Future History

Chapter 2: King Henry

Stone beneath me was cold, so cold it almost felt wet, the only warm part was where my head lay. A hand was gently running over my head and noises slowly came to life around me. The first noise I heard was the undeniable sound of rain, thunder and crying.

"My phone is not working."

"Of course it isn't working you dumb shit."

"We clearly are not at the museum anymore, by the looks of it we are not even in our own time, perhaps the electrical storm caused some disturbance in time and we somehow managed to travel back in time."

"That would explain the nausea and strange people, this is so cool."

"That is the stupidest thing I had ever heard."

"You mean other than the things you say?"

"She is coming too." I opened my eyes and saw Charles staring down at me, his eyes full of fear and concern as I slowly sat up, my head screamed at me for moving but I did not feel comfortable being in someone's lap. Slowly, I turned to look at the small nerdish girl smiling softly to me. Her glasses were bent slightly and her hair was no longer tied back but she did not look as scared as the others. I fought against the throbbing head pain for a moment or two before looking around, there was only one wall in the room we were in, the other three were bars. We were in a cell, no guards were in this small gaol but I knew they would be outside the heavy metal door that was closed at the end. The room we were in was dark stone walls, no windows and only two candle lanterns lighting the entire area. A pile of old hay was dumped in each cell, our pile was in the corner and no one went near it. I did not blame them, the man in the cell next to us was a little creepy with his missing teeth and sweat covered clothes. His eyes were on one of the girls and his hand was down his pants moving around. Frowning, I ignored the pain and stood up.

"Girls get behind me." I said guiding them with a movement of my hand. They did not argue and did as I said, the boys looked into the cell next to ours and started to shout at the man. Charles stood in front of me and frowned to the man who only laughed.

"I'm gonna be sick." Phone girl said placing a hand over her mouth.

"Don't." Her friend said stepping away from her.

"We don't need anything else smelling this cell up." I added looking to her and showing concern. I guided her to sit down and placed her head between her knees while rubbing her back slowly. The door at the end of the room opened and the man pulled his hand out of his pants before backing away from our bars. I kept my eye on him until a small group of men, in light grey armor with forest green tunics thrown over the top, stopped before us. I recognised the crest on the tunic, gold stitched into an outline of the castle. King Henry's crest.

"Who is your leader?" One man said, his accent was of old, one I had never heard and always wanted to. It was not as good as I thought it would be but I guessed it would do for the situation we were in. Which I was taking surprisingly well. Perhaps I should hit myself in the head more often. The students all thrust their hands at me and Charles.

"I guess we are." I said standing up and looking over at the other man in the cell. He had a big grin on his face and was holding himself through his pants. My top lip curled back with distaste. A gloved hand grabbed my arm and pulled me from the cell, Charles followed with another rough tug and we were shoved toward the door. I looked back to see the cell door locked and the man shove his hand back into his pants.

"Why that sick sonnofa-" I began but was shoved again in the back. I stumbled forward until I got my footing and looked back to glare at the man who pushed me. The man behind me was an inch taller, most likely twenty kilos heavier with muscle and most likely well trained in hand on hand combat. Dark brown eyes and black hair were his only features that made him stand out to the rest, he blended in with a crowd well, or he would if he was not smirking down at me. I squinted my eyes at him and looked forward. If what that nerdy boy said, and we were in the past, then I did not want to provoke a man such as this into doing anything stupid. Sure I could hold my ground with a man bigger than me, I took self-defense classes for a few years but earlier that day proved it does not do much when caught by surprise. We were walked through the halls which no longer showed pieces of history but instead were history. People walked past with their heads down, men in armor stood by doors and thick curtains were draped around the large windows. We were taken into the throne room and I was almost excited to see the warlord's throne until I realised it was only King Henry. Then I also realised that the paintings, tapestries and drawings had added a lot of mass to his body. King Henry was a wirily thin man who was no doubt the same height as myself and possibly lighter in weight. His hair was curly and kept back with a ribbon of forest green and a few strands curled by his face of sharp features and fake smiles.