Part I

It's funny how it all began. I just had a fight with my husband – our third fight in a week – and I had just stormed out of the house after throwing a few clothes into a backpack. I had decided to perhaps go and stay at Stephen's for a while. That was generally what I did whenever I was mad at Nick. But firstly, I wanted to go down to the shops for packet of smokes. It was a bad habit from my childhood days, one that kept on rearing its ugly head every time I was angry or upset.

About half an hour later, as I was clutching my lighter and cigarettes, I walked towards the woods near the supermarket. I always liked it there at night. It was peaceful. Little did I know that was about to change.

I pulled a cigarette out of its carton – I'd never got the hang of rolling my own – and lit it. I lifted it to my lips and inhaled, feeling the familiar scent permeate my lungs. I was on my third cigarette and was trying to decide whether to throw out the rest of the packet when I heard a soft scratching sound to my right.

I ignored it. The sound became more louder, and was it my imagination or did it sound more insistent?

Slowly, I turned my head and it took all of my courage – courage I didn't even know I had – not to scream or faint from shock.

The slavering face of a large animal stared back at me. As I looked, a drop of saliva fell off its sharp front teeth. At the back of my mind, I could hear a university lecturer's voice going: the Gorgonopsia got its name due to the Gorgons of Greek mythology.

I dropped the cigarette in shock. This is impossible, my mind gabbled at me, while I urged my body into motion. Feeling as if my limbs were made of sand, I started running back in the direction of the supermarket. My heart was pounding in my chest, my hair flying out behind and I was beginning to regret the backpack. It was rather heavy.

I spotted a bunch of old oil drums in front of me. Thank god for my high school gymnastics, I thought grimly as I leapt up and pulled myself down into one of them. I crouched there, desperately hoping that it hadn't got my scent. Right now, I was having trouble remembering anything I had been taught about them other than the fact they were classified as mammal-like reptiles and that they were most definitely carnivores. As if the front teeth didn't tell me that already.

The creature rammed its head into the drum behind me and it took everything in me to stop myself from screaming. Nick had always said that I seemed calm in the face of danger. Outwardly, perhaps, but inside I was terrified. There was nothing I wanted to do more than to just curl up and hope that the huge terrifying monster left me alone.

Instead, I made myself jump out of the oil drum and run towards the bright lights of the supermarket. They were just closing up when I'd got my cigarettes. I hoped that there was somebody still inside. Somebody who could hopefully help me. An axe would be nice. Or a gun.

I'd almost managed to delude myself into thinking that I was going to be safe when I got to the window. "Let me in!" I shouted as I banged my fist on the glass. "Please, let me in!"

As far as I could tell, there was one man still inside absorbed in the task of listening to his walkman or mp3 player or whatever newfangled thing people listen to nowadays. He looked up and took one glance at me – I supposed he thought I was an irate customer wanting tomatoes or something – and shook his head.

I could have screamed in frustration.

I stepped away from the window, just in time as a cascade of shopping carts fell down in front of me. Without looking back at the store, I started running back towards the woods. It seemed to have come from there. Maybe if I led it back there it would somehow magically disappear.

Looking back on it, I was incredibly naive back then.

I ran between some cars and crouched down, looking right and left for the monster. A car fell in front of me and I felt my heart race with shock. If that had hit me, I would have been squashed there on the road and the headline tomorrow would have been University Researcher, Helen Cutter, Squashed By Car.

Behind me, I heard a small explosion next to the supermarket. I took that opportunity and hoped that the creature was distracted. I started sprinting as fast as I could towards the forest.

I ran quickly past the spot I had been smoking before. I could still see my lit cigarette on the ground where I had dropped it. It was burning away slowly. Briefly, I hoped that it wouldn't cause a forest fire.

Ignoring every sensible rule of running away, I turned my head to look behind me. I could still see the creature roaring in the car park. The sight of it terrified me. I kept on running, while still looking over my shoulder to keep an eye on the creature.

Then, the strangest sensation went through me. I felt a shiver go through my entire body. It felt as though a light electrical current ran through my body. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling but it wasn't a pleasant one either. It just was strange.

I blinked. I could suddenly see perfectly well again. It was as though night had miraculously become day in a second. I turned my head back around to look in front of me and for the second time that night almost fainted from shock. It was all yellow rock and desert and more creatures like that as far as the eye could see.

I looked behind me again, fully expecting to see forested England, but all I saw was a swirling sparkling vortex that was just hanging in mid air. It shone bright like a thousand multi-coloured crystals. I wondered if I stepped through it, I would find myself back in reality again. I took a small step towards it and held up my hand as if to touch it when it suddenly grew brighter for a second and then collapsed in on itself and disappeared.

Well fuck, I thought to myself and wondered if I had somehow fallen asleep in the forest and was dreaming. I tried to pinch myself, but all I managed to produce was a painful looking bruise on my arm. Well apparently it was reality.

I looked all around myself and took in my surroundings. From the looks of it, it seemed like the late Permian era but, of course, my scientific mind told me that was impossible. As I stood there, and breathed, I noticed how much more oxygenated and clearer the air was. The enormity of what I had experienced was just starting to sink in. I sat down heavily onto the rock, ignoring how much it hurt.

As far as I could tell, there was nothing around, no strange swirling vortexes, no anything that looked even remotely familiar. "Fuck," I said again, but this time aloud.

I felt around in my pockets, hoping for some sort of miracle, but all I found was my lighter and the packet of cigarettes I had stashed away just a few minutes earlier when everything was normal and I wasn't somehow stuck millions of years in the past.

Opening the packet of smokes, I decided it was high time I had another one. Using the well-calloused part of my thumb to create the flame, I was about to light the cigarette, when the thought occurred to me. I was millions of years before the time when the first ancestors of humanity began to evolve. And here I'd created fire for the first time.

Before I could help myself, I found myself laughing hysterically. Helen Cutter, I thought to myself, you are not in Kansas any more.