Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Staring up at her was a broken image

Under a Foreign Sky

Kristen Fae
4 min readAug 31, 2024

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The sun woke Amnesia, sprawling through the lush, plentiful canopy overhead and dappling streaks of pale-yellow light over her body and eyes. She had no way of knowing how long she’d slept, but when her arms slid up to protect her eyes, she felt stiff from lack of movement.

After several minutes taken to recalibrate herself, she was able to will her heavy body into moving just enough to put her into a sitting position that left her slouched and gazing sightlessly at the ground. Resting in the dirt in front of her were hands painted in various shades of earthen tones and caked a deep brown in the crevices, a sight that placed a stone in her stomach.

Standing, she made her slowly wending way through the intricate network of the forest, her mind caught in a distant place far off from her actions. She abandoned the usual unconscious grace with which she would normally navigate the forest in favor of loud, stumbling steps that disturbed all within her immediate vicinity. A guiding, mother-like presence alone kept her to her course, nudging her this way and that so that she wouldn’t walk into trees or other dangers.

She reached the stream without knowing how far she had walked or how long the trip had taken. She simply blinked…

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Kristen Fae

Part-time author. Full-time faerie wrapped in a mortal coil but not faking the whole "human" thing very well.