Chapter One Outline

## Chapter One: Dawn

The story begins with a wide, open ocean scenery where a little girl stands. A shot of palm trees and seagulls follow. She marvels at the beauty of the seas, calling out to her father and exclaiming how pretty the water was, joyously splashing water into the air and happily prancing about (A dynamic montage to show her joy). Emphasis is also put on the wind blowing through the little girl's hair, eliciting a sense of freedom. It takes a moment longer for the little girl to realize she is alone, and as she looks about her one last time calling out for her mother and father, seemingly disappointed and all of a sudden drained of all the life and energy displayed previously. At the same time, the scenery zooms outwards to emphasize how small and alone she is, and an abrupt transition occurs, where the same girl (now older) is shown to look at herself in the mirror, with an empty and neutral expression (though almost grim). She wears a sea blue pendant on her, alongside a scarf. Note here the transition; the girl, as she calls out for her mother and father one last time in the previous scene ("Papa, Mama")?, her thoughts are finished by her future self after the transition, with the specific speech bubble ("Where have you gone") in the same panel as her staring at a mirror of herself. After a brief moment of deliberation she picks up a set of throwing knives, walking past a framed picture of presumably her and her mother and father and a worn axe as she exits her small house, worn and dilapidated. Notably, it is lone house in the middle of a large grassy plain with golden stalks of grass, with large boulders and a river nearby. She performs a task of monotonous tasks at this point (washing her hands at a well, cutting down nearby trees for wood, watering a small collection of plants, and setting clothes on the clothesline).

After doing so she grabs a large brown sack near her doorstep and checks her throwing knives, putting them into a satchel on her waist, and begins walking down a worn road. Here emphasis is put on her "lonely nature," as most shots of her walking will be her, a speck, against brilliant natural landscapes. Emphasis should be put on the natural landscape in general however, as a means for world building. Tall, rolling hills and mountains surround the area, accompanied by a sea of jungle trees and shrubbery, but notably where Anicka walks resembles more close to a grassland valley, with stony rivers and pine trees about, After walking for a bit Anicka hears rustling in a nearby line of trees, where she abruptly pulls out her throwing knives and assumes a stance for throwing them, pausing to patiently listen for more rustling. A deer shows itself from the treeline, and after a brief moment of calculation, where some emphasis is put on her emotionless expression, the deer's own expressionless face, and weapons themselves, she expertly throws the knives and manages to immediately incapacitate the deer, as all three of her knives strike the deer's neck. Still showing no emotion, she walks up to the deer and begins skinning it and gathering its meat, placing it into her brown sack. However, after some time working she hears more rustling and as she looks around, she spots a baby deer appear from the treeline, clearly looking distraught as it looks all about, (in reference to missing its mother, which Anicka presumably killed) and chirps worriedly into the forest. Anicka slowly stands up, reaching for her knives once again and raises them next to her face, which were still blooded from the previous kill. After a very long and tense moment of deliberation, where both close up shots of Anicka's face and the deer's face are exchanged alongiside the bloodied knives, the reader should be able to observe Anicka's own face break for a second, showing the first sign of emotion up until now (where notably, up until this moment she should be drawn with the exact same emotionless expression), and she eventually decides to lower her knives. The deer runs back into the forest and Anicka simply stares in that direction for a moment (with a very subtlety contemplative gaze) before packing up her stuff.

After some time she draws near to a human settlement, in the form of a dilapidated, cramped, and dirty city, and a sign is displayed nearby indicating that this was the settlement of Panamico. At this point the scenery was extremely jungle like (no trace of the flat valley as before), as massive jungle trees surround the area and nestled the city along the foothills of massive, forested mountains. As Anicka walks past varying groups of people they all seem to eye her cautiously, and at this point Anicka notably looks down at the dirt more. Here, some emphasis should be placed on the nature of life in this area, as it is toilsome - farmers are depicted breaking their backs working through tiny patches of dirt on their roofs, many people with horrible physical deformations lie in tents coughing from some form of disease or sickness, and people are shown their waste onto the streets. There is bustling activity, with market stands, wagons, and restaurants everywhere, but this is accompanied with a generally grim tone. Anicka is then shown stopping in front of a butcher's stand, where she waits in long line of other people presumably also carrying large sacks of meat. Many people with their own sacks of meat went up to the line after Anicka was filed in, but after they catch a glance at her for a moment, wearing a mix of negative emotions, they decide to cut her in line, to which Anicka doesn't protest. After a while she looks down at the dirt between her feet and eventually makes it to the front of the line, where she displays her catch to the butcher, but Anicka has a moment of surprise when she looks at the butcher, seemingly not recognizing him. She grimaces slightly and watches as the butcher studied her catch, before staring directly at Anicka's eyes, (where her blue eyes stand out against the dull colors that will be used for this panel), and then looking back down at her catch. He then gave the meat back to Anicka and said that the meat was worth twenty Calibra, to which Anicka thinks to herself that it was half as low than usual. Anicka rebutted by asking for Johann Straus' appraisal, to which the butcher said he passed away a few days ago, from old age, which Anicka was shocked by. It is apparent that this butcher had sympathized with Anicka, and gave her regular appraisals as everyone else. After this, the new butcher then added to not waste his time anymore, to which then Anicka, noticeably annoyed, reluctantly exchanged the meat for the Calibras. After the exchange, the butcher called out to her, telling her "Never come back, witch," and everyone else around her immediately looked at her and began to whisper suspiciously about her appearance, making it apparent at this point that people with **blue eyes** were discriminated against. Putting on a stalwart expression, Anicka pretends not to listen to their comments and walks past them stone faced, staring down at the dirt. Here, a large panel should be created in a horizontal perspective, showing Anicka walking past a horizon of people making negative comments about her. In this panel, comments about "El Kalamitas and the Western Seas" should be made in relation to her blue eyes (people may start to create a connection that because the Oceans are seen as a destructive and calamitous force, then that having blue eyes is seen as an extension of that hated force and consequently in this society, is discriminated against because of the negative association of blue eyes with the ocean).

Anicka eventually uses her reduced funds to exchange for water and basic supplies, but notes to herself that she doesn't have enough for food. Notably, the person in front of her was able to exchange more water and supplies for the same amount of money as Anicka. After leaving and wondering where should would find extra food for the next few days, she accidentally bumps shoulders with a fairly young looking male, who initially apologized to her but after seeing her eyes retaliated with anger, spouting an impassioned tirade about how an ocean storm a few weeks ago had struck his village and killed nearly all of its inhabitants, losing many siblings in the process. Anicka during this time does not respond, and attempts to look away emotionlessly. He continues to curse her, and upon calling her mother and father "scum of the Earth" for having birthed her and that they deserved to be hanged publicly and have their corpses eaten by pigs, Anicka is noticeably disturbed by this comment, reaching for her knives and struggling to maintain a calm demeanor. But eventually she is able to will her hand away from her knives and remain stone faced. After seeing her lack of engagement the young man decides to punch her in the gut, before leaving her. Anicka leans over for a moment but recovers quickly, thinking of the frequency of this type of occurrence. She then continued to slowly trudge along, expressionlessly, looking into alleyways before eventually coming across one filled with a gross ensemble of rats scurrying over garbage. Anicka quickly pulls out her knives and kill three of them mercilessly, leaving the remaining to scurry away. She begins to skin them and eventually cooks them over a makeshift fire with some matches in the alleyway, leaning against the wall amongst a pile of garbage and begins to nibble on the rats pathetically. Here, a dramatic panel should be drawn from a side perspective, showing the "depressing" nature of the situation. Eventually she begins to eat slowly and eventually pauses all together, looking down emotionlessly at the mutilated rat she had been nibbling on. This next scene is very important. She then begins to recount memories of her in a younger time, similar to her age in the very first scene of the chapter, of her first time in Panamico. She is notably still a naive and immature child, and she should be drawn with a certain "light in her eyes still." She was worn, tired, and cold upon first trudging into Panamico, not noticing the attention that she was drawing because of her eyes. She looks around desperately for food and water and shelter, and was initially happy to see so many people around as figured they would help. She immediately went up to a group of people roasting soup over a fire and asked innocently with pleading eyes if she could have some because she was hungry and tired, to which they violently reject her and tell her to go away. They throw the soup on her and she is surprised, not being aware of why they were acting the way they were. Confused, slightly disappointed but not completely deterred, she tried asking more people for food with the same pleading expression before suffering each time the same, violent reaction, which slowly discouraged her and made her more and more upset. Slowly tears began to build up in her eyes and upon being told off for the fifth time, this time being kicked in the gut and called "filth of the ocean," she ran off into an alleyway and began crying, sitting lonely in the dark by herself. She cries here for some time and wishes to be with her father and mother again back home, and wishes to be happy again. Here, parallel panels should be drawn of her in the past with her in the present time as they are both sitting in an alleyway, and now the story should transition back into the present, with Anicka getting up to leave the other skewers of rat uneaten.

Anicka walks back home, where this time a montage of walking scenes is more focused on her as opposed to the scenery around her. Upon arriving home, she sees that hogs had eaten her crops, knocked over her clothesline, and made away with her food stock. More importantly, the hogs had damaged her home and destroyed a number of possessions once belonging to her father and mother, in the form of clothes and accessories kept as a mementos. Most significantly, the portrait from the beginning of the story was knocked over and caked in mud, and parts of it was torn. Anicka chases them off to examine the damage, but nothing else can be done. She attempts to stay calm, but it is noticeably that her expression is pained and she struggles to hold back tears. She goes inside the house to stare at the happy portrait of her and her family, even if muddied and damaged, before taking it with her as she departs again. She makes another long walk, where noticeably the sun has begun to set, and after a while she is shown to have arrived at a cliff, where over her was the ocean. Dramatic orange light from the sunset pours over her as she stares at the wide ocean, which at the time was beautiful, calm, and sparkling. She stares down at the portrait of her family, wiping away the dirt and attempting to piece it together, and briefly, memories of her youth play with her playing in the sand and water with her father (also at sunset), which includes splashing water at the shore, building sandcastles, and marveling at the beauty of the seas while sitting on her father's shoulders. Tears begin to flow down her face as she begins to break down and cry, dropping the portrait of her family onto the grass as she buries her hand into her face. She does this for a while, and as the sun began to set, she looks up again again silently, before looking back down at her feet. Here, she should be drawn with tears on her face still, but with her emotionless expression as before. A panel should be made, focusing on a shot of the sea blue pendant she wears on her neck. She thinks to herself that she wants to be happy again, and gradually, puts one foot over the cliff. She thinks about her pained recent existence in life, and all sorts of memories begin to flash, of both her happy years in youth and her recent experiences. I wonder if this panel should be a full page, with many small boxes representing fragments of memories her. The entire sky could be redrawn into fragments of glass, with each fragment holding a memory. As her ankle bends, and as she begins to put her second foot over the cliff, and as she wishes one more time to be happy again, with tears already falling down the cliff, a hand stops her, and abruptly, Anicka looks back in shock, with tears on her face, and sees her father. I hope its obvious that its not literally going to be father physically there. The chapter should end here I believe.