Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and violence.
The Emperor Trials Series: Book One - To Become A Knight
Prologue: Abandoned Agony
The Second Era - Year 952 Y.W.N.E. (Years Within New Era)
A slight breeze blew as the sun finally rose after a night filled with so much bloodshed. The endless fields of grasslands were drenched with the thick life-liquid and the uneasy smell was shockingly thick in the wind and the metallic taste that came along with it was dreadful.
So much death in a single night...
Thousands of corpses littered the grasslands all around a small band of survivors of what had been one of the greatest conflicts of the era. Maybe even possibly the greatest. However, two lone individuals stood aside from the others in a solitary manner, watching the rising sun by themselves and alone. While the other survivors gathered together and murmured and reminisced or whatnot, these two sat side by side, their gazes tracing the sun's ascension into the heavens.
One was of average height, though with a toned body build, a buzzcut of auburn colored hair and mysterious metallic grey eyes. He bled from easily a dozen minors wounds earned from the latter part of the bitter battle when things had grown their most desperate. His eyes were for the moment, emotionless, and yet at the same time, somehow engulfed in awe at the majesty that was the natural phenomenon of the sunrise. His simple garments of a rough black t-shirt that was ripped in more places than not and blue jean shorts that exposed more flesh than concealed. Beside his ragged and yet calm and relaxed form was a single scimitar style sword. A black steel blade with a platinum hilt concealing a sapphire gem in the pommel.
The other of the two individuals was of a taller height, longer limbs, and yet leaner in body tone and long bleach blonde hair past even his shoulders. His eyes seemed to be an electric blue color, and he bled from only half the amount of minor wounds as the other male. His attire consisted of a long white robe covering his entire body just as shredded and ragged as the other male's clothing, and dyed red with his own blood. He possessed a sword as well though his was a claymore with a long silver steel blade, a golden hilt and a ruby gem in the pommel.
These two were so different and yet, they were brothers. Their bond was greater than that of even true blood brothers. They would have laid their own lives down for one another without even a moment's thought or hesitation at the realization of the action.
As the sun rose...these two individuals turned and gazed into one another eyes and grinned gently and affectionately for one another.
Their were brothers until the end of time itself.
The Second Era - Year 961 Y.W.N.E. (Years Within New Era)
The night was cold as snow continued to fall onto the cold and frozen land. There was no moonlight, no warmth, only a cold and howling wind to speak of any natural life to the world in those exact moments. Once again, blood seeped into the earth and dyed the white snow a deep crimson red.
However, instead of thousands of corpses bleeding...only two still breathing men stood alone in the same field, their eyes gazing into one anothers. The calm resolve to kill one another unmistakeable. Metallic grey eyes watched electric blues eyes. Auburn hair paralleled bleach blonde hair. An average height and toned body frame squared off against a tall and lean body frame.
The brothers were locked in a dance to the death. Only one could leave.
It was nine years since they had watched that same sunrise together after that horrible battle. They had shed blood together and bled onto the same patch of land in this world as they now currently did. It could even be argued that where they stood losing their life liquid was the exact same place they had sat side by side those years ago.
A black steel scimitar and a silver steel claymore bared their fangs one last time and assaulted one another in one last reckless charge of fury and pain and bitter sadness.
More blood dyed the white snow to a deep and sickening red.
The two brothers eyed one another one last time before the brother with the auburn hair, metallic eyes, and black steel scimitar collapsed onto his back, his blood still coursing from a fresh wound across his chest which pooled his life essence eagerly into the cold and frozen earth underneath him.
The other brother with the bleach blonde hair, electric blue eyes, and silver steel claymore came to stand over top of his closest brother and friend and smiled a truly broken and defeated smile even though he had won the duel. Though he bled fiercely as well, he had won, and would live to see another sunrise.
"Do you see a world beyond this one brother? One that makes sense?" asked the victorious one, believing his fading brother close to his end.
The blood had now began to dampen the other brothers already auburn red colored hair and turn it somehow...grim and gruesome. He grinned at the question as if it was amusing. He thought about it for a brief moment and decided how he would respond.
"No world will ever truly make sense as long as creatures like you and me contaminate it" the defeated one said.
"I believe you are right" said the victorious one.
"Every man and woman is gifted with eternal life as long as they avoid battle. Does this not seem unnatural to you brother? Me and you have existed for countless eons before anyother human, and so it could only have been us to create such a fact of life whether we realize it and understand how we did or not" continued the defeated brother.
"So nothing lies in store for God's among men like we once were when we too finally shed our physical shells?" asked the victorious brother.
"I do not believe we will go to the same place after death. Where I go, I'm sure the Abyss follows. It always was interested in me" the defeated brother said then suddenly, he violently shuddered for a few moments he lay motionless and silent.
His eyes turned to gaze upon his brother one last time, confusion and disappointment hidden in their depths, before his metallic grey eyes were concealed by the human flesh that was the eyelids.
The bleach blonde brother, the victorious brother, gazed at the corpse of his fallen companion and closed his eyes offering a silent prayer to whomever it may have concerned.
Afterwards, he turned and departed from the field of freshly spilled blood. He left behind only one thing belonging to his person.
