Chapter 3

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"Two thousand what?" I was still chuckling.

Maybe from outside it looked like that, I was choking on a drink, but I couldn't help it. My hysteria escalated to the point that the three men in front of me started looking at me with concern and apprehension.

"En...ough...w...ith...jo...kes!" I slowed down still letting out giggles now and then. "I'm sure, we all like a great laughter, but it can't be two th...ous...and," I forced the number out of my mouth, "and ten outside. Simply because it's physically impossible. Not to mention, that it was nineteen sixty-three last time I checked. That was half a month ago, so to speak."

"Okay, relax!" The oldest one said standing up from the chair. "We believe you. It was nineteen sixty-three. Apparently, you've been running away from someone. Have you been held, hostage? Do you remember the names of people who've been abusing you? I'm sure that's what happened." His face grew kind, understanding, but I wasn't stupid like he hoped I was.

"If you're implying that I've run away from some mental institution, then don't bother trying to befriend me. I'm far from being unreasonable," I snapped at him.

His eyes hadn't changed. An expression of concern was still plastered on his face.

That only aggravated me. I growled and spun around turning to the wall and pressing my head to it.

"Is it two thousand ten for real?" I muttered hiding my eyes into my arm. "How? How did it happen? I was just trying to cross the border between two states, not send myself into the future. It's a joke! Right?" I added volume to my voice. "You are kidding, right?" I peeked at the men. They shook their heads warily, probably expecting me to go ballistic.

"You don't understand..." I mumbled. "It's all wrong! It...it's impossible!" I refused to believe into that. "How?" I straightened up and rotated to face them and then suddenly I started crying. Crying? The last time I cried was when I was stuffed into the car of Mr. Palus, supposedly to deliver me to a hospital.

The worst part was that I knew why I was crying. I knew exactly why I was standing and shedding waterfalls in front of the strangers.

The reason was that deep down I knew that I've been told the truth, and my new reality was a year of two thousand ten. It didn't matter how I got here. Right now the detailed analysis of my continuum leap was of secondary importance. I was safe for now. At least I was sure I had some time to gain some stability back. Though, my whole world stopped existing in a matter of one swift moment. Just yesterday I had some plan that kept me moving, and now there's nothing left. No friends, no relatives, no ties, no name, no past, no present. Just the ground under my feet.

"Listen, girl. We won't hurt you," someone said.

"Stacy Ann Jenkins," I said through tears wiping my face with my palms. "My name is Stacy Ann."

"Well, Stacy Ann, would you mind telling us..." he was about to ask me something when the door to the allowance burst open and two young men that were missing walked in.

The noise they produced by bickering with each other distracted me completely, and my tears dried up. I wiped the remaining of wet traces from my cheeks and blinking a couple of times lifted my head to face the newcomers.

Both of the guys froze in their tracks when they saw me standing and staring at them. Their conversation died down, and a stupid silence filled the room. At first, all six of us just stood glancing at each other waiting for something to end the awkwardness, then when nobody moved, I cleared my throat and slowly made my way to a single chair that was placed next a wall.

The seat was hard, and I didn't find the comfort that I craved for my body. Besides, I was still exhausted and hungry. Chair, no chair - at this point it was irrelevant.

Carrying on with a silent phase of this conversation, I just gave up on my fear and started taking a better look at the men.

The two out of five had hazel eyes, and they were curiously following each of my moves. The other two blue pairs looked thoughtful even interested, and the last greenish gray had no emotions written in them. I lingered longer than necessary on them and cleared my throat nervously.

"May I please have some water?" I asked in a small voice.

"Sure," the oldest one got up from his seat and took a plastic bag from one of the guys that came back. In the bag, he fished something out and threw it across the room to me.

First of all, it came as a big surprise that water nowadays was packed into bottles. What's wrong with a good old tap? Second, I was so not expecting the bottle to be thrown at me that when it has landed on a floor with a thud and made a short roll under my chair, my eyebrows raised and silence again spread in a thick tensed cloud through the room.

Six pairs of eyes again started dancing from one another expecting some kind of outbreak to happen. From blue eyes, I shifted my gaze to hazel one, then to another pair of blue, then to greenish-gray and then returned to Hazel again. Then I shrugged my shoulders and very carefully, aware of the pain in my entire body bend and picked the bottle up.

