Seeing Green

Prologue

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The Nameless Child

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Slumping against a cobwebbed wall of dirt and filth, the young girl inhaled deeply, ending her ragged gasps. The beating of her heart calmed and the beads of salty sweat that trickled down her dried up blood stains were starting to cease.

Spreading her bony legs of patterned red lines, she smudged across the trails of scarlet red and dusty grey. Her rusted chains and cuffs clashed and clanged, the ringing sound of metal reverberating across her cell. Despite her evident malnutrition, the iron cuffs gripped at her marred skin, barely giving any blood to her hands and feet. They were blue, black and numb.

Her head hung wearily, craning her already choking neck. She was bald with several ugly patches of greasy black hair that hadn't ben washed in a long while. She was hideous and disgusting - just like how they perceived her to be.

With eyes like hers, of course she would be.

She had green eyes - 'Witch's eyes', the people of Vesten branded them as. They were a bad omen. The people of Vesten believed that those born with green eyes were originally witches that were lynched and killed by villagers of past, reincarnated by the Devil to have their revenge. Fearful and paranoid, the people despised anyone with green eyes, distancing themselves from them. Including her.

Discrimination, hatred, lies, torture and cruelty - her life was a living dystopia.

She was abandoned at birth; nameless her whole life. She was illiterate - curses and profanities were her only vocabulary.

She exhaled, releasing her last breath of fatigue for the hour. She had survived her unrelenting punishment - for now. It was barely sunrise. After her years of confinement and torture, there had never been once where her day started at dawn. The reason behind it was the company's laziness.

Never had anyone been so grateful for another's slothfulness other than her.

Closing her tired eyes, she allowed peace and comfort slip into her mind, clearing her unnecessary doubts and worries. White light oozed in, blinding the darkness of her brain. She felt calm. Her breathing had grown steady and her heart rate was normal. Finally, she was at rest.

Or so she thought.

The loud obnoxious clangs of the cell bars were soon heard crashing into the stone walls. Someone was coming. How rare it was for someone to pay her a visit. Even her very own beatings required her to be the one making the initiative to leave the cell.

Who? She wondered, opening her eyes from her drowsy lids. Her ears twitched, picking up a new vibration - footsteps. They echoed through the narrow long cell, creating thick dark clouds of suspense and anticipation in the air. The volume increased with each step, signalling the closure of the visitor. 5 metres... 4 metres... 3 metres...

The young girl waited in silence, cold sweat forming above her brows. There wasn't just one visitor - there were two. One of which she didn't recognise, for their footsteps sounded different. There was no shuffling of soles nor were there the dragging of glass bottles across the surface like its companion's. Instead, there was nothing but finger-snapping hasty clicks.

And then, they stopped.

The girl raised her heavy head, lifting her gaze to meet the eyes of her visitors. She quickly regretted doing so when a muddy boot made its way towards her cheek. Like a lifeless ragged doll, she fell to her side.