The Well

Part 1

What's under these? Penny scrambled about the orange and yellow leaves blanketing the ground, I must know! Her hind legs and tail stood straight, her toes were even pointed as she dug her face into the leaves. She stood straight up after giving up the digging venture in that spot. The leaves do not dig the same way as the earth.

Something brushed the top of her head, sending Penny flying up the trunk of the nearest tree. On a low laying branch just above where she stood a moment ago, grew one leaf that still lived. Penny, still scared, stood a moment staring at the leave, making sure it didn't move.

It's safe now, she thought, and jumped to a rock a few feet from the tree. She wal

ked off the small rock back onto the leaves. Smelling the ground, moving, digging away what she could for a second, then digging again. The removal of a few leaves in one spot revealed a hole in the ground, just big enough for Penny to enter. She stuck her head down, trying to see what she could, and smelling what she shouldn't. A sudden whiff of danger hit her nostrils, but before she recognized it's scent, a white beak tipped in black came from the hole, grabbed Penny, and pulled her under.

The smell of flamingo!

Part 2

Frenaldo the flamingo stood alone in the sand. One flamingo with one leg out. His eyes were closed and he stood listening to the sounds of the beach, listening for nearby movement, waiting for his next victim. A noise he recognized floated by. It was a hovering ball of spikes. Frenaldo didn't need to have open eyes, if he left it well enough alone, the ball would fly by leaving himself seemingly unnoticed.

What made Frenaldo notice the human was not the noise it made, but the lack of noise around him. Wherever the humans went, the world stopped. Frenaldo opened his eyes to the endless coastline, then without moving the rest of his body, he turned his head completely around spotting a lone human. Odd, thought Frenaldo, they usually hunt in packs.

Frenaldo never had the chance to encounter a single human before, and decided not to give the thing a chance. Humans seldom give animals a chance at survival, why should he give a human such a courtesy? He stood there, a statue waiting for his prey to come observe him. As the human got closer, Frenaldo had a harder and harder time keeping composure. The feathers in his wings grew outstretched and his right foot, limp-like, slowly approached the

floor. His head lowered without him realizing until it was level with his torso, and it was facing upright toward the human's face. The human stopped, looked around, and turned around to grab a stick just paces behind him. Frenaldo realized at that moment that his posture had given his intentions to the human, and the human had just made it's own similar intents.

Frenaldo took the chance to attack during the last few seconds that it was looking away, and with both feet behind it, he pounced!

Part 3

With a strong wooden stick in hand, Glenn followed the water along the coastline. With the waves of water rolling up and down, the sand was damp, off-green, speckled in black, and more willing to keep the shape of his bare feet in tact. The tip of his stick was sliding across the surface of the sand behind him, and there was left a line where the gravity of the whole stick pushed into the ground at that single point; a zig zag going to, and retreating from, the sea. Following the line back to its origin, there lied corpses of deadly flamingos, blowfish who float above the water and sink to the dry sand upon their death, and bipedal lizards who had, all of them, been imbued with magical powers at the time of their birth. Glenn had no intention of killing when he came to this dangerous back looking for treasure of any sort, but when the first pink bird jumped at him with spread wings and spiked kneecaps pointing away, he grabbed the closest weapon he could spot, a wooden stick.

The sun had just retreated from a spotless clear sky, and some of it's light still remained in the air as Glenn approached a well. A round wall of bricks asking for anyone aro

und it to look inside. Glenn found himself doing just that, expecting to find water just a few feet down due to the ocean's presence; But the small circle of bricks continued deep down, cutting off water, and leaving a dark dry place to explore. Tying a rope to the wooden columns used for a bucket (one rope to both columns, just in case...), Glenn made his way down.

Part 4

"Can I go yet?" asked Penny the Prisoner, "oh pleeeeaaase please please please pleeeeeaaase?"

"Shut up!" said Duncan, pointing the spear he held inches from her small cage.

"Can you at least tell me why I'm here?"

"Yeah," said Danny, Duncan's partner, "why are we holding a squirrel prisoner? And why does it take two armoured lizards guard her?"

"I don't know," said Duncan, "the boss wants her later for something."

