Isern Amore

It was late December, she was boarding a flight to return home. She had spent the last year in France, studying at an international college. She sits in a plastic chair next to a window, scrolling through her phone lazily. A girl about 19 years of age, she has a very slender frame, black hair, shoulder length, and unkempt. She wears a worn down gray softball sweater as well as blue jeans with red and gray sneakers. Not the kind of person to stick out much, especially not in the diverse crowds of an airport. 

“Paging passenger, Eve Thompson, please report to the service desk at gate D17” issues through a loudspeaker.

Eve stands up and walks over to the service gate. She is greeted by a relatively old pudgy woman with a smile on her face.

“Your seat has been changed from 10A to 22B” She says as she types some things into her computer, the machine whirrs, and she pulls out a ticket. Handing it over to Eve.

“Thank you” Eve says wearily. Grabbing the ticket and stuffing it into the same pocket as her phone.

There’s no way that's NOT a middle seat Eve thinks to herself.

#

Dammit

Standing in the plane aisle, she looks down at her cramped seat, between an overweight man in a red hat watching the news on his phone and an old woman reading a book about English History. She hurriedly sits down in her seat, and pulls out her phone. She glances at the battery, then clicks her tongue in disapproval.  

“Qu’est-ce que le problème?" The old woman says softly, looking up from her book.

Eve had picked up some French while in France, but she was nowhere near fluent.  

“Please Repeat?” Eve says in French, hurriedly swiping to an app on her phone called ‘Translate! Go!’. 

She pulls up the app and taps a symbol of a microphone, the old woman repeats her words. The microphone symbol radiates blue rings, analyzing her speech, it dings and prints out the words “What is the problem?” in text on the screen. Eve hurriedly types into the app. “I didn't charge my phone at the airport, it is only at 55 percent.”  

The app repeats the phrase in french. The old woman nods and goes back to reading her book.

The Captain begins to speak over the intercom, as Eve pops in some earbuds and closes her eyes. Getting about as comfortable in her seat as possible, given the circumstances.

#

She falls into a shallow sleep unusually quickly, A jazz piano mix filling her ears. The sweaty uncomfortable seating is a constant reminder of where she is. Gradually that reminder dissipates and turns into a cold air that begins to sting at her face, wind blows in her ears and ruffles her already unkempt hair. She at first ignores this, and shifts her body to the right. Attempting to stay in her shallow slumber. As she does, her seat falls in the same direction, straight into wet solid ground. It feels as if the seat disappears completely as Eve’s eyes shoot open.

 At first she is overtaken by an intense panic. On her side half covered in mud, no plane seats in sight. She quickly pushes herself off the ground and stands up, flinging mud off her hands and any early morning grogginess with it. Attempting to gauge her surroundings she looks around. A flat farmland expanse in front of her, and what looks to be a village of some kind far off in the distance behind it. No people in sight. She rubs her eyes. Still the same. She looks behind her. No plane, no overweight man, no old women, not even a seat. She just sees more farmland. She sits back down in the mud, pulling her knees into her face. Lost in her own shock. At a loss for what she should do. 

Eve quickly pulls out her phone, turns off her music. Frantically checking her messages, only one from her Dad in her family group chat. She reads it aloud.

“Make sure to message us when you land honey, I’ll be waiting at the airport with your little brother. Have a good flight.”

She had forgotten to respond. She fiddles with a red wristband under her sweatshirt sleeve for a moment. Then she looks over to the village in the distance. She stands up, legs shaking. Taking a moment to somewhat contain her nervousness, she begins making her way down.

#

As Eve begins to walk down a dirt path, she begins spotting people along the road. These people are odd though, they all wear what seemed to be clothing of a different era. Brown tunics and leather boots with puffy pants. She spotted two men down the road, both in a similar ensemble. They have a wooden cart filled with what looked to be stones, one of the wheels has popped off its axle. The two men seemed to be trying to fix it, though they both stopped and looked at her as soon as she was within eyesight. Eve stands there for a moment before speaking.

“Helloooo“ She politely waves and moves forward a bit so she is a moderate distance from them “My name is Eve”

They say nothing, they both look at her blankly.

“Are you Amish, or-” Eve says somewhat awkwardly, finishing off with an uncomfortable laugh. 

The first man, a mature man with a short beard in his twenties, speaks up, an odd mix of vowels and words Eve has never heard before. He has a younger companion, who looks to be a child. The child has light brown hair that is very short, he has an energetic demeanor. The child pipes up with his own jumble of vowels she has never heard before.

“Wait, wait, one sec” Eve says quickly, pulling out her phone and pulling up her translation app “Here can you say that again?” She holds her phone up to them.   

They pause for a moment, then both begin speaking at once. The app produces the sentence “What who are you wearing, from where are you you are?”.   

