It took until the second jump for the true horror of the situation to really hit me. I had accidentally found myself in a life or death situation for which my entire life so far had completely and utterly failed to prepare me.

I was born to a well off family from the US west coast, and spent most of my childhood moving around the country from school to school, never staying in one city for more than a few years. I wasn't exactly antisocial, but at the same time I never made friends that couldn't be replaced within a few months in each new locale.

My father was a consultant whose job I never really did fully understand. Something to do with regulations and legal compliance in manufacturing. Not exactly the kind of parent that would be the star of childhood playground talk, though I loved him fiercely.

My mother largely stayed at home, though once both my brother and I were able to cope for ourselves at home for a few hours, she did find various small jobs to fill her time.

I did well enough in school I suppose, though my strength had always lain with the sciences more than the arts. I think my success had more to do with getting into the right crowds in school, where I always seemed to gravitate to the bookish and introverted. In high school, this ended up leading to me hanging out more with boys than my fellow girls and largely shaped my decision to enter into engineering in university.

I enjoyed University well enough, though by the end I wasn't nearly as confident in my area of study as I had been as a fresh high school grad to whom engineering largely meant nothing more than a chance to prove I was just as smart and capable as any man. I'd never really been into taking things apart, and was happy enough to pay someone else to fix my car if it meant I didn't have to get dirty. This didn't stop me from putting every effort into classes, ensuring I proved to both myself and the world that I deserved this just as much as anyone else.

And so I found myself, a girl in her early 20's, with plenty of theoretical knowledge and nearly no really experience putting my grand plans into action. There were a few job offers on the table, though I have no doubt this was largely due to my father's extensive business network rather than any sort of exceptionalism on my part. Still, the world was my oyster, and if it took a bit of nepotism to get my foot in the door, I was willing to justify it as a necessary step for a girl to succeed in a man's world. Surely within a few months there would be no question that I belonged. These lofty goals hit a snag about 2 weeks after my final graduation.

It was 3 hours, 18 minutes, and 23 seconds after 12 o'clock on the 166th day of the year, although at the time I only knew it was afternoon on a lazy Friday in June. I hadn't even gotten dressed yet, and was still in the long shirt I had slept in, and precious little else. The initial feeling was one of lightness, as though my body was simply floating in the hallway from the kitchen. That quickly became nausea, as everything exploded into a burst of color and sound that was shifting too fast to follow. I found myself unable to breath or even twitch, but it was over as quickly as it had begun, and my mind quickly considered my somewhat limited medical knowledge to identify what horrible condition I had acquired.

I had certainly hit my head on something, and more than likely it managed to hit my brain against my skull. Or was it a stroke? I'm a little young for a stroke, but there was that news article about strokes in young adults. Of course if I do have a concussion, I really shouldn't be thinking so hard...

The sudden sound of metal clanking together interrupted my questions, though it certainly raised a few new ones on the edge of my consciousness.

A group of men in loose leather garments approached, covered in filth and carrying weapons that were clearly designed for functionality rather than appearance, despite the shear lunacy of using a sword in an actual battle. They were muttering among themselves in what sounded to be English, though I could not catch the meaning. One turned to me and spoke in a quick burst of utter nonsense. I titled my head every so slightly and stared into his eyes as I spoke to my assumed hallucination.

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're saying. Do you speak English?

the man stared at me for a second, while I remained in a half sitting half laying pose on the floor, aiming to avoid making my head injury worse. He then calmly walked up to me and bent over, while I continued to stare into his face. I was still looking into his eyes when his gloved hand raised up and a piercing pain swept across my face. There was a second of shock while I recovered from the hit, and I felt a light trail of blood sweeping down the side of my face from where his mailed glove had cut skin.

My fight was over before it had started, as my first effort to push him back and stand was stopped by his arm reaching out and grabbing me around the waist. Somehow he managed to effortlessly lift me up and over his shoulder, and between my shirt flipping up and exposing my suddenly insufficient underwear, my head dangling freely from behind his back, and my desperate screaming, I found the blood rushing to my head and my vision begin to fade. It would have perhaps been better for the girl I was at the time if unconsciousness had followed thereafter, but sadly the sudden shot of adrenalin prevented that bliss.

I was carried for what seemed forever through the woods until we came to a beach lined with hundreds of similar men and a dozen medieval longboats. Although I had been yelling rather loudly before and had come up with several rather clever comments on my kidnapper's mother, my voice tuned to ash in my mouth at the sight before me. I was certainly not the only woman in the camp, but what I saw brought me no comfort, and is seared into my mind even today.

