Sacrifice

Another take on the Wawel Dragon fairytale. - See Yesterday.

Agata cried and sobbed uncontrollably, she’d cried enough tears to extinguish a dragon’s breath, but there were plenty more to come. She knew she was going to die a horrible and painful death in just a matter of hours and despite the fact that she was told she was a heroine, that she was doing it for the village, she didn’t feel heroic. She didn’t care about the village, she didn’t want to die and she sure as hell didn’t want to be eaten by a fire-breathing dragon. But she’d been chosen, her family had been paid and so she had to do her duty.

Every month a girl who turned 15 that month was chosen to be sacrificed to the dragon. Last month it had been her friend Ela, Agata had comforted her friend right up to the moment that the men of the village had come to take her away. Agata never for one moment thought that this month it would be her turn. But here she was, being dressed in the sacrificial shawl and anointed with holy water, decorated with flowers and promised she would find peace in heaven.

She shivered and cried her way through the ceremony while the villagers drank and sang and cheered. She wept and wailed as they bound her to the stake and carried her through the streets like a pig on a spit towards the dragon’s lair. She wondered how the villagers could celebrate the death of a young virgin.

The villagers planted the stake in the ground and retreated, going back to safety, to their celebrations and leaving the vulnerable young girl to her violent fate.

Agata could hear their cheers and laughter drifting on the breeze that tickled her face as she hung silently on the pole. Her tears had dried, there were no more left. She closed her eyes and waited, waited to hear the footsteps, the grumble of the dragon’s breath. Every crack of a twig, every howl of a wolf made her jump. She was cold, stiff, scared; she wanted to be at home in a nice warm bed.

Agata opened her eyes, the sky was a soft orange as the sun peaked over the hills, she must have been asleep but she was still alive; no dragon had come to maul her. She started to scream and shout, hoping someone would hear her and cut her down from the stake. She’d been saved, spared, but why?

She was just getting hoarse when her cries for help brought the village men down to the lair to investigate.

‘She’s alive,’ one shouted.

‘How can it be?’ another asked.

‘She can’t have been a virgin,’ someone said. They all gasped at this revelation.

‘Whore,’ one shouted

‘Whore,’ they all shouted in unison, ‘kill her.’