The Isles - Book One: Awakening

The Mysterious Girl

Finally acknowledging the horrifying thing about his body that he had chosen to ignore in his most desperate moment, he couldn't help but stare in complete bewilderment.

Scales lined his feet up to his knees. They were a brilliant green and the scales went all the way down to his toes. He had normal feet, and a normal amount of toes. And the clothes he was wearing was not what he remembered. The attire he found himself in was a cloak of sorts, tattered and ripped at the hem. He reached his hands up into his view, and his hands came into his view once more, covered in the green scales up to his elbows, though unlike his feet, claw-like appendages formed on the tips of each of his fingers like sharpened nails. They weren't so long to hinder his ability to pick things up, but they were long enough for him to feel slightly uncomfortable with them.

Perhaps the strangest thing about his new 'claws,' were that they seemed to have a flowing color inside them. Like the crystals in the field had, his nails seemed to have the same underlying glow.

He began to look at the reflection of himself in the water with panic. His eyes were a piercing emerald green like his scales and the slit eyes of a predatory animal on stalk looked back at him. He had long and pointy ears with green scales on top, and a webbed spot under them that made them look like small wings.

His hair was the only thing that seemed to stay the same, but just as he looked up to the top of his head, he noticed a strange silhouette behind him... holding something above its head. He turned suddenly, and just as soon as he saw the blade of an axe coming down on him, he kicked himself to the side, successfully avoiding the large weapon as it shattered the gently flowing water into ripples.

He stared at the figure in panic, trying to understand what was happening as his brain worked in overdrive to process the overstimulation of everything that had previously transpired around him. The figure that attacked him mumbled words he couldn't understand, in a strange eerie rhythm, and very suddenly turned its head.

Purple eyes stared at him. A desiccated face stared at him, grey and parched skin that looked maggot-ridden was what he noticed at first. The things that stood in front of him—whatever it was—was certainly dead. His heart pounded in his head so hard his vision began to shake slightly. He had developed tunnel vision, as everything around him began to lose focus. The only thing his mind focused on was the immediate danger that had all but made him freeze like a deer in the headlights.

The undead thing stood over him with boiled-leather scale-like armor and underneath it wore a chainmail undercoat. Marked on the scales of boiled-leather armor was a purple dragon wrapped around a sword.

Everything was wrong. Nothing was as it should have been. And nothing was as he remembered it. Nothing made sense to him. The more he thought about his current situation and why he was here the more it bothered him. The world sent his head spinning, and he was given almost no time to adapt or sort his own thoughts out. 

The axe came up for a second time. His muscles burned in strange places and his mind drew a blank for a moment about what to do. And just as the blade began its slice downward, he kicked his weight to the side once more, this time using his momentum to move through the water. Making his way back to the bank he had carefully stepped down and grabbed at the thick grass, trying to pull himself out of the water.

At first, the dead thing behind him froze. But it was a quick learner, as it angled the axe with its blade towards him and began to walk through the water and swung with a force and speed that could only be described as being inhuman. It moved as if it had built momentum in a flash, and he had to act just as fast to avoid it from cleaving into his stomach. He bent his knees and let himself fall to the ground abruptly, tucking his knee to his chest letting the axe swing over his head. Before the dead thing could comprehend and attack again, he thrust his legs, propelling a kick at the thing, causing it to fall into the water, then he repeated his previous movement, grabbing at the thick blades of grass and throwing himself over the small ledge, successfully creating distance between himself and the undead with an axe.