A single tear which had fallen upon the very eyelids that concealed the lifeless and cold metallic grey eyes that had once belonged to a God among men.
Once upon a time they say...
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125,008 Literary Works • 672,815 Reviews
Hello! Happy review day!
I'm going to keep this fairly big picture. Generally speaking, I'm not a big fan of prologues. There were things about this that I liked, but other things I'm not sure are needed.
Let's talk about the things I liked first. Technically speaking, you're a good writer. This was a very descriptive opening. I think this type of heavy description can become just that - heavy, but I thought it worked here. I'm sure I could go through and point out some really picky nit-picks, but you have the craft down pretty well so I won't bother
Let's talk about this as an opening. I don't feel overly engaged to continue reading. The opening section, even though it's written well, just didn't pull me in. There was so much describing and not much action. I know I said I liked the describing, and I do, but I think you could make it a little more sparse, especially in the opening.
It got a little more interesting at the end with one brother killing the other, but I'm not sure why I should care. I felt nothing. Which side should I be on? I'm also not really sure where the plot is going from here. Someone died on the first page. Now what?
Your biggest goal with an opening is to hook your reader and have them begging to read the next chapter. While doing that you also want to introduce us to the world and who the main players will be. Everyone has slightly different tastes and what works for one person may not work for another in terms of hooking someone. I know for me, I like a lot of voice right off the bat and I like to be put right into the story right off the bat. Here, I feel like you're setting up the story. Personally, I'd rather be thrown in and be left with some mystery about what's going on and how things got this way because then I have to read on and figure it all out.
Imagine this prologue isn't in the story and the reader is immediately put into chapter 1. Would the story still work and would the story still make sense if we didn't know the prologue information? (Not saying you can never include it - it's interesting stuff. I'm just wondering if it has to be at the beginning for the rest of the story to work). Remember that mystery is often your friend.
If you decide the story can go on without it - easy. Start with chapter one and weave this cool backstory in elsewhere.
If you decide the story can't go on without it - I would still change this up a little. I would cut right to the action, right to the battle when the brothers are going to go at it. Show us that whole battle and show the one brother killing the other but don't give a big explanation why. It makes for an exciting opening, and I feel like as a reader, I would want to read on to see what is going to happen next and why the brother did that.
I'll leave things there for now. Please let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said was confusing!
Ooooooooh I enjoyed this and I am intrigued! The title says this is the Prologue; does the rest of the story take place between the two paragraphs? I hope so because I really want to know the story that got the brothers from the place where they would lay down their lives for one another, to the place where one of them killed the other!
So I'm interested in your story, and would definitely give the next chapter a look, well done. I like that you have eras worked out and stuff and this is a good way to give the reader a sense of the timescale, as well as immediately telling them that this story takes place in a fantastical world, so well done.
I have quite a few criticisms though which I hope you will find helpful and constructive.
"A slight breeze blew as the sun finally rose after a night filled with so much bloodshed. The endless fields of grasslands were drenched with the thick life-liquid and the uneasy smell was shockingly thick in the wind and the metallic taste that came along with it was dreadful."
I'm going to use this first sentence as an example because your first sentence is particularly important as a hook, but I noticed the same problem multiple times. You have a lot of descriptive words that at times make the sentences hard to decipher. Also, if you describe absolutely everything it detracts from it all, so none of the descriptions give the reader a clear image. In this sentence you have all these descriptive words: slight, finally, so much, endless, thick, uneasy, shockingly, metallic, dreadful! I think the sentence would be easier to read and more effective if you just picked one or two strong images you wanted for the reader (say, the taste of the blood in the air) and then cut it down a bit. So instead:
A breeze blew as the sun rose after a night filled with bloodshed. The wind carried the stench across the grasslands, leaving a metallic taste in the mouth.
I also think there's a bit of showing rather than telling, especially in the descriptions of the brothers, and there is again an overkill of description which detracts from its effectiveness. You know all this information about what the brothers look like, but right now do we need to know their exact heights, or what their swords are like? You just need one or two distinguishing features between them; the rest can be shown during the action. You could describe one as looking down upon the other as they talk.
"The calm resolve to kill one another unmistakeable. Metallic grey eyes watched electric blues eyes. Auburn hair paralleled bleach blonde hair. An average height and toned body frame squared off against a tall and lean body frame."
This would be brilliant if you left it after the description of the eyes. We get from that that it's the two brothers again, and the rest of the description just feels superfluous.
I also think that you should describe the fight between the two brothers. Fight scenes can feel difficult to write, but honestly just talk about lunges and thrusts with sword and the sound of them resounding together a bit. We can have some more character development in there as well, along with perhaps a description of the swords; it would fit into a fight scene better and not feel so clunky.
Finally, your speech is quite good, but you need to punctuate the end of a piece of speech:
"No world will ever truly make sense as long as creatures like you and me contaminate it" the defeated one said.
Here, for example, you should have a comma after contaminate it.
I hope I helped in some way! I enjoyed this story and I'm interested in the world you've started to build, with these two immortal characters who can only die in a fight. I loved the way you built up their friendship in the first half of the prologue, with them grinning at each other and such, and then it was shocking to find them about to kill each other. I want to know what got them to that point, so let me know when you upload Chapter 1!