The Wretched & Alone system works brilliantly for the creeping dread and paranoia of the witch trials. The prompts were so thoughtful and interesting, and I really enjoyed fleshing out my character and the people around them, all the more to cry later.
And because I only know how to poem, have this little thing about my poor witch:
I could have lived.
I could have trusted no one,
saved no one, believed in
no one, and lived.
I could have spoken your name
on the wind in the night, and let it be
the only truth to come
from my lips.
I could have kept every hex meant
to protect the innocent
buried deep in my soul,
like the jars buried
in the soil around
my now-burned
cottage.
I could have sent
my neighbor to the
gallows, my sister,
the childhood friend
I loved
- too well -
and danced alone by the
stream for the rest
of my life.
I could have buried
every implement,
salted the earth
with the power
I'd been given.
I could have lived,
but I loved
- too well -
and could never
let the breath go
out of a child, or a
young mother,
never let a field
lie fallow that
could feed
a mouth.
Enough.
The time for regrets
has come and gone.
I ask for no mercy,
not because my soul
is stained or signed away,
but because I no longer
know that we are
capable of such
a thing.
would have been
as someone else.