It was a strange feeling to go back in time. It exhausted me. I just concentrated on the pace and time I wanted to go to. I was curious about the 1500’s, so I isolated myself on the street, a few miles from my home and concentrated.

I collapsed onto a dirt road. One that only a few seconds ago was concrete, but feeling how hard I fell, I was thankful it wasn’t.

I could hear the clutter of activity around me as someone tried to wake me. I could feel them yank at my arms, and I felt my feet bounce and vibrate slightly, which got rougher as they towed me onto a cobblestone road. The pressure on my shoulders and wrists relaxed.

The coolness of the stone against the skin of my cheek was enough to bring me back to consciousness. I opened my eyes partially. The stone of the street was grey and I was in the shadow of a massive stone wall, one shade lighter than the street.

I turned to sit up, and heard a few gasps of surprise. I looked at them, shocked at what I was seeing. They had pure curiosity in their eyes. They were dressed in rags and their faces were tainted with the dirt of the street. They smelled foul, like they hadn’t bathed in months. While my hair still smelled of my strawberry shampoo and my skin of my favorite vanilla body wash.

“Where am I?” I asked dazed. They looked at me like I was a freak then. One of them whispered something to another. They weren’t speaking in English like I was, they were speaking in a like an early century French.

They noticed my clothes then, and their eyes widened with fear. I was still wearing my navy blue t-shirt and blue jeans.

I looked back just in time to see their eyes fill with accusing terror. They all yelled something at me. I think that I knew what they were accusing me of. I had read of the superstitions of this time period. What they were yelling at me was ‘witch’.

They started running around like mad men, creating mayhem in the people they were passing. When the whole town seemed like it was in havoc, I stood up, looking around wild-eyed, confused, and shocked at the people running away from me in fear.

I turned just in time to see four men on horses, swords drawn, coming towards me. The only thing I could do was stare at them, frightened. Everything sped up when the man in front raised his sword to swing. My knees bent reflexively along with my back and neck, until I was in a crouch.

They were coming at me too fast, so they passed me before they realized it. When I was clear of their swords, and before they could turn around and come back, I straightened up and ran. I was hyperaware of everything that was happening. The terrified townspeople, screaming and crying, as I weaved passed them, the muscles in my legs and torso flexing under my skin, which was cold from being terrified and shocked, and then the thunderous pounding of hooves on the cobblestone road, dangerously close and loud, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out my heart, which was beating faster then a humming birds wings.

With one loud shing I was in blackness. The pressure on my chest, back, and arm pulsing with pain. I sat up quickly. I was on the concrete street, alone, almost exactly the way I had left, except I was far away from where I had left, and lying on a dark spot which looked like anciently spilled blood.

I walked back home, thankful that I had been brought back to present times. ‘It was just a dream’ I tried to convince myself, but when I was changing for bed, there was a long massive white scar across my body, crossing all the way to my back. Exactly where the painful pressure had been. The slash from the soldier’s sword.