14

14

ANNALISA

A clammy sweat slicked my skin as I jolted awake, the dream clinging to me like a shroud. It wasn’t the first time this nightmare had visited, a recurring torment from a past life I barely remembered. This time, though, the details felt sharper, the emotions rawer.

I was trapped in a crowded square, the cobblestones slick with a suspicious sheen. A jeering mob circled me, their faces contorted with a mix of fear and morbid curiosity. In the center stood a rickety wooden platform, the executioner sharpening his axe on a nearby grindstone with a chilling rasp.

My throat constricted. This couldn’t be real. It was just a dream, a cruel trick my subconscious was playing on me. But the fear felt distressingly real, the taste of metallic terror thick on my tongue.

“Annalisa Dubois!” A booming voice echoed through the square, silencing the jeers. A pompous man in a feathered hat stood on a raised dais, reading from a parchment that trembled in his hand. “You stand accused of the h