Lost In Time

His Request

Song: Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Lorde. I listened to it on repeat while writing this!

I was tumbling backwards, one minute on the couch and the next crash-landing on a muddy hill, and immediately lost my footing. The grey sky spun as I rolled with increasing speed down the sharp slope, my mouth becoming full of mud, dirt, and grass as I tried to scream. My legs became cut up as I went faster and faster, the cold seeping into my skin. I guess a t shirt and shorts isn't enough to ward off the brutal wind and rain that was stinging my face. I crashed into an old horse-drawn cart, the wood splinters immediately digging into my skin, causing blood to trickle down my arms to be swept away in the rain. The grey skies and torrents of rain swam in my vision, black dots almost making me black out, but I couldn't. I barely heard footsteps sloshing in the rain, foreign tongues yelling above the wind. No. No. No.

Travelers had rules, lots of them, meant to keep us safe and the world's history intact. Rule number was never be seen or heard. I had just broken it. Blinking rapidly, I struggled to sit up with wooden wreckage all around me, hissing as another splinter punctured my bare feet, looking around wildly. Oh no. The clergy. Monks with simple robes and hoods, sandals, bearing the cross, holding crudely fashioned stakes, townsfolk milling around them with brightly lit torches and rusty pitchforks, all coming out of the dense fog that permeated the area. Vampire Hunters. All with the same crazed look in their eyes, the look of murderers and fanatics. I had to go. Now. They spotted me as I bolted, ignoring the sharp pains stabbing in my foot as I tripped on rocks and pebbles on the muddy road. Screams of anger and the thrill of the hunt roared and blended in with the thrashing wind and rain, and I forced myself to run faster, adrenaline making it possible as I left them behind. I couldn't see where I was going, barely able to see ten feet in front of me. All thoughts of staying hidden and not being seen flew out the window, the only thought to survive, because this was how Traveler's died.

Soon, the smell of burning hay and screams of terror filled my senses, and I slipped to a halt, breathing hard, struggling to determine what I was seeing in front of me. Little village huts burning to the ground in front of me, bloodied corpses lying in the muddy paths, women, children, animals running loose, terror on their faces. Men of the church doing what they deemed was the commandments of God, to be rid of all unholiness that manifested in vampires. I was in those ages. The Dark Ages. How did they get here so fast? Some of their helpers dragged the severely injured or dead bodies into a large pile near me, the stench of the dead causing bile to rise in my throat. A monk was twenty feet away from me, taking shelter from the rain by standing under the barely standing threshold of an abandoned home, looking on with cold satisfaction, hands tightened on his Holy Bible.

Survival instinct took over, and I leapt to hide behind the corpse pile, ignoring the muddy face of a child – a child – mere inches away from me. I couldn't. If I broke down, I was dead. Survive. Come back to me. So I forced myself to let go of all emotion, and look at the brutality in front of me strategically. These clergy were here for vampires. There must be one around, hiding. If he hadn't run off by now. The town looked as if it had been a fishing village, rotted scales flecking off of the day's catch, the rain making the smell worse. It wasn't a very big village, so there must be no kingdom nearby. Perhaps this was on the edge of a fiefdom. I could barely make out the thatched roofs of more huts down the muddy path, so I knew that the clergy were just getting started. I fervently hoped that the rest of the townspeople got out in time. Not your concern Eli, why are you here.

Breathing deeply in through my nose and fighting off my gag reflex, I closed my eyes and reached for my magic, my tether to this godawful place. Where was the artifact, what was it I was meant to see? A small glimmer of feeling warmed my numb bones, and I opened my eyes. It was barely there, the small glowing trail of star-like blue, floating like a cloud near the ground. Waiting for me to follow it.