My stomach caved in with an eerie force… the effect of the last sunset I will ever see. My heart thuds inside my chest; full of longing to see more sunsets, and sunrises, and rain showers, and flowers blooming in the field, and leaves changing colors on the trees, and, and, and… The longing inside me is like a physical pain, a wound deep inside. It cannot be healed.

​I sigh as I turn away from the window. Its no use looking and longing. I know there is no hope for me. I begin to pace around my cell. The cell is small, so it doesn’t take me long to cross from one wall to the other. It is stiflingly hot inside my cell, the air close and smelling of bodies and excrement. Despite the stuffiness and the heat, a shiver runs down my spine. My time on this earth has come to an end and I am not coping well.

​I always imagined I would die an old lady, comfortably in my bed; close my eyes on earth and wake in heaven, as easy as breathing. I never thought I would spend my last days in a prison cell, sentenced to death for differing in my beliefs. The new queen has changed all that; now that Queen Jane is dead, it is Queen Mary on the throne. And Queen Mary has taken it upon herself to rid all England of Protestants. It is frightful, to be allowed to pursue your religion one day, and forbidden the next. And to be faced with execution… it is unthinkable, yet here I am, faced with that very thing.

​My stomach clenches again, and I sit down, and then lie down, curling up into a little ball on my cot. I pray as I sob, filled with grief for the future that was wrested from me. For the children I will never have. For the journeys I will never make. For the sunsets that will continue to bless the earth that I will never see. As my sobs cease, my mind drifts into a dark and troubled sleep.