungeons for the rest of your lives. If she fails, we will look upon you as super human. You will be placed among our top ranks,” He paused. “I know what you are thinking. There is no possibility of you returning home.” The masked man turned on his heel and walked out the door with out saying another syllable. Tears welled up in Chris’ eyes and though he tried to restrain himself from crying he just could not. All he could do now was wait for the Punishment.

                                                                   --

Dawn approached, and Chris woke to the three men latching shackles on to his arms and legs. Chris didn’t have the energy or willpower to fight back so the men continued you to work with him conscious.

Five minutes later, Chris was taken to a large courtyard. People were milling around anxious for the Punishment. Chris wasn’t expecting to have so many people watching. Heck, he didn’t even expect anybody to be watching. The masked man stood up.

“Quiet down my fellow citizens. Quiet down,” The people started to move in a more orderly fashion and formed a circle around Chris. “We all know why we are here. This boy in front of you has committed a deed worth punishing. Now we must come through on the second part. Ursula, if you may.” The small witch from the shack stepped out into the middle of the circle to meet Chris. A pleased look came across her face, as it was obvious that she was very happy to be there. As she lifted up her wand, which looked nothing more than a stick picked off a tree, a soft blue glow encompassed the court yard. It was a dome-shaped shield. Nothing could come in, nothing could come out. Chris observed the fortress slowly until his eye fell upon an inconsistency in the wall. A loophole was found to the right of Chris.

Ursula started to chant around the cauldron that somehow made its way in front of her. Bubbles emerged on the surface of whatever liquid that lied in the pot. With each passing second, the bubbles grew larger, the green of the liquid grew deeper, and Ursula became louder.

All of a sudden Ursula shouted at the top of her lungs “SIGFRA TIERPE DOMINGU!!!” A green mist surged towards Chris. He decided that this was the time to run for the inconsistency. The gap seemed to far away for Chris to reach but the mist moved slowly.

Chris riled up all of his energy and strength to make one leap towards the hole. As his chest crossed through the gap, the mist wrapped around his ankle. Chris could feel skin falling from his ankle like perfect baby back ribs, and his face against the muddy grass. He army crawled through the rest of the loophole and glanced back at the ankle that had just deteriorated. Bone could be seen in some parts and tissue was badly wounded. He knew he couldn’t worry, so he jumped up onto his healthy ankle, and hobbled past the boundary between his home neighborhood and Bursbury.

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Chris was home safely, but his ankle eventually had to get amputated by a doctor. Chris tried to tell the story to his family and to everyone around him, but no one would believe him. Everybody would just continue to think of Bursbury as a peaceful English neighborhood, not as one that practices of malevolent witchcraft are part of everyday life, but Chris knew different. For the rest of his life, though it was short lived being that he only lived seven more years, he never crossed the border between the two neighborhoods again.