Hello everyone and welcome back! Sorry that this was a bit late, I'm pretty sick right now and I have a pretty bad headache. I actually didn't think that I'd get this up until next week, but my headache's getting much better so I managed to get it up mostly on time.
Also, I think that I should put another WARNING at the beginning of this one because even though it isn't nearly as bad as the last chapter it features a fair amount of cruelty. So if your sensitive to that unfortunately it's harder to not read over but just prepare yourself for that.
This is the final chapter of Part 1 so let's just get on with it.
I awoke in the morning, surrounded by drying blood. My legs were still as they were, almost broken off and bloody. The wound was likely infected by now. My wrists stung from the scars, and my whole body ached.
It was likely that I'd be executed as soon as today, and as late as tomorrow. The executioners may leave me to rot a little longer, or they may kill me quickly. I'd prefer it if they did it today, before the infection killed me. I wanted to die quickly, not slowly and painfully. Of course if they knew that they'd make sure my life was a living hell before finally killing me. As usual, I decided to keep my mouth shut.
A few hours later I was dragged out of the hole and set down away from the village, in our small amphitheater. I'd have a public execution, I knew that now. A large guillotine was set up at the bottom of it, on the stage.
I sat at the top of it, overlooking the few seats and large blade.
"Looks intimidating, doesn't it?" Someone asked. I turned, seeing Cordierite looking over me. "Don't worry, its quick and mostly painless. Or at least, that's what I think it is. The blade moves pretty quickly"
I turned back to look at it.
"Ermenegildo's going to be taking care of things from here." Cordierite said, "I'll be back later"
He stepped aside, revealing a larger man, who was likely Ermenegildo. He had long golden hair and was very muscular.
"I doubted you from the start missy, and I am not going easy on you" He said. His voice was very rough.
I turned to see him drag me away to a stone building. The blacksmith's building. He set me down against the anvil as he grabbed a long metal stick from the fire. The end of it bent and formed a rectangle. It was orange and clearly very hot.
"We use these to brand the cattle," he said, "and I'm going to do the same to you"
He bent down and ripped my raggedy clothes off my small, broken body, then stuck the brand into my side. It sizzled and hurt severely. I tried to resist screaming, but that proved to be very difficult. Smoke drifted up to my face as I screamed.
When he finally finished and placed the hot brand back into the oven, I collapsed, trying to catch my breath. Then something seemed to take over me. I don't deserve this, I thought, reaching out with my sore hands and trying to crawl away. No one deserves this, especially not me. I didn't do anything to deserve this! She was asking for it!
"Naughty girl" Ermenegildo said, grabbing my ankle and trying to pull me back. My foot broke off, and fresh blood started to leak out. It hurt, but for some reason I kept going.
I heard him draw out the hot iron, then he stuck it into my right shoulder blade. I screamed in pain, stopping where I was. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me back to the anvil.
"You got no legs," he observed, "well, mostly none" He reached down and ripped the other foot off. I winced in pain. It didn't hurt too badly, as it was already mostly gone. "There you go" he said, raising the iron and burning the newly opened wounds on my legs. It hurt, but I knew that it would stop the bleeding faster.
"What's going on?" Cordierite asked, stepping into the building.
"She was being bad," Ermenegildo replied, "so I gave her an extra brand"
"An extra?" Cordierite asked, looking down at me. I looked up at him with pleading eyes, hoping that he wasn't allowed to do that. "Give her another, just to make sure" He said before leaving.
"My pleasure" He said, pulling the branding iron out from the oven once again and branding the right side of my neck base. I screamed in pain.
"Also," Cordierite turned back around, "Her hands. Finish the job for Zipporah, will you?"
Ermenegildo looked at my scarred wrists, "Of course" he replied. Cordierite then left.
My hands were brought up onto the anvil and tied down. "This shouldn't take too long." He said, pulling out a large axe, "Zipporah would want me to finish this job, don't you think? I'd better do a good job of it for her" To my knowledge he had no connection to Zipporah at all, so this was just a poorly thought out excuse to justify what he was about to do.
As he raised the axe over his head, I prepared myself for the worst. Ermenegildo finished the job quickly, severing my hands in a single hit, then burning them to stop the bleeding. I felt like I could barely scream at this point, yet I still managed to the whole time.
After all this I was dragged back to the amphitheater and set down with my head in position in the guillotine. At this point even if I wanted to escape I couldn't. My hands and feet were gone, and with Ermenegildo watching me there was no way I'd escape without bruises or even another brand.
