Word count: 786 ✨ The silk running through her body could not console the sorrow of her resigned heart. Her bare feet, caressing the stones of her path, felt like knives trying to stop her. Ah, nature had always been her space of comfort until this moment, the forest that had welcomed her for years was now nothing more than a tomb of dark oak and moss. Devotees surrounded the young girl's passage on the cobblestone path, hidden in a forest, dressed in ceremonial clothing, the young girl's garment glistened with luxury and quality, whitish silk, filthy purity. Her face hidden by a veil, no one could see that the face of duty was only half the age of those devotees who chanted rejoicing for the priestess who would put an end to the evil of the village. Each step carried with it a memory of the last five years in the temple. Voices chanting the greatness of sacrifice as the most immaculate devotion, but she did not agree. While evil was to be eradicated, could it not be influenced? Try to change it first? If only the Supreme Deity was able to judge, what were they doing walking toward the end of a life? The weight of the dagger in her outstretched hands in front of her threatened to unbalance her. Before she had been rescued by the devotees, she had lived free in the forest, one more spirit of all those who now watched silently in the darkness of the leaves, she could run away now, leave everything behind, let someone else take the step. But wouldn't she be committing with the next priestess what she reproached of these devotees who surrounded her like prey, instead of salvation? The young girl pressed her lips together and her sight blurred, the feelings of her heart bound by duty and guilt, the eternal path a moment ago lasted only an instant when she stopped thinking, the moment she resigned herself, to the life about to be lost under her hands. A temple in the middle of the forest stood like a rose among wild flowers, but she knew that this reddish color was not for love, but for obedience. Immaculate filth. Arriving at the small esplanade in front of the temple, the devotees chanted with care, the young priestess dancing the steps of death. The chief priest who accompanied her did not take his eyes off her at any moment, satisfied with the spectacle. Finished the last rituals, the priest and the priestess entered through the main door of that mystical place, made of marble, silver and gold. But no matter how shiny, the blood marks contrasted with the same intensity that had left them there. They passed into a room so small that there could only enter one person, with a circular symbol in the center, the priestess walked until she reached the center, and there she could notice that the symbols were not drawn, but engraved on the floor, where the blood that would mark the end of the ceremony would run. In front of her, a window and the ceremonial dagger in her hands. That was all? This was all her life was worth? The time had come, but the buried feelings only resurfaced with the life they were trying to protect. I want to live. I want to live! I want to touch the clouds that caress the earth when the sun is barely awake, I want to drink from the rain that gives life with every drop, I want to grow until my hair turns silver and shines in the moonlight. I want to do everything that can be done, meet everyone I can meet. So what if his life stops the evil for a year? If it comes back anyway, what's the point of giving your life for a moment for others? The young girl clenched the dagger in her hands until they became one with her dress. She could not jump out of the window, as it was made to resist evil, what she had become, but the priest was only there to command the sacrifice of life, not the one who resisted, since they could not kill with their own hands. With determination, the young girl turned in haste and threw herself at the entrance with her whole body, however, the illusion of life lasted only the instant of thinking it. The priest was closer than she thought, and as she felt the life slipping through her fingers, she watched her hand clutched in the priest's hand. She had ended her life, just as it should be. And she understood why there was no precedent, why obedience, why... the possibility of hope.