It seems the app can’t distinguish between separate people talking. The older man puts his hand on the younger one and gets him to stop speaking. Eve decides she’ll go as universal as possible, pointing first to herself, second to the village, then third clasping her hands together. Hopefully this works, she thinks to herself looking through squinted eyes. She shakily holds out her phone to the older man, clicking the microphone symbol. He speaks. The phone translates into text that Eve then reads aloud.

“Oh, so you must be a foreign pilgrim. That explains the eccentric outfit, you don’t see female pilgrims too often. We can take you to a friar in the town square and he can help after we fix our wheel. My name is Flint, and this is my son Audrey.” 

This translation is pretty dry she thinks to herself.  

She looks up at them. She is not a pilgrim. She glances at her phone battery that’s now at 47 percent. Maybe it’d be easier to go along with this rather than trying to explain who she actually is. She puts her hands together again, and they get back to fixing the wheel. She checks what language they’re speaking above the translation. English. It was translated from English to English. Frustrated she begins fiddling with the app to see if it is broken. She taps the microphone and begins saying random phrases. Then translating it to the English they spoke. The garbled vowels come out once again. Confusion turns to anxiety. Eve begins to recognize her situation. They are speaking English, old English. A mix of excitement and fear began to well up in her stomach. She’s seen it tons of times in books and movies. She begins fiddling with her red wristband once again. Wherever she is, it’s not the 20th century.  

#

The small village comes into view. It seems to be on a muddy coast, filled with mostly wooden houses with hay roofs built around what looks to be a large stone monastery on a small hill. The monastery seems to have one large church at its center, and 3 smaller stone buildings outside of it. People hustled about on dirt paths, much more diverse in clothing color then the farmers she saw before. People wore bright greens, reds, and blues. Eve even spotted a few monks in long brown robes wandering about. She is snapped out of her thoughts by Audrey attempting to reach into her jean pocket and grab her phone. Eve yelps and pushes the young boy's hand away, then she wearily puts her hands into her pockets. Flint smacks the young boy on the head and begins berating him. It’s now she begins to notice that people are giving her weird stares. Her plain appearance is considered far more eccentric here than at the airport.

They reach what looks to be a town square, there seems to be some sort of gathering around a small platform. A monk seems to be preaching to the townspeople. Audrey and Flint wave her off and continue onward with their cart. She wants to ask them what she should do, but she doesn’t muster up the courage. She shouldn’t ask any more of them. Eve stands there awkwardly for a bit, listening to a man she can’t even understand. If this is old English she figures that with some effort she could probably learn it. She sighs. She doesn’t need too though, she’s not even supposed to be here.

Whatever put me here will probably take me out again. I can just wait. Maybe take some pictures. I don’t see a reason to worry. It’s out of my control anyways.  

Yes, she’ll be fine either way. There is nothing for her to worry about. She gains a sense of security, be it false or true. With that she decides she’ll just stand there and be content, pulling her phone out of her jean pocket. 40 percent now. The citizens around her don’t seem to be too distracted by her, some stare. 

She clicks the white circle at the bottom of her screen and takes a picture of the monk. There’s a snap sound, then a delayed flash plasters itself on the monks face. It was dusk, the sun had begun to set. The illuminated the monk and the crowd around her. She felt her heart sink into her stomach. Of course she left the flash on, How could she forget? The friar stops speaking for a moment. The people around her begin looking at her, mostly with confusion. The people around her begin murmuring. She hurriedly switches over to her translation app.

“What what witch that sorcery that was that” 

Shit, of course they think I'm a witch. How could I have been so stupid?

Panicking, she needs to act fast. They aren’t whipped into a frenzy yet. It’s kind of cliche, but maybe she can convince them it’s a holy artifact. She’s seen it happen before in movies, and hell her name oughta add some credibility to it right? Though, it might do more bad then good to say her name. She quickly types into her phone.

“I am a pilgrim from the future. This object cannot harm you, it only captures your image in time. Like a painting. It is a holy artifact gifted to me by god. I only wish to capture this beautiful city in time so that it may be revisited in the future.”

Quickly she translates her words and taps the text to speech option. She holds her phone up at full volume, waiting while the robotic voice regurgitates her words. Closing her eyes in anticipation.

The murmuring stops, the monk speaks. She quickly taps the icon and translates.

“This woman is manic, she speaks of conquering our city for denizens of the future, you all must-”

Eve reading the text is cut off by a man tackling her into the ground. Clearly her usage of the word capture did not translate how she wanted it to. She frantically tries to explain herself, yet they do not understand her words. The murmuring of the crowd turns to shouting as the citizens begin beating at her from all sides. The monk begins shouting at the citizens. A leather shoe bruises her face, fists slam into her stomach leaving her breathless. Something will surely save her, something will wake her up.