Word of the execution had clearly spread, because the whole village was soon seated in the theater to watch.
Cordierite stepped up to the stage, dismissing Ermenegildo to watch among everyone else.
He stood, looking over the crowd, then reached for the switch that would release the blade. I looked around at everyone, seeing my parents among the crowd. They were so neutral that I almost cried. All my pain emotion was spent at this point, so I could barely conjure up a single tear.
This is it, I thought, closing my eyes, my life is over.
Just then there was a sound in the distance.
Everyone turned, including me, to see a woman standing and looking over us from the village. She wore a black suit that was covered in packages. The suit was tight and showed her slim figure. She had long black hair and yellow glowing eyes.
"Who are you?" Cordierite called.
A smile spread across her face, and she raised her hand. Fire burst from it, and just like that, the amphitheater burned. The whole village burned. People ran to and fro, but each died by the hand of the mystery woman. Cordierite tried to finish killing me, but was soon cast aside by a blast of flame. The stage collapsed, and so did the guillotine. I fell to the burning stage, looking around. It had only been seconds since the woman had appeared, and already everything was destroyed, burning and collapsed. Who is this woman? I thought.
Just when I thought it was all over, I heard a voice. I couldn't make out what it said, but later heard explosions. Several seemingly smaller explosions than the ones before that had destroyed the village. I didn't think too much on it, as I was slowly slipping away. My execution turned out to be much more exciting than I'd initially anticipated, but I would die either way.
Looking up, I saw a figure standing amongst the fire of the village. It was looking around, a long sword in its hand. Its head stopped, seeming to stare in my direction, then it slid down the small hill to the amphitheater and charged into the fire.
What are you doing? I thought. I saw it emerge from the fire before me and reach down. By now I realized that it was a man. I tried to reach up with my stub of an arm, but soon lost the strength to hold it up any longer. The man caught it before it fell, then pulled me up into his arms and started running. Almost immediately my consciousness slipped away.
I awoke lying on something soft. Opening my eyes slowly, I saw an oddly colored ceiling above me. Trying to sit up, I looked around. The walls were yellow and very smooth looking. I was lying on something large and squishy, but I couldn't identify what it was.
"Oh," someone said, "Your awake" I recognized the voice, despite not understanding the words he'd spoken before.
"Where am I?" I asked, surprised that I had the strength to speak.
"This is my apartment." The man replied, "Believe it or not, but you're in the city"
"The city?" I asked.
The man nodded, "Atlas, to be exact"
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I chose to save you" the man replied.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because I'm like you, in a way." He replied, "I'm a Nalakian. My name's Wintanweorth Coal"
I looked around the room, then down at the thing I was lying on.
"What is this?" I asked.
"A bed." Wintanweorth replied, "It's different from yours, right? It's much more comfortable though"
There was a pause.
"So what happened to you?" He asked.
I thought for a second, then everything returned to me. I looked up in shock and fear, covering my orange head, "Are you going to kill me?" I asked.
"Why would I-?" Wintanweorth started, "Oh, no. Here in the city we don't believe in that kind of stuff. Hair color is a good thing about us, no matter what color it is"
I sighed with relief.
"So what's your name?" He asked.
I paused to think, having trouble remembering. Viridianai. That was it. Remembering the fire and the woman, however, I realized that that name didn't suit me. I wasn't green, I was orange.
"Ember." I replied, "My name is Ember Bronze."
So there you go, the last chapter of Orange I as well as Part 1: Prologue. Around the end of this part as you can tell the characters started meeting up a bit more, which I liked putting in. The timing may be a little confusing though, but this part of the story takes place more around when Azure I did. Not exactly, but more around, because in Part 2 Ember is about 17 years old, which will make Wintanweorth a lot older than I expected. I guess I really didn't think this through as well as I thought I had.
Anyways, now I really want to hear from you guys. I won't be posting another chapter for probably about another month so that will give you guys time to write a full-length book-long (or shorter if you want) review on the story. Not just on this chapter, but I want to hear your overall thoughts on the story. What did you like? What did you dislike? What can I improve on? And any other questions you can think of to answer. I really want to hear your opinions so that I know what I should change and what I should keep for the next part so that it can be the best possible. I'd very much appreciate it from you guys.
Anyways, I guess that's it for now. So as usual, favorite, follow, review, tell your friends, tell your enemies, or don't if you don't want to, and I'll see you all in Part 2: HellFall.