For a minute I've been staring at the top, figuring out how to open it the correct way. Then, relying on my logic, I decided to screw the top off.

My hands, as it turned out, were weaker than I've estimated. The top hasn't budged a stir as I tried to force the cap off, and swallowing my pride I looked up seeking for help with my pleading eyes.

"I'm sorry. Do you mind helping me out?" I addressed to the first person I glanced at.

"Sorry," the oldest one said and advanced to me. "I was sure that you'd catch it." He grabbed the bottle and in one move removed the top.

I took the bottle back and pressed it to my mouth taking a small sip. The water tasted like spring water that I drank in the forest. Maybe not quite as fresh and clean, but definitely it didn't lack pleasant flavor.

I devastated the whole bottle and closed my eyes savoring the moment of tranquility. Then something cold touched my forehead. Startled I winced forcing my eyes to open and saw that it was a hand of the man who assisted me with my drink. Fatherly he examined my face and sighed deeply. It was written all over him, that he had no idea what to do with me. I couldn't blame him. I had no clue what to do with myself.

"All right..." he tsked and shook his head. "Let's feed you, then I don't know...you need medical help. I'm no doctor. Did you bring ointment and Advil, Mike," he looked at one of the guys who came back with the plastic bags.

"Yeah..." Mike scratched his head and looked at me unsurely. "Yeah," he nodded and started walking towards me.

In a moment something strange was placed into my hands. I looked up and noticed that all eyes were on me watching me intently. The thing smelled like chicken and tomatoes, but was stuffed into a long loaf of bread, and a size of it was of my mother's main courses at one of her fancy dinner nights. I sniffed the air feeling my mouth watering and hesitantly took a bite. I gave the food a nice chew and swallowed the piece.

"What is it?" I asked Mike.

"Sub," he replied quietly. "Something like sandwich just round."

"Thank you," I nodded and took another bite.

Even starved to death, I couldn't swallow more than seven bits. On the fifth one, I felt nausea rising up to my throat and not to seem rude, I've sent two more pieces down and rested my hands on my laps holding the sub carefully.

While I was eating Mike and the big man kneeled in front of me and started examining the wounds on my legs and arms. The way Mike would glance up at me made me uncomfortable.

The disgust I noted at first vanished from his look and got replaced by something similar to aversion, but already directed not at me. His eyes traveled from my thin face to my bony neck, then down to my hands and then to my knees. Black and purple bruises on my skin captured his attention and in a moment I sensed his fingers lightly touching the scratches on my calf. I didn't retrieve my leg from his touch, but my insides squirmed. His touch wasn't unpleasant, but it wasn't desirable either.

"Where did you get that from?" He blurted out and looked taken aback by his own inquiry.

Reluctantly I glanced down and shrugged. "That one I got from a bear."

As soon as the words were out, my head snapped up because of a snicker that disturbed a dangerous atmosphere that was floating around. I met a quizzical expression of The hazel eyes, and even my accusing glare didn't stop his humor from pouring out.

"Are you saying that you killed a bear?" He chuckled.

"Why would I kill a bear?" I replied calmly. "He just wanted to play and left some scratches on my skin," I smiled at the memory. "I met him by a brook. He was fishing, and I just happened to fall asleep near the water. When I woke up, it was too late for me to run away and then we ended up snuggling."

"Yeah, right! A bear whisperer," he snorted shamelessly showing me his contempt.

"Anyhow," I said cutting off the chucking, "this is a bear scratch. The rest I obtained while escaping the place where I've been held." There was no need for me to give into a picturesque description neither of beings that held me nor my survival route, not how I managed to escape the prison in the first place.

Yet again a dreadful silence overpowered the room. Already disinterested, I watched Mike and the man applying something on my skin. Both of them worked swiftly paying attention only to the task.

Mike's expression grew indifferent again, and the faces around lost their humor, too. I had nothing else left but to think of my mother and the principal question of the day, that bothered not only me, but I must also add. How did I get here? Indubitably, after being held captive by demons for almost three months, I've learned a thing or two about the way this world rotated. However, in my wildest dreams, I couldn't imagine that such thing as time traveling exists.

Slowly, I retrieved step by step in my head from the moment I set myself free from the prison cell to this day. I had only two minutes to sneak out unnoticed and used that time with profit breaking the window and jumping out of it.

That night when I returned from another session with my demon psychologist, I noticed that there was something different about my prison cell. The changes were barely visible, but I knew better. It was too neat; the tucks I left from sitting on the blanket were spread flat and arranged. Demons and fallen angels are compulsively orderly beings. It irritates them to have their things in a slight mess. Even dust can become a subject of their ire. I watched numerous times my physiologist Dr. Farmosa giving nervous looks to the places where I would leave my finger marks. Mr. Palu's office was always spotless, and he washed his hands every hour and never touched anything without using handkerchief or gloves. And that's how I placed two and two together.

I trusted my instinct. I made a bump in the middle of the bed imitating my body, and all night long stayed in the corner watching the room. And let me tell you, my instinct told me correctly. The door to my room had been noiselessly unlocked at three in the morning and a man in a black suit walking in. In one hand he held a pillow and in the other a gun. I witnessed him firmly walking to my bedside and pressing the pillow to the place where my head should have been lying.

Never in my life, I expected that kind of courage out of myself. When he made the first shot, I jumped out of the corner and pirouetted into the doorway grabbing the side of the door and shutting in behind me.

The next thing I knew I was running by the hallway hearing gunshots behind my back. I tried several doors, and one of the handles gave in, and I unlocked the door, ironically it was the office of my doctor.

Thinking fast I grabbed her chair and started hitting the window glass. The glass fell out of the frame and with a clink reached the ground. I looked out from the fourth-floor window not actually processing the consequences of my window escape. A little farther down I saw a tree of a solid build.

I remember my heart racing and sweat pouring down my face. My fate was written black and white. I was certain that it was the last minute of my life. But when I heard footsteps rapidly tapping by the hallway going my way, something clicked inside me. I took a deep full chest breath and jumped out of the window aiming for the tree...

"Here," Mike brought me back from the memory lane by shoving something into my mouth. I didn't look up at him. I just parted my lips accepting whatever he held in his fingers, and let it down with water. "It's medicine. Should help with a headache and fever a little," he explained, and I nodded.

The blue eyed man that was second oldest of the group slowly advance to our little circle and leaned on the wall next to me. His expression was somewhat amazed as if he just saw Jesus walking on water.

"George," he addressed to the oldest one not taking his eyes off me. "You should see a surveillance footage that was recorded from the place where we found Stacy." Purposely he made an accented on my name. Then he smirked and bit a side of his lip contemplating.

Then, the three of them retreated to the wall with the screens, constantly glancing my way, and then their attention was fully absorbed by something out of my view. Silence again filled the room, but this time, I could hear breathing and light shuffle. A minute or two I've been waiting for any sort of reaction, maybe some explanation on what was going on, but received only more silence.

"Rewind! From both cameras," someone asked. "Are you sure no one touched it."

"Who? We just got here. All five of us."

"Shit! This can't be real. Maybe it's a trick. You know with the mirrors and stuff..."

"The other camera shows the same. It's the same from any angle."

"Well, there should be a logical explanation," George said and finally looked over his shoulder at me. "Right...Do you mind Stacy coming over here and explaining this trick to me."

Curious to know what this fuss was about, I got up from my chair and unsteadily went to stand by George.

When I came closer, the guys recoiled from me as if I had a plague, leaving generous space between us. Even George inched away visibly not liking me so close to him.

I dismissed their scorn and focused my eyes on the screen awestruck watching something that made no sense to me. On the screen, I saw myself falling out of nowhere and landing like a sack of potatoes on the ground face first.

It was evident that I was unconscious, but that's not what made my skin crawl sending chills all over my spine. No, definitely not the fact that I somehow made my leap for two thousand ten. I saw one of the collectors jumping right after me. He had a gun in his hand, and his actions were professional. Right after he landed onto his feet, he straightened up, as if it was his everyday routine, jumping into the future and killing some runaway girls.

He made his way to my body and descended onto his heels near my head. I watching him pressing his gloved fingers to my neck checking something. Then he stood up, turned around and looked straight into the camera. His gaze locked with mine and I heard him saying, "burn this video, change your name and lay down low." After that, he hid his gun under his coat and jumped into the air vanishing without a trace. 

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