I woke up to a terrified whinny, followed by a man shouting something angrily and a loud smack of a whip. Where was I? I tried to open my eyes but I saw nothing. It was pