Ashborne – Special Episode: "Saintfall"
Standalone Flashback / Dark Fantasy / Dialogue Script Format
📍**[INT. ORACLE ARCHIVE – 7 YEARS AGO – NIGHT]**
[Lightning crackles across stained glass. Ancient tomes float mid-air, scanned by spectral eyes. A young Kael — uniform clean, eyes unscarred — stands in front of a relic containment unit.]
CHOIR OFFICER"Cadet Kael. Do you accept the vow of Saintfall?"
YOUNG KAEL(calmly)"I accept the burden. I accept the war."
[A relic spear is brought forward. It pulses with a heartbeat.]
📍**[INT. TRAINING HALL – LATER]**
[Kael sparring against multiple cursed trainees. His style is clean, merciless, mechanical.]
SAINTFALL INSTRUCTOR"You fight like you're already dead. Good. That's how Saints are made."
[Kael glances at the window — sees a little girl being dragged through the courtyard in chains.]
📍**[EXT. FIELD BASE – FLASHBACK WITHIN FLASHBACK]**
[Kael's squad raids a village rumored to shelter curse-fragments.]
SAINTFALL CAPTAIN"No survivors. Not even children. Orders."
YOUNG KAEL (quiet)"...Understood."
[But he hesitates before killing a boy hiding under a cart.]
SAINTFALL CAPTAIN (watching)"You hesitate again, I gut you."
📍**[INT. SAINTFALL BARRACKS – MIDNIGHT]**
[Kael stands in front of a mirror. Blood on his shirt. His reflection smiles even when he doesn't.]
ASHBREAKER (in mind)"That boy you spared — he screamed your name when the Choir burned his village. You are the cause and the cure."
[Kael punches the mirror.]
📍**[INT. INTERROGATION ROOM]**
[Kael sits across from a captured Oracle seer — an older woman, blindfolded.]
SEER"You think you're saving the world, but you're just burying it under cleaner dirt."
KAEL"I follow orders."
SEER (smiling)"And that's why you'll break."
📍**[EXT. CHOIR EXECUTION GROUND – DAWN]**
[The Choir prepares to execute rogue Saints who deserted.]
[Kael walks by them, avoiding their eyes.]
One of them — a former comrade — speaks as Kael passes.
DESERTER"You're not a hero. You're just next."
[Kael flinches — only for a second.]
📍**[INT. RESTRICTED VAULT – NIGHT BEFORE HIS ESCAPE]**
[Kael stares at Ashbreaker in its sealed form.]
ASHBREAKER"Free me, Kael. Let's see who breaks first — you, or the Choir."
[He places his hand on the relic containment field. The runes scream.]
📍**[EXT. CHOIR COMPLEX – NIGHT OF THE ESCAPE]**
[Explosions tear through the capital wing. Bodies everywhere. Rain pouring.]
[Kael, limping, sword in hand, burns his Saintfall insignia and throws it into the fire.]
KAEL (to himself)"No more gods. No more orders."
[He vanishes into the storm.]
📍**[PRESENT DAY – BACK TO REALITY]**
[Kael jolts awake from a nightmare — breathing hard. He's in a ruined inn beside Ira, who's asleep.]
IRA (groggy)"Bad dream?"
KAEL (quietly)"Just a memory."
IRA"You were a Saint, huh?"
KAEL"No. I was a weapon they kept calling a hero."
[He looks out the broken window.]
KAEL (to himself)"And the blade's still sharp."
THE END.