Fool of Knight 1: Strength

Chapter 1

The dawn sky shined a beautiful gradient of red spread from the massive cerise sun that slightly sunk into the horizon. Trees in the distance towered more than a hundred feet, weeping downwards near the top as its long red leaves hung like bundles of pulled yarn. Heat from the sun radiated making the humid air feel like warm vapor to breathe.

"Can you move?" Her soft, fruity voice was welcoming.

I cut my eyes as fast as I could, unable to turn my head enough. "Who's there," I replied, my chapped lips scraping against each other.

The dry red clay imprisoning me stretched as far as I could see, only allowing grass to grow after the forests edge.

"Just stand up..."

The ground felt tighter as I heaved upwards, further burdening my sensitive nerves.

"Are you even trying?"

"Help," I pleaded, unable to ignore the tightening grip.

A woman with almond brown skin walked from behind me, laying down on her stomach and propping her head on her hand unenthusiastically.

"Troy said you were a little tagged but, I should've realized they see power different. Can you feel that," she said, taking a poorly crafted broken broad sword to the air and calmly chipping away at the hard surface. Locking eyes with me, she maintained a steady pace, easily making progress.

Her light blue eyes rivaled the suns intensity and dark blue locs were wildly wrapped into a bun on the top of her head.

"Did she put me in this?!"

"Don't get too awe'd at me, I might look different if we get in a hard place," She teased.

"Wasn't I somewhere else?"

"Can you hear me," she blurted, successfully freeing my arm. "I asked if you could feel that!"

"I'm sorry, no I didn't even feel-" I raised my arm, tiredly flailing it to remove the leftover red dust.

"What? Not the arm, your eye... And don't sorry yourself!"

"My eye?" I hastily reached for my right eye, immediately being stopped by the cold skin on her palm.

Holding my arm, she continued to chip the ground. "Stop 'moving', I found a rhythm!"

"How'd I get here?"

Two violent tremors juggled us as a heart wrenching screech came from the forest.

"Dang, lost it," she murmured, unbothered.

"What was that!?"

The ground tremored again.

"Did you feel that?!"

"Shh, it's an elephant," she quickly answered. "Don't worry it rains when they get close, so we're fine."

"What kind of elephant is that!?"

"It's okay, they're way too big to miss. Hold still."

Another sequence of tremors and screeches erupted, setting off a chain reaction of responses. Each one going further into the forest.

"There's more than one?!" "They," I spat.

One final screech let off, shaking the ground with its low, deep frequency.

"We're fine! Ask better questions, like where is this place? The bottom floor. How'd you get here? Mmm, you 'died'. Why are you able to perceive yourself with full ability? That blessing is brought you from 'our savior'," she ranted, bobbing her head playfully from either side as she freed my leg.