Phrocylan & The Tree of Life (The Spirit of the Tree Book 1)

Chapter One: Crunch

I had no idea where I was.

It seemed to be a room the size of a stadium. The ground was covered in slimy liquid, with specs of green and brown and red. The air was humid and hot, and I was surrounded with broken columns. There were many doorways all around the walls, with glinting purple light coming through some of them.

I was running, trying to keep myself from falling down, my legs felt like jelly and my muscles ached. But I kept running, mostly from the fear of being devoured by a whale.

The room seemed to go on forever, and I heard a loud BOOM behind me. I made the mistake of glancing back, and I saw the figure clearly for the first time. It had the upper body of a whale, with dragon wings instead of flaps, humanoid legs instead of its fin.

Looking back, I couldn't see where I was going and my leg caught onto something, and I fell. I had not the time to see what I caught on, and the figure flew towards me at lightning speed. It held a knife as big as my whole body in its wings, and a whip in the other hand. It was the most frightening scene I had ever seen.

I tried to get up, but my ankle was broken. Pain throbbed in my whole body.

In a matter of seconds, the whale humanoid figure caught up and loomed over me.

I couldn't think anything, but my arms went into my pockets and I felt something.. A badge. I pulled it out and threw it into the air, it somersaulted its way back into my hand until I held a perfectly balanced Golden and Steel Sword, with its hilt decorated with fiery lightning.

I was surprised how I knew that, but at the time I had other things to worry about, like that big dragon whale about to kill me.

I thrust to my side as it jabbed down, turning the ground where I lay before into green-ish brown goo - probably poison - and I put all my strength (which was not much) into impaling the sword into its body.

Unfortunately, I miscalculated the size of the creature, and stabbed its wings instead of its body. It wailed in more rage than anger and backhanded (or.. backwinged?) me, hitting me into the air with such force I felt my ribs breaking as I slammed into the nearest broken pillar.

I slid down and crumbled to the floor, my vision turned into yellow and red spots, my body burned with pain. My eyes closed and I drifted into unconsciousness.