Guards circled the horse-drawn carts of vegetables like one massive shield. Hungry people began to shout at the armored men as the carts, filled fresh roots and tubers, rolled straight past their homes and continued to move towards the center of the city, the Keep of the God King. A swarm of starving people had begun to buzz around the carts. Guards pushed them away. I rushed to join the mob but people started to shove me aside, sprinting to the carts in order to be the first to eat.
     The people began to outnumber the guards. A few children tried to reach between the guards to grab a carrot or a potato and had their hands beaten back by cold, gauntlets. The guards pushed back against the crowd, brandishing weapons. The fiery mob of peasants now followed the carts like a giant pack of dogs. As the cart neared the Royal Keep, where the nobility and the God King himself lived.
     "I was appointed by the Gods to govern you ungrateful swine!" shouted the God King from the balcony of his fortress. "Stop this madness or I shall call the dragon's winds down on you!" But his voice sounded small and feeble through the commotion of the mob. 
     Dozens of guards still smashed against hundreds of citizens. Somehow a fight began from the center of the civilians, spreading outward like wildfire. Guards continued to swing their swords at the mostly unarmed mob. Metal struck flesh and I saw several bodies fall. The screams became deafening.
     The armored gates of the fortress flew open and out of them rushed twenty more guards. They carried spears and shields and attempted to form a phalanx to hold back the torrent of fists, bodies, and stones but eventually even they were swallowed by the mass of hungry, filthy bodies. 
     The God King still shouted at the crowd from above, now impossible to understand over the screams of dying people. A small portion of the crowd trickled back towards the city, occasionally glancing back to the balcony fearfully, but most of the mob pushed forward into the Keep. A wind whipped from the skies and slammed the gates closed behind the mob. In several minutes, hundreds of feet above my head, from the king's balcony, bodies began to fall onto the dank earth, most of them already dead but some still screaming until they splattered against the horse-trodden street. 
      I had almost no time to register what I saw when I glanced up. A figure seemed to order my eyes to gaze at the sky, even though it was blindingly bright. As the body of the God King lined up with the blazing sun, I could make out the silhouette of wings, a frame of bone with skin stretched across it, bright red as the sun's rays cut through it. The king, bloody but still dressed opulently fell just like the previous bodies. His eyes observed the impending ground exactly as the others had. His immaculate wings did not spread and he did not cushion his fall with a wave of fire. Instead, they folded close to his body. His crown floated off of his human head just before it broke open on the dirty, cobbled road, just like all the other heads had. 
     I gawked at the unrecognizable pile of meat that was our God King for a few moments and then bent down to pick up the crown that had rolled to my feet. When I looked up again, the castle fortress itself breathed out smoke and was lit with scorching flames. Now I could hear sounds from inside the fortress, the screaming and the cracking of massive stones. I put the King's gilded, jewel-encrusted crown on my head. 
     As I swaggered to the edge of the town, I found that a small crowd of people, most grieving noisily, had gathered, staring at the cloud-piercing column of smoke now behind me. I moved forward into their vision. The congregation of people saw the King's crown on my head and sank to their knees waiting for me to speak or even to announce myself. I thought I was going to give the crown to someone else or tell them to stand up, but when I opened my mouth to speak, the cold metal of the crown made me lightheaded. I thought of the shining gems and polished gold that sat on my head and changed my mind.
     "I am your King now. The gods made it so."