Later I determined it was only the relatively fine quality of my outfit that saved me from rape. Perhaps they hoped to ransom me, and knew my value would drop were I 'bespoiled'. Perhaps their lord and leader had commanded all highborn ladies were his to break. Either way, I was tied hand and foot and left in a small room with a handful of other women and children. It appeared nearly all were younger than myself, with the youngest were perhaps barely old enough for school. None tried to talk, and I followed their lead, taking the opportunity to consider what had occurred that afternoon.

Perhaps out of fear, or perhaps to protect my mental state, I steadfastly ignored the shame and horror of my situation, and tried to figure out how I found myself in this place. The idea of it being a vivid hallucination was quickly rejected, if only because it got me nowhere. If I couldn't trust myself, then I could only hope medical science managed to restore my sanity. This was also like no hallucination I had ever heard of, my face still stinging from earlier and my stomach and thighs bruised from being carried rather roughly. In the end I was no closer to finding the answer, and had rather only eliminated the few possibilities I could imagine.

So instead I tried to think of a way out, but this was even less fruitful. I might have been able to loosen the ties eventually, but a few of the other women had cried out when I started to try, and though I didn't understand the words, their faces made it clear that such actions would only lead to hardship. Even if I had done so, I was in the middle of a camp on an open beach surrounded by men whom I had seen taking women against their wills. No, there was no escape at that time, though I vowed to keep a watching eye open for any opportunities.

It was only a few hours of restlessness later that I realized the day was getting brighter rather than darker. Either I had missed 15-18 hours of life unconscious, or I had somehow teleported to East Asia or Australia. Or perhaps some combination of both.

There was some moldy bread brought by, along with some water, but both had appearances that turned my stomach, and some of the other women were clearly in more dire need, so I refrained. The extreme exhaustion I felt shortly after the meal led credence to the time zone theory, and I ended up lightly dozing a few times before it fell dark. More than a few of the women were grabbed before nightfall, and I refused to think of their fates when they were returned the next morning looking even more haggard.

I had been in this backwards world for about 24 hours, though it felt like a lifetime. I had long abandoned the idea of this being a slaving camp somewhere in the known world, figuring any man who was willing to kidnap and enslave others wouldn't have any qualms about using the most destructive weapons they could. Indeed, everyone there appeared to be entirely unaware that their garb and armament was in any way strange.

I had finally given in and used the bucket sitting in the corner to relieve myself. I had fought the need as long as possible, but decided it was the better option than simply wetting myself. In then end I managed to foul my clothing anyways, what with the gymnastics required to modestly urinate with both hands and feet tied together. More than a bit of the disgusting contents sloshed against my legs and shirt, and I spent the better part of two hours afterwards red faced and itching horribly imagining what was sitting on my skin. The camp had been getting steadily louder all morning, and I suspected we were about to move. Still, I was longing for some change, if only so I could move forward on escaping.

It was not meant to be, however, as they carried us one by one to the ships with our limbs still tied. I was one of the last to leave, and the same man who had captured me originally picked me up. I made a token protest but the memory of his mailed glove stopped me from showing him my true feelings.

The ships themselves were nothing special, reasonably large but nothing compared to even the wooden ships I had seen in history books. They gave off vibes of Viking raiders, and supported the impossible idea that I had somehow found myself back in time. I was carried below deck, and found myself once again in a small, crowded room with the same women and children from before. I groaned when I was set down, both from the pressure on my day old bruises as well as from the rapidly deteriorating situations I found myself in. Within the hour I felt the boat begin to rock more violently, and concluded that we had begun our journey to whatever god forsaken land these monsters called home.

The day passed agonizingly slowly, with the only break in the monotony being the small meal we were given. I picked at a few of the vegetables, though even having not eaten for over a day, I couldn't bring myself to consume much. Night was falling, and once again women were being escorted out by men who had obviously been drinking heavily, small groups of them breaking into shouts and song audible past the thin doors.

Then two men came in. They were obviously friends or family, and both appeared around her age, though they differed in nearly every way. The first, and obviously the leader of the two, was a tall, pale man with a bloody patch over his eye. Based on the bruising around it, it was a new wound. He walked with a self assured strut, as though he knew some secret about the world around him. The second man was larger, though perhaps somewhat younger. He had a scraggly beard and wide eyes that spoke of youth and innocence, but his muscular figure and visible scars spoke of a harsher life and recent battles.

