Prologue

THE FOLLOWING IS RECORDED BROADCAST FROM THE FTS RADIO STATION.

--If you are listening to this I thank you for your support and courage.  You have either been listening to this station for a long time or you have just stumbled across an old radio and found this broadcast.  Don’t try to turn the channel because this is the only one. 

For those of you who do not know what this world used to be listen very carefully.  The earth you are standing on used to be called the Americas; then The Storm hit.  The Storm is exactly what it sounds like, a giant weather storm that ripped this land apart and spurred the already divided continents to go to war with each other.  We call this war, The War Undoing.  Fifteen years after the was started a peace treaty was signed which divided the land into five large cities.  The cities were called Stone, Spark, Fire and Ash.  The fifth city has now been destroyed and its name will not be included in this broadcast.  The new country as a whole was called Ignite and that is where you live now.

Years have passed and a new threat is growing, a large . . .  [The words after the word “large” could not be heard on the recording]

         . . . My name is Adian and this is the second to last time you will hear my voice; I am the leader of this resistance.

END OF BROADCAST

I thought I should include that in the beginning of the coming story you are about to read.  I am the leader of the resistance but in the city called Stone is where it all really began.  I am not the narrator of this story and I never will be.

Those who are brave enough to break the rules and pay the price that follows will narrate this entire story and the ones that will follow.

-Adian