I tried something different with this one, deciding to highlight the paper grain instead of trying to get rid of it. I also have a hastily written short story to go with this, expect typos and repeated words.

Once there was an executioner who saw his job as just; dealing divine judgment to sinners as quickly and painlessly as possible. He came from a lineage of hangmen who treated killing as a sacred ritual, a spiritual cleansing through iron. That is, until the new King took power. This King was a young man of great cruelty, taking pleasure in the lamentations of the downtrodden. Soon the pristine beheading stone lay moldy in old blood and the execution grounds were perverted with instruments of torture meant to prolong suffering. Our executioner was disgusted with the King, but more so with himself, for he was the one who had to enact the sovereign’s demands.

On a day which burned hotter than normal, the king sauntered down to the Executioner’s home with a request. His royal highness demanded a private session in which a new device would be used. It was one of his own designs, a long stick of heated iron. It was simple, it was barbaric, it was just enough to kill but not enough to do so swiftly; it was the king’s worst creation yet and he was overjoyed by his own ingenuity. Who would be the victim though? With the clap of silk covered hands two soldiers rounded the corner and threw a young woman to the ground. It was the Queen. His Highness had grown tired of love and wished to be rid of wife through horrific spectacle. Our Executioner has done many things in the name of the King, but he could not raise a hand against this land’s only beacon of hope.

Not to be denied a show, the Tyrant declared that if the executioner is unfit for his role, then the executioner is no longer needed. The soldiers lashed him to a pole as the king brandished the red hot iron. Rolling the near molten metal across the Executioner's face and lower waist, his screams could be heard throughout the afternoon. By evening all was quiet except the sound of two bodies tumbling down a cliff. 

The Executioner, he could not rest while the Devil himself strutted about in the linens of nobility. Waking from his grave our Executioner, now Martyr, took up an iron pole which reeked of Brimstone and sulfur at his touch. One by one the royal family was found dead in their chambers. On the seventh night the king was met with a familiar smell which flooded his bedroom, a smell of burning flesh. He tried to leap from his blankets but found that they were held tight by an unseen force. Hot iron rolled across the bed, the sounds of suffering echoed through the castle, and by morning a body was discovered. The people celebrated: “Long live the King!”, was heard throughout the streets.