Just Your Average Time Traveller

Never.

I slept fitfully. It didn't feel like rest, more like drifting between dimensions, into scarier and scarier places. It wasn't just my mind, my body felt as though every molecule was trying to scatter in different directions. My head spun like a merry-go-round, whirling through different dreams and moments of wakefulness. Each time I woke up, I was dragged back into a swirling mass of confusion and the pounding of my head. 

When it finally ended and I sat up, realising that I was lying sideways on the hay bale and that Schnuckums was 'reet-'ing warily in the corner as if I required an exorcist. And, judging by the headache I had, I probably did. But suddenly, everything seemed oddly clear.

I realised that I had been ignoring the questions pooling inside me like a leak in the roof, but now there was no space to contain them. My hunger for answers was too great. How come, all those times when I was young, I kept on seeing visions of people from the past, and when I blinked they were gone? That was what those dreams had been about. The girl in the park, the figures in strange clothes on my first day of secondary school...So how come my father knew what was happening, and could somehow reassure me? Why hadn't he ever brought it up again?

And how come I always seemed to notice things more than others? How is it that with everyone else, news about crises and riots seemed to go in one ear and out of the other? I seemed to be the only one who payed attention, the only one who seemed to know that the world was corrupted and power hungry. 

As well as that, I did something extraordinary at dawn yesterday. I wasn't sure what it was, but I could have sworn time had passed faster than it should have. 

What about Cassandra? Why do her eyes change colour? Why is she so peculiar and why does she prophesise things that are beyond preposterous? It seemed I would never know without tying her to a chair and shining a lamp in her face 1980s action movie style.

One thing was certain, though. In all this confusion, with this sudden rush of queries, there was a constant. I had only made time speed up when the pocket watch was in my hands. It might not be me that was the problem. That sliver of hope was all I had, so I inevitably began to panic. 

In my sleep-deprived state, at some unearthly hour of the morning, I chose to find the people who had taken Schnuckums. It was possibly one of the worst decisions I had ever made.

Yet.

I ran my fingers through the mess of my hair, pushing the possesions scattered around me into my backpack. There was an odd, hollow feeling in my stomach and I clutched it, the clarity of my hunger overwhelming, Oddly, under my third and fourth finger, I felt a very slight, small bump but ignored it. I had other things to tend to.

I slung my bag over my shoulder, giving Schnuckums a weary salute and gently pulled open the wooden door. I silently thanked the Spanish olive growers of 49AD who'd taken the trouble to trade with Italy; the hinges didn't make a sound. The icy bite of the air around me ran me over like a bullet train, making goosebumps rise on my skin. Strange, throaty croaks from crickets were all that sliced through the silence. Those, and the crunch of grass as I walked to the side alley of the mansion. The gaping back entrance of the villa made me finnicky, as I expected someone to come out and spot me.

Barely paying any attention to my nondescript and now familiar surroundings, I ploughed on. Phrases and thoughts played tug of war in my mind. I heard voices over and over again.                      

"Watch the clock. Count." 

"If anybody sees you they could tell Pompous Pompey."

"That girl is from the sixties."

" I saw someone chasing you, child..."

The memories played over and over like a broken record, bringing flashes of ideas that I tried desperately to shy away from. The dark things I was thinking were so likely, so fitting...

My delirium let my feet take me where I wanted them to. Fragments of the streets around me came back. The broken tavern sign, the slope in the path, the circular courtyard. Soon enough I was at a completely barren Trevi Fountain. I stopped dead, panic sinking into my bones and confusion rattling me.  

Though the Trevi fountain was a bustling marketplace basking in the sun at daytime, it was a cold, unforgiving space at night. Wind passed silently but quickly by me, but the stone buildings stayed put, throwing their long shadows across the courtyard like a game of bowls. The absence of sound was horrific, and I clutched my ears with no time to appreciate the irony. 

Shaking myself, I adjusted the backpack on my shoulder and ran on. I ran for as long as I could before each breath felt like a rake dragging across the surface of my lungs. I leaned against a low, jagged wall in an almost conscious darkness and got hold of my inhaler patch from inside my backpack. Once I had pulled the collar of my tunic down, I peeled off the backing plastic and pressed the cool patch onto my bare chest. I waited until it made a sucking sound. Immediately, my breathing began to ease.

I walked more slowly, taking in the city around me and avoiding the busier areas, where lights hung from doors and windows and the sound of music and laughter were scary in their frequency. I had to remember how to get back, just in case. 

I walked for almost an hour before I resolved to turn back. I wasn't as sleepy or confused now as I had been so it finally hit me how stupid I had been. How had I thought this was a good idea? The questions, they were still fresh in my mind, but how could I have thought I would get all this searching business done in one night? It would take several days at least to find a trace of the soldiers I had seen several days ago.

There was a crunch in the alley a few paces in front of me that turned at a right angle. 

It was distant, soft, barely audible. But it was getting louder. I could hear it, and a voice talking in a pitchy, slurred and occasionally sharp language. I froze. Could this be who I was looking for?

The voice got louder and suddenly the words made sense. "....not great at the moment. Our little...ah...oversight hasn't been spotted in sector I035 K. Send a couple into N and I'll take L. We just need..."

The voice got louder and louder and hope rose inside me, but I couldn't move. This was it. I was going home. 

A glimmer of chrome and the edge of a slim, aeodynamically shapped graphine boot entered my vision...before a brutish force ripped me away, hands clutching my chest and waist and tugging in a way that made my knees buckle. I struggled fiercely as we ran and dived into blackness as the figure's hand suddenly gripped my face to stop my grunts. We rolled, stopping suddenly with the weight of the figure above me. I couldn't see, speak or move. 

Desperately, I tried to squeal but a quick elbow dig into my shoulderblades stopped all that. I simply stayed as still as I could, my ears picking up some gentle footsteps passing by. Suddenly, they stopped, just in front of us. I held my breath in anticipation.

"Meran? What's up?" A robotic voice, quiet like a buzzing mosquito, broke the silence. The soldier spoke to it as if coming out of a daze.

"Yeah, uh, nothing. Just...thought I saw somethin'. Over and out."

To my intense relief, the footsteps returned, getting quieter and quieter until they disappeared. As soon as they did, all the pressure that the figure above me had been exerting was gone, and I was hauled into a standing position. I saw now that we were in yet another alleyway. And the man - no woman could be so broad and muscled - who had ceased my progress stood gravely in front of me with sandy hair, tanned skin, and a movie star smile that was currently absent. My voice trembled with anger, fingernails digging into my palms.

"Adonis."