"What?" Danny had an almost cynical tone to the question. Penny waited more intently for the answer than Danny.

"I don't know!" snapped Duncan, "He just asked me to guard the stupid thing!"

"Hey! I'm not a thing," exclaimed Penny, unafraid, "I'm a squirrel, thank you very much!"

Duncan gave her a dirty look, Danny smiled. There was a moment of silence between the three of them; then, as soon as Danny was about to say something, the wooden door on the stone wall between where the two lizards were standing slammed open, hitting Danny in the face.

"Sir! There's an intruder! A human! It's breaking through our defenses!" Noises of other guards getting the messages could be heard down the hallways. Without question, Duncan and the other guard ran through the doorway, leaving Danny between the door and the wall. He slowly closed the door, hoping nobody in the hallway would recognize someone was still in the room.

"What was your name?"

With such an unexpected question, she took a second to answer, "Penny."

"How did you end up here?" he walked up to the cage.

"I was kidnapped, by a flamingo. Who's your boss? I don't want to see him."

"A blowfish who has us lizards and the flamingos under his employ." Danny opened the cage, "but this is wrong." Danny walked away.

With another unexpected move like that, it took Penny a second to realize she should move. The lizard left the door open a small bit, just big enough for Penny to fit through. She spotted her savior, and with no knowledge of how to leave the place, she began to follow him.

Part 5

The Blowfish hovered above his throne. Waiting for his guards to fix the situation. The only two double doors in the room were across from the throne. As the Blowfish stared at them, twelve guards ran through, turning around and closing the door, all leaning against it.

"What's going on?" asked the fish in a deep powerful voice that struck fear into eleven of the twelve lizards.

The single unafraid one walked up and answered in a voice that gave his boss no respect, "The human made it through, everyone's dead. We're all that's left."

"Don't just stand there!" said the Boss, "help them hold the door!"

The lizard just stood there with his spear leaning on the floor. A squirrel that held onto the ridges of armour on the lizard's back ran up to take a look that the large, very large spike covered fish that not only lived out of water, but floated through the air as if it were floating just above the seafloor.

"Is that--?" The fish looked at the squirrel, then back to the lizard's face, unable to come up with more words.

"Maybe," a smirk reached the corner of Danny's mouth as he grabbed the spear with both hands and held it up to the fish. There was a slam on the door. The lizards pressed against it harder.

"Guards!" The fish roared, "kill this traitor!" The remaining guards against the door all kept pressing it, there was another slam at the door that cracked the wood. The guards all stood silently watching them. Another slam. The blowfish rotated completely around, using his stubby tail to hit the spear that was held up to him to the floor. A third slam slightly opened the doors; the guards closed them again.

The fish quickly flew into the lizard, knocking him to the floor. His armour was the only thing that had saved him from the spikes. The fish hovered over the lizard, about to drop. A small object hit the fish on the side of the head. He looked to the right, where it came from. The squirrel pulled a second nut from her cheek and poised for another throw. Danny crawled to his spear with the blowfish distracted.

Another slam on the door nearly knocked it off it's hinges. The guards all looked at each other, reading the expression of fear, they all scattered at the same time, leaving the last consistently timed slam to break through the door. The human, three times the height of the lizards, crouched through the door and stood up with plenty of roof room to stand. The lizards all hugged the walls around the room, some of them leaving their tails by the door.

The human spotted the large gold crown on the blowfish, and held one of the stolen spears up to the blowfish like a sword, "You, where do you keep your treasure?" Instantly, the fish blew up to a large sphere nearly the size of the human and floated there. The human swung and the fish backed off, leaping for an attack as the treasure hunter's spear hit the ground.

The lizard grabbed his fallen spear and went for the popping blow into the fish, but hit at an angle that deflected the spear away from the fish. The squirrel threw her last nut, distracting the fish further from the hunter. The squirrel ran for the door, as did the lizard. The human hit the fish in the face with the side of the spear, dazing it for a moment, leaving it open to any attack the hunter wanted.

Upon being pierced, the fish burst, having seven gold coins come out like candy. The treasure hunter picked them up.

The End

"Thanks for helping me," said Penny as Danny and her walked along the beach together, leaving the well behind.