Lifeline - Vikings (Ivar)

chapter 5

All around me was darkness. My ankle was in agony, particularly since I'd been thrown into this foul cell and had bashed it on the stone floor. My head was a little better, and I was glad that there were no real signs of a concussion.

I held my leg, a small tear dripping down my cheek as I cowered in the corner of the room. It was cold, and I could hear the rain outside. The room was dank and had very little light, but the leaking of the roof was evident by the puddles on the floor. I sat on a small stack of hay, jolting with a scream when a mouse ran out from beneath me.

The old woman was right. This was Hell. And I was trapped.

I'd never been someone with much faith, always choosing science over religion, but in that moment I couldn't fathom a scientific explanation for what I was experiencing. Perhaps I'd accidentally fallen into a pocket dimension. Perhaps theories of a hologramatic universe were correct and there'd been some sort of issue surrounding that. But these people didn't seem like shadows to me. I didn't know. I didn't want to know. I wanted to go home.

The door creaked open, and I scrambled back against the wall. In walked a man, his eyes scanning me closely. By his clothes, I could tell he was a man of God. And, although I wanted to fill with hope in knowledge that he would help me, judging by my surroundings I was probably doomed.

"Specen once, wicce." He commanded and, though the words were unfamiliar, they were similar enough to modern English for me to be able to understand. "Speak now, witch."

"I'm not a wicce." I began. When I realised, however, who I was speaking to my eyes widened with glee. If he was, indeed, a man of God, then he would be fluent in Latin. Luckily, so was I. "Meum nomen est Iris. Ego from Oxford. Iter eram cum parentibus meis, cum ego got amisit. Nocere tibi non vis ad vos, ego iustus volo ut reperio parentes."
'My name is Iris. I am from Oxford. I was travelling with my parents when I got lost. I do not want to harm you, I just want to find my parents.'

The priest watched me closely, as the others stared in awe from the doorway at the strange girl within. For a moment, he considered my situation, but his eyes soon fell upon my clothes again.

"Wicce." He decreed, saying some other words of condemnation and likely laying out my trial as a witch. I didn't want to seem weak in front of these strangers, I didn't want to break and end up ridiculed, but I couldn't help it. Everything was so overwhelming and all I wanted was my parents. The comforting smell of Chanel No.5 and strawberries that clung to my mother, my father's warm hugs that always managed to leave me with chalk on my jacket, the cookies my father baked me on rainy days and the song my mother would sing to me at night as a child. I missed them. I missed home. I missed feeling safe. Here, in this strange world, nothing was safe.

I wept into the corner of the room until day became night and night became morning, until the birds began to chirp reminding me of my final hours. I shook with fear, watching the door to see when I would be forced to face my doom. Yesterday was my birthday. My 18th birthday. And I'd spent it locked in a cell, alone and afraid in some unknown place.

What on earth were my parents thinking right now? They'd left me for an hour and I'd just vanished. They must've been terrified, utterly terrified. Perhaps they believed me dead. Either way, I feared that I soon would be. And there was no means of escape.

I wanted to fight, to draw blood if I had to, but I simply couldn't. I'd not eaten or drank since I'd arrived here, my ankle still terrorised me and my head still stung. Besides, even if I wasn't injured and exhausted - how could I alone fight off a whole town of people?

I was trapped. Completely and utterly trapped.

And then I heard it. Something that most certainly was not my captors. The large gates at the entrance slammed open, and in the distance I could swear that I heard the sound of swords.

Someone was here.