She looked down at the subjects in her court; the slight shifting of her eyes was the signal for her henchmen to bar the doors. Her subjects screamed, clamored, to get to any exit, but there was no longer one open.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time,” she shouted over the din. “I will bathe in the blood of you, my subjects!”

That was the signal for the henchmen to draw their swords and begin the slaughter. Hundreds fell in minutes. The Queen watched as the blood splattered the floor little bits at a time. The room started to fill with it, and before long, when no one else moved in the room besides her guards, she stepped from her throne into the ankle-high flood.

“Thank you,” she said to them. That was their signal to end their own lives. The blood rose again slightly.

She laid down, thinking of her days as a child in the nearby forests, floating without a care in the waters. She only wished these waters were deeper.