Chatterbox: Inkwell

The Legend of Falcon Featherblade

So, I had an idea for this strange book one day, and I decided it was worth writing! Here's the prologue and first chapter. WARNING! The first chapter is a bit dark, but the other chapters should be a bit less of a downer. Also, this book isn't my top priority, so I won't be writing as much as with my other book.

Tell me if you like it and if I should keep writing!  And please wait for the first comment until I top this! 

Prologue 

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They call me Falcon Featherblade. Who am I? Just a girl, really. I'm nothing special. Oh, sure, I saved the world from certain destruction, but that's not the point. They think I'm important, maybe because I'm famous now. Maybe just because they think I'm super cool for doing all that world-saving. Anyway, I'm important. Well, in the 'Famous everyone looks at me like I'm someone great' kinda way. But I didn't start like this. Oh, no. When I started out, I was most likely the least important girl in the world. That's right. Just a nobody. Let's go back to the very beginning of this story so you can see exactly what happened. How I made the transformation from 'No one' to 'Someone'. 

1

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Unwanted and Unloved

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I'm not exactly sure how I came into this world. I've been told that a raven 

stole a falcon's egg, and dropped it in a seagull's nest. Out popped a falcon girl, and that was me. Of course, I don't believe a word of that silly lie. Since I have amnesia, I can't remember anything before the asylum. The asylum was....hmm.., how do I put it? Pretty much hell on earth. I know what you're thinking. It can't possibly be that bad. Oh, but it can. Let me paint you a mental picture: First imagine the opening scene of a horror movie. No, not a scary horror movie, you know, those cheesy horror movies that always start with, it was a dark and stormy night... Now take the haunted house at the beginning, and replace the Warning! Vampire Castle! Sign, with, Hannah's Happy Home for Orphaned Children.  This, of course, wasn't true in the least. It might as well have said, Horacio's Horrible House for Hated Children. Also, there never was a Hannah. There wasn't a Horacio, either, but that's beyond the point. When you enter the Asylum, there's a sign above the door that says, Just Kidding! This is a horrible tourturous asylum for your hateful kids! Ok, well maybe I over exaggerated. It did say, Asylum. Inside, there's a desk where you sign in. Sign in to get your kid in the asylum, not to adopt. No, there are no adoptions at the asylum. Ever. They pretend you can adopt kids, but there's sort of a mutual understanding between the Government, The Asylum, and the people, that kids from there don't really get adopted. Go upstairs, and there's a girl's room and a boys room. The rooms are identical, mirror images of each other, except for the fact that there are boys instead of girls in the boys room. There are two rows of beds on each side of the wall, and each bed is neatly made. No, the beds aren't cozy and comfortable like your bed. They don't have flower quilts or dinosaur sheets. No, the sheets are thin, scratchy, and dusty white, and the quilts are grey and rough. Worn with age and years of use. When you look up at the ceiling there are no glowing stars, no, instead, a leaky roof. Perfect for dripping right between your eyes on rainy nights. There are two hooks beside each bed. One holds the uniform. The uniform for girls is a black dress with a white collar, and the boys is the same. Not the dress part, but black pants with their black, white collared shirts. On the other hook hangs a night gown for the girls, and sleep shirts and pants for the boys. All white and scratchy. The kids at the asylum wear the same clothes at night, every night. And the only time they get to change is in the morning, when they put on the same thing they put on every morning. For breakfast, they eat some kind of mush. I'm not even sure what it's supposed to be. Porridge? Oatmeal? Gruel? Disgusting is what I say. And for dinner it's always the same thing; Pre-made meals of soggy carrots, mushy broccoli, and moldy potato salad. Ok, well maybe not moldy, but just as bad. Even for potato salad lovers, I'm pretty sure this would throw them off the edge. I don't even think it is potato salad at this point. It's just the closest thing I could think to compare it to. Yuck. And for lunch? Nope. Just two lousy, measly, meals a day. So gross, even if they do manage to fill you up, (which I would highly doubt,) will leave you hungry for real food, that hasn't been processed and thrown together with other chemicals more than forty times. What do the children do other than eat and sleep that I haven't mentioned? Well, not much really, but if you really want to know, here goes. Every morning, the Asylum children make their beds, wrinkle free, and coldly missing any trace of decor or style. Just blandly neat. Then they go and eat the breakfast gruel, after getting dressed in the stiff cotton uniforms. Next is school, which lasts through most of the day, and still they manage to rot the children's brains like a dead carcass. Sickening. In school, they teach math, reading, writing, English, geography, and history. You would think the poor dears would at least manage to get a good education. But somehow, the schoolmasters still manage to make classes so long and boring, that the kids don't learn a thing. After school, the orphans wash up for dinner. After they've finished eating the food, (I don't think it even deserves to be called food once it's reached that point.) they go up to their designated rooms. They don't get to go straight to bed, though. No, they first must sweep their room, take out the trash, and wash their clothes for the next morning. Not in washer and dryer machine, no, in a tub with a washboard. The poor things are living like the 1900s! Get modern, people. Lights out is 9:00 sharp, and anyone caught out of bed after that time will be severely punished. In fact, if any rule is broken, you will be severely punished. The rules are very strict, so no one ever takes them lightly. No eating except at mealtimes. Chores must be finished before bed. No toys. Stay in your room except for school times, mealtimes, and washing up. Unless taking out the trash or emptying the ash tray, (who knows why they even need to have an ash tray.) no going outdoors. No sneaking out of rooms or the building. No animals or pets. And absolutely NO singing, dancing, playing, or having fun. Well, not exactly the part about having fun, but, I mean, do they expect you to be able to have fun around all the rest of those rules? I expect not. The punishment for these crimes? Very severe. Depending on which crime you commit, and who the victim is, it will either be:

Sleeping in the cellar with no food or water for a day. (Self-explanatory)

The chair of shame (this is generally for school related crimes. As in, laugh, and you sit in the chair of shame the rest of the class.)

Three sharp whacks with 'The Whip' AKA, 'The Scar Giver' (not a real whip, it is just known as this by the Asylum children for the horrific pain it gives, the screams it induces, and the scars it leaves. No one ever sees anyone else get 'Scarred' by the whip. It is done behind a curtain, in a secret room. Usually all the other children gather round to watch the terrifying torture from their side of the curtain. Only the kids who have been 'Scarred' know what's like, and are not inclined to talk about it. Rumors about 'The Scar Giver' have been known to go around, such as: it brings blood. It's  done in a very secret underground tunnel, and is much worse, and it's only a decoy dummy behind the curtain. It's done on the bare skin of your bottom and/or thighs. {This has been proven, for an unfortunate child happened to glimpse the horrid procedure in action.} they scare children with threats such as, 'if you tell any of your little friends what really happens, we'll do the same thing again, except much, much worse. And bloodier.' Or that they brainwash the children afterwards. Or that they're just too petrified to talk after the process. And many more of the such. But none of these can be actually proven, of course, with the exception of the one rumor that was witnessed. No one actually knows what 'The Scar Giver' is, just what it does.)

The box of shame. (Mostly for small children who the headmasters think deserve punishment, but are saving the harshness for later in their miserable lives. It's basically just a cardboard box with air holes poked in the top, and a small place to peek out in the front. There is one both outside the girls room and the boys room. Kids stay there for two days and two nights, a meal of stale bread and water each evening.) and 

And so now you know all about the miserable life of the orphans at the Asylum.You're  probably wondering if all storybook orphanages are like the movie Annie. Well, no, actually. There's a perfectly nice orphanage just across town. Yeah, sure, maybe it isn't the best life, but it's a much better one than at the Asylum. Makes you wonder how this one gets any business. Maybe because it's called, Hannah's Happy Home for Orphaned Children while the other is called simply, Orphanage of Doom. Ok, well maybe not that, just, Orphanage. People seem to add the of Doom themselves. Well, how did I get here? I'm not exactly sure of the whole story, but I do know that there's only two kinds of children who come here. The Orphans, and the Unwanted. And I have a feeling I'm the second kind. Unwanted and Unloved.