In the chaos, a sound issues in the distance. The great ground shaking bellowing of a horn. Angry shouting and water splashing. All from the coast. The crowd stops moving. Eve takes a deep breath. Relief.

Everything seems to slow down. For a moment Eve is sure she’ll be alright. That is until she smells the aroma of smoke. This isn’t someone who came to save her. It’s just bad timing. The horns and the shouting. She’s narrowed down what time she is in. Only a little bit. Sometime when the vikings were invading England.  

I’m screwed, i’m so screwed. Something wants me dead. What did I do? I’m the most average person on the fucking planet. Why the hell would I be here? What possible reason. She thought.

For the first time today, the reality of her situation sets in. Time speeds up again. She feels tears welling up in her eyes. The people around her begin fleeing, as the shouting increases in volume. Battered and bruised she cries. Curled up on the dirty road. The aroma of smoke and fire begins to fill her nose.  

No one is going to help her, she sits up. Still crying, she swipes through photos of her family. Pictures of her and her friends in France. In front of the Eiffel Tower. She wishes she was there. She looks at the last message from her dad. Why is she here?

The angry shouting closer, now with sounds of swords clashing and people screaming. She doesn’t have the strength to face this. She knows this, but she can’t just give up. She can pretend, pretend to be strong. She slowly pushes herself all the way up. Rubbing a bruise on her face. No more time to cry. She takes in her surroundings. People are fleeing left and right, the monk is gone and his platform is empty. It seems that the townspeople left her behind. Some of the buildings in front of her are on fire. All she can rely on is herself and her phone.

#

She traces her way up the path she took with Flint and Audrey. It’s quite simple, though now flanked on both sides by burning buildings. She dodges the eyes of citizens and vikings alike as she makes her way up, but as she reaches the entrance to town it’s blocked off by men in metal helmets and armor, some with red capes. They’re quick, that’s something they’re known for. She clicks her tongue. She sees a large burly Viking corner a man in front of a house. She averts her eyes and fiddles with her red armband. She doesn’t see what happend, but she does hear it. His screaming echoes in her ears. Eve takes cover behind one of the buildings not yet on fire. She pushes back the overwhelming fear that fills her and moves a bit closer to them. Maybe she can sneak around them. She steps over the body of a monk that’s been split open, for a second she peers directly at it. Involuntarily she lets out a loud gasp. Eve presses herself against the wooden wall. Three men begin moving towards her location. Frantically she pulls out her phone, it nearly slips through her fingers as she clicks the microphone and it begins scanning the language they’re shouting at her. She’d had this idea before, and she knew that if it failed she would be hacked apart like everyone else here. She begins typing into her phone, but as she does the three men turn the corner. Eve yelps, quickly pulling down a menu on her phone and flashing the three men with a flashlight.

This’ll only work once, if it works at all. She thinks to herself.

She shouts at the top of her lungs, random phrases and syllables while casting her light on them. Eve remembered that Vikings were generally high out of their minds when attacking, maybe she could give herself a moment by surprising them.

The three men stop, as if their legs are glued to the ground. Except one slashes at her out of shock. Cutting through her sweatshirt and leaving a huge gash in her stomach. Eve kicks off in the other direction fueled by adrenaline, crossing the road and jumping behind a house that is already on fire. They’re sure to chase her, they would never let someone get away. She knows this. She continues typing into the app. Feet beat against the ground behind her. They’re coming. She taps the text to speech icon, the phone translates her audio and plays it.

Coming out of her phone a mix of scandinavian words that roughly translate to a curse on their names from the gods themselves. She knew it was silly, especially with the text to speech voice. Still, it was the only thing she could think of. They had never heard the voice before, it’s uncanniness could be a benefit here. She couldn’t hold onto her phone though, that would only draw them to her. No time to say goodbye to what is essentially all of her memories of home, she slides the phone out from behind cover in front of the three armored men.

It slides across the bumpy grass ground, bouncing up a few centimeters off the ground. Landing right at their feet. All while echoing the curse. The three men gather around her phone. Eve doesn’t look, she only hears the robotic voice get cut off. Taking her only opportunity, she shoots off towards the farmlands. Tears in her eyes once again. Memories of her time are all she carries now. The shouting, fire, and steel get quieter as she puts more distance between her and the town. It never goes away though. It still echoes in her ears. 

She keeps running until she finds a collection of trees and brush. Exhausted she collapses into a particularly thick bush. The adrenaline wearing off, she presses her hand into her stomach. Holding up her blood covered hand in front of her face. The brush stabs at her arms and legs, too exhausted to move she doesn’t react. The sounds of the village in the distance echo in her ears as she slowly fades from consciousness. She smiles, maybe she’ll wake up on that plane again. The world fades into black. Jazz music begins to fill her ears.