Time & Space: Chapter 5

The unnatural white light faded to the edges of his sight and flickered out. Temporarily blinded, Seth’s vision was filled with a blur of solid blue-grey. Slowly, shapes began to distinguish themselves. His senses returning gradually, he noticed a high-pitched buzzing in his ears and a cold, wet sensation all over his body.

A face shifted into focus, framed all around by bright blonde hair that appeared grey under the dark swirling clouds behind it. The face was a simple one, female, although not particularly beautiful, and it seemed to be trying to speak to him.

At first, no sound registered to him. As he blinked his vision into focus, he started to hear what sounded like gibberish.

“Meneer, gaat het? Hallo? Kan je me horen? Gaat het wel goed?”

“Raychel?” Seth wondered aloud.

The woman continued shouting at him in her foreign speech. As his consciousness returned to him he realized he was lying flat on his back, halfway sinking into mud as rain poured around them. He could see now, this was not Raychel. He sat up suddenly, at which the woman’s shouting increased in both volume and speed.

“Oh godzijdank gaat het goed met je! Bedankt dat je me hebt gered! Dank je! Dank je!”

Seth looked around. His head felt unnaturally heavy and he could feel his heart beating with a painful thump, thump, thump above his right eye. He sat in thick, dark grey, mud alongside a road of the same substance that had been shredded by what looked like millions of footprints and sliced through by deep tire ruts. A solid line of brick and wooden storefronts and home facades lined either side of the mud-pit road. It looked as though the wild west and New York City had somehow fused together. Aside from his yammering companion, he was alone.

Am I dead? Is she some sad excuse for an angel? he thought as she continued to rail at him in her unintelligible language. No. If I am dead, there is no way this is heaven. But what happened to Raychel? Is she okay?! His mind could find no answers amidst the mud, rain, and raving woman behind him.

He looked down. He was wearing thick, leather boots that were caked with the guts of the road. His boots gave way seamlessly to thick, olive green, wool socks, which covered wool pants of the same color. His whole body seemed to be a mass of soaking wet, olive-colored wool. To his left lay a wide-brimmed metal helmet, concave to the sky and filling with rainwater. On his right, a long rod of hybrid wood-metal. He reached for it and found it’s weight caused his throbbing head to surge with pain. He pulled it to him with a grunt and inspected it closer. Though he had never seen one before, he immediately recognized the rifle he held in his hands.

Seth ran his hand down the stock to the barrel, feeling the cold, wet material that formed the killing machine. Somehow, he knew this was his, the helmet too.

As he sat there soaking and bewildered, he noticed suddenly that an eerie silence surrounded him. The woman had stopped talking and stood now 10 feet away staring at her feet, the helmet resting in her hands before her. Seth realized he was holding the rifle as if he were prepared to use it.

Slowly, he pushed himself up onto his feet, swaying as the blood rushed to his head and caused it once again to pulse with pain. He slung the rifle onto his back with the leather strap that ran from butt to barrel. He turned to face the woman. She took a step backwards, holding the helmet out in front of her.

“It’s alright. I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, trying to smile. His body began to shiver and his teeth chattered against one another as the rain-soaked wool intensified the frigid air around them.

She looked him up and down as if deciding whether he was a threat, then suddenly said, “komen” and turned to start walking quickly down the mud-covered sidewalk towards a nearby intersection.

Still confused, Seth simply stared at the woman’s retreating back. She seemed to him like something out of a history film, with a long thick dress and a pleated wool overcoat that was nearly as long.

What the hell happened?! Seth thought. This must be some sort of comatose dream, but would I be able to think this if I were in a dream?! He had never been aware of his dreams before, and this certainly seemed as real as the moment before he woke up here. His attention snapped back to the woman as she yelled again.

“Hey! Come.” He understood that, and not just because she motioned violently with her arm for him to follow.

Not knowing what else to do, Seth followed the woman up the mud-road and around the corner. Seth was surprised to see the intersecting road just as deserted as the one before. The only difference was a frail-looking horse which stood hitched to a wagon and looking miserable on the other side of the road.

Seeing this Seth called out, “Hey, where are we?!”

The woman wheeled around and glared at him severely, shushing him with a hiss and her finger over her lips. She beckoned once more with her hand and continued to move up the street, even quicker now.

Growing more confused by the second and becoming desperate for an answer, Seth hurried along behind her. After a few minutes of winding through narrow streets, they reached a plain wooden door set in a building made of large, grey brick. The woman pushed through the door and Seth followed after her.

The building was dark with only the dim natural light illuminating the interior through large picture windows. They climbed one flight of creaking wooden stairs and came to another door, same as the one before but with knocker on the front and a faded bronze number 4 on the frame. The woman pulled a key tied around a string from under the breast of her coat and used it to open the door.

Seth followed her inside, moving forward carefully as the room was completely dark until a match was struck and an oil lamp lit behind him. By the dim light of the lamp he could see a simple kitchen that looked to him like something out of a museum. A wood burning stove was built into the fireplace, doubling as a cooking range and heating apparatus. A small wooden table with two chairs sat in the middle of the room and portrait of what looked like a military colonel hung over the fireplace. Thick curtains were drawn over the single window, and a door let to what he assumed to be the bedroom.

The woman quickly moved to the stove and began preparing a fire in its belly, striking a match to light the few meager logs she had stacked there. While she worked on this, he unshouldered his rifle and set it in the corner behind the door they had just come through. He took a short walk around the room, noticing that everything, the plaster walls, the iron utensils hanging over the stove, the wood of the high backed chairs, looked brand new.

The walls were mostly bare as he made his way around the room inspecting everything for some sign of the age and deterioration he felt should be there. Suddenly, his eyes came upon a crisp half page of newspaper that had been tacked to the wall. He didn’t recognize the script that headed the page, but what he could read was the date that titled the calendar below it. 1918.

He saw something large and menacing move out of the corner of his eye. Turning quickly and ready to defend the figure jumped and turned too in the exact same way. A large mirror hung on the wall to his right reflecting the face of a man he did not recognize, dressed in the same olive fatigues he now wore. He raised a hand to touch his face, and so did the stranger.

What the hell.

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