The first scanned the crowd with his one eye, and when his gaze came to me I instinctively shuttered and drew back a step. His smile only widened at that, and he quickly advanced on me. The crowd parted easily, likely all too willing to avoid the obviously dangerous man, and I nearly fell backwards from my tied legs before he gripped me around the arms and pulled me to him.

My voice failed me at that moment, as it had many times in this horrible land. He shoved me into his brother's arms, and quickly blurted out something to him. A quick exchange followed, with the younger one slowly crushing his grip on my upper arm, certainly leaving me more bruises come the morning. In the end he let out a small laugh and nodded his assent, before dragging me out and into a dim room just a few short feet away, lit only by a small hole in the roof. The only thought going through my head was how incredible it was that I could so desperately long for the prison I had only minutes earlier considered my lowest point.

He was surprisingly gentle when he loosened and removed the rope from my legs. He had already stripped off, but I kept my eyes focused on his. When I looked at him, I saw a the kind of face I had seen a thousand times around campus. His eyes were drawn into a focused stare and he undid the knot on my hands, until he finally gave up and grabbed the knife from the table and sawed through them in a second. He could have been like any other boy I had seen working in my engineering classes on a challenging problem, finally just giving up and grabbing the answer sheet. The way he looked at me once I was released was not new either. I could see a certain amount of lust that I had seen before. I had seen the same look from a friend of mine in junior high, in the weeks before he asked me on my first date. I had seen the same look on men at bars in university before they offered me a drink. I couldn't help but compare the two, as if this were just another man. I considered what I might have done with him if this were a different world, and we had met in a different situation. I was not clueless, but I also had little time for romance, putting all my effort into being a woman in a man's world. In my head, I stuck to the idea of virginity being a meaningless concept that only hurt women, but at the same time I couldn't help but feel a loss that my experience would be like, this. Here.

I was brought rudely back to reality when he tossed the knife on the floor and grabbed at my flimsy shirt. I started fighting him then, and felt myself push back with everything I had. It was far from enough, and he managed to wrestle the shirt from my body, leave my upper body bare to his eyes. I tried to turn away but again he overpowered me, forcing me to face him, his eyes greedily travelling over my exposed self, with just a small piece of fabric left to cover me. I managed to get a hand free then, and screamed while I punched with my entire strength into his face. He seemed somewhat startled by the action, though hardly effected, before he grabbed my arm once again and turned me around, pulling me up against his chest.

I struggled for a moment, and nearly escaped before he threw me to the floor, my arms held behind me, preventing me from protecting myself from the fall. I felt blood and tears pour down my face, and through the haze I felt him let go of my arms to reach down lower.

I flailed for a few seconds, before my hand came across something hard. I gripped it tightly, and as he ripped my last covering from my body, I used the force to turn around and slam my hand into his eye. Blood gushed from the wound as the knife he had casually discarded went straight into his brain, and he collapsed on top of me, going instantly limp.

I suspect he was dead before he landed on top of me; he certainly didn't respond when I shakily pushed him aside and stared down and my blood soaked hands and chest. As if in mockery of what I had just done, I could hear the partying going on outside; a scream piercing the air from time to time from another woman who was receiving what I had managed to avoid.

I'm not sure how long I sat there or whether I slept; I only recognized the slowly growing light in the room, signalling the coming dawn and what I suspected was my coming death. Death at the hands of the elder warrior, come to avenge his slain comrade. Something snapped in me then, the same something that had led me to flight back, and I vowed I wouldn't go down without a fight. I searched the room for anything of use, and in the end I took the clothes my would be rapist had discarded on the table, as my own t-shirt had been soaked by blood on the floor during the night. I was still covered in dried blood, but I managed to pull the rough shirt on, then after a thought added the leather armored top. So large was the man, both came to near my knees, which was fortuitous as the large pants were a lost cause. I grabbed the sword belt and used it to take in the spare cloth around my waist, thinking it might help me maneuver without getting caught. It was in truth an awkward getup, and I certainly would have ended up dead had I been forced to fight trained men. I also eyed the sword, but it was so long it dragged on the floor and was too heavy to swing, so I opted instead for the two long daggers he had in one of his drawers, both settling perfectly into notches on the belt. They were pretty things, with a gold plated lion carved into the end of each grip.

A strange sense of purpose had overcome me. Intellectually I knew I stood no chance, and yet somehow my mind came up with idea after idea of how I might escape, or rescue the others, or any of a million plots. I was focused on the future, with every effort made to ignore the seeping doubt and horror from having killed. At that moment, I started to feel a lightness come over me, but it was only when the color and sound came that I truly realized that I had been saved by the bell.