That night the princess slept in her spacious and large bed, in her royal bedroom.
She had not been able to fall asleep for the beginning of that night as she repeatedly awakened by the screams of pain and the cries of her daughter, Charlotte was unable to doze off.
The attendants obviously tried to reach the little girl's room, trying to calm her, not to make her cry anymore, to be able as much as they could to alleviate her pain that was slowly taking away that little life.
In the last few months the child was further weakened, that were her long and painful last days.
She had begun to obsessively refuse food and everything that was given to her was rejected by the little girl's body, nosebleeds from her small nose had become more frequent and her marble-white skin had begun to weaken and become fragile like porcelain.
In all those months, Isabelle had failed to conceive a second child and it hurt her in every way, to see, to hear, how painfully and slowly the strength had begun to leave Charlotte's body.
Her daughter needed treatment, she had none, the doctors at court were all dead, beheaded and burned.
So the girl just had to cry at night, all night, waiting for the fateful day when all her pain would be appeased.
Later in the night, when her child's incessant cries had subsided, the sovereign had managed to fall asleep, in a complete state of sleep in which her narrowed eyes continued to project images into her brain.
Isabelle woke up shortly after to a blow, a loud thud on the floor.
She immediately raised her head towards the noise, in the middle of her room, she saw nothing for the first few seconds, nothing more than the darkness that surrounded her and the cold of the air, which through the window emitted violent drafts inside the room.
Everything was normal, quiet, but if it really was, what could that strong blow have been, her imagination perhaps? Or had something really happened?
Her head had started to ache, hurt so much, she couldn't help but close the eyes for a few seconds, squint her lids.
This had relieved her pain for some time, so much so that it made the princess believe that everything was fine again.
She let her eyes open and thereby Isabelle made the worst mistake of her life.
As once her eyes were wide open to the night which silently surrounded her, everything had changed following a loud and tedious noise, a whistle that had begun to haunt her ears.
As she began to look again, the world no longer seemed the same, her room, mostly her walls, were full of dirty slaps, full of fresh red blood, which smelly from the prolonged night had begun to fall in full drops on the white marble floor.
They poured quickly, swiftly, accumulating on the floor, becoming rivers, lakes of blood, of a color that from the vivid red passed to the dark black, which had begun to spread over the floor of the room.
That couldn't be true, it was a nightmare, just a horrible, terrible nightmare.
The blood on the floor not only being of an unusual dark color had learned an almost solid, sticky shape, wrapping up the princess's feet, trapping them, engulfing them, Isabelle was blocked, she could no longer move under the control of that cruel and unexpected nightmare.
She had to stand still, motionless, sitting on the white and soft mattress of her precious bed of dark chestnut wood.
Her soft golden hair meanwhile descended wavy and disheveled up to her bottom, while some tufts spread over the face of the princess, pale with fear and terror.
Why was this all happening? Those paranormal events were frightening and she would not wish anyone to live them.
Isabelle stood there, she looked out the window, the moon, the sky dotted with stars was no longer visible, covered by thousands of bodies with human features made up of that sticky mushy material, they had begun to accumulate outside her window, to climb on top of each other.
They watched the princess, they wept from their big white eyes, long, candid tears, some of those figures were crying some screamed, as if in deadly pain.
Why did they haunt her? Those despicable ghosts. She hadn't done anything to deserve all this, not that much, so at least she believed.
-Isabelle...-a voice called her, louder and more evident than a thousand others, the princess turned her gaze again towards the centre of the room where she had heard the mighty impact on the floor shortly before.
On the floor, from that sea of mushy and solid blood, numerous further figures had been created, all of them observing the princess, not seeming to want to leave her alone.
But unlike all the other thousand unknown figures, whining and shouting, those central figures were instead very well known to her.
Gilbert, whose chest pierced by the blade of a knife created cascades of blood, fluid, almost transparent like the man's body, dispersed in the black and clumped pool of blood that covered the floor.
Thomas Cross, whose blood covered his hair and head.
Abigail, whose blood was oozing from her nose, in more quantity than all the others, dripping in stains on her dress and on the floor.
Francis, whose liver punctured by a bullet, emitted spurts of blood, right next to him the two Dustins who holding hands tried not to let their dry and cold mouths reject further blood from their poisoning.
Isabelle could not believe it, all those people, it was she who killed them, in different ways and manners, but that night, in the cold of darkness they were alive, there with her.
-What do you want from me?- the desperate princess complained as transparent tears had started to fall on her pale cheeks from her eyes -all of you, you are dead...I am sure, you are not alive…-.
-It is you who have killed us, you have killed us all, Isabelle and now we are here to cry our pain to you...-Abigail repeated, as her transparent figure swayed, like that of the other ghosts.
-There is no peace for our souls...we await redemption, Isabelle, we are stuck in the limbo of the murdered, you sent us here and you have to pay for your sins...- one of the twins Dustin began to speak -we will take everything from you, the power, the wealth, whoever is dearest to you, we will make sure that you spend your life alone, forever...-.
What a horrible nightmare that was, they were dead, all of them, how could they be alive that night, again and again, to haunt her sleep.
Isabelle closed her eyes, prayed it was all over, everything around her would disappear, she prayed and everything she asked for came true.
When the princess opened her eyes again the blood was gone, the bodies, the ghosts, everything was normal again, the moon, the dark sky dotted with stars, everything was visible again, only something had changed.
Her daughter was no longer crying, she had suddenly stopped.
The next morning, little Charlotte, already suffering from an incurable disease, was found in her bed, deceased, of asphyxiation.
But Isabelle knew well that death was not for a natural cause, no, she knew it, from the look full of terror in the last seconds of her little girl's life, from the live red mark to the base of her small and thin neck from the little scratches.
They had got what they wanted, now she was alone, in her pain and for that she would be damned for life.