The fate...

Rough hands grabbed the back of Lara’s collar, their fingers twisting violently into her tangled hair. She was dragged across the threshold of her own home, the rough wood scraping against her knees, but she felt no physical pain.

"No... no!" she screamed, her voice a shredded, inhuman sound that echoed through the night. "Umm... Ahhh... I want Suzy! Let me go! Suzyyyy!"

Robert stood in the doorway, his face a mask of calculated fury. "You will never see her again, you filthy whore!" he bellowed for the gathered crowd to hear. "Rot in the deepest dungeons! I pray to God they execute you!" Yet, in the dim light of the torches, a single, glistening tear escaped his eye. It didn't matter; to the world, he was the heartbroken, grieving father.

They hauled her toward a waiting horse-drawn carriage. Heavy, rusted iron chains were clamped around her delicate wrists, biting into her skin. The villagers watched in disgust as the woman, still drenched from head to toe in the crimson blood of her own child, was thrown inside the carriage like a slaughtered animal.

As the carriage jolted forward, heading toward the grand courthouse, the rhythmic clatter of the horses' hooves against the cobblestones became a suffocating drumbeat. Lara sat crumpled in the darkest corner. Her lips trembled violently, her eyes wide and unseeing, staring into a void only she could perceive. She rocked back and forth, muttering endlessly to the shadows.

"Suzy... Suzanne... my love," she whispered, her teeth chattering. "Please... believe me... ahhh..."

The agonizing ride ended abruptly. She was dragged down again and pushed into the cold, stone-walled waiting hall of the court. Suddenly, a heavy boot struck her side. Lara gasped as one of the guards kicked her, sending her sprawling across the unforgiving floor.

The guard leaned down, a predatory sneer twisting his features. "Well, aren't you a beautiful little thing," he mocked, his breath reeking of cheap ale and cruelty. "Such a pretty face for such an ugly, monstrous deed! Your husband has abandoned you, harlot. I think it is only right and fitting that we guards take his place and comfort you, don't you agree?" He took a step closer, his eyes raking over her vulnerable, bloodstained form. He reached out, ready to defile her, until a sharp, authoritative shout from the Captain of the Guards rang through the hall, ordering his immediate presence. The guard clicked his tongue in annoyance and walked away, leaving her trembling on the floor.

But Lara barely registered the threat. Her mind had completely shattered. The adult woman, the mother, the wife—all of it had crumbled, retreating to a place where the horrors of reality could not reach her. She sat on the cold floor, her knees pulled to her chest, acting exactly like a frightened newborn child. She looked up at the passing officials and the looming guards with eyes full of pure, uncomprehending innocence—a profound, terrifying mental regression.

Seeking any sliver of safety, she crawled frantically toward a heavy velvet curtain hanging near the courtroom door. She buried her bloody face into the fabric, wrapping it around her small, shaking frame like a child hiding from a monster in the dark.

"Papa..." she whimpered softly into the dark velvet, her voice high and fragile. "Mama... Suzy..." She wept with the purest, most helpless sorrow of a little girl who had lost her way in a nightmare, waiting for someone—anyone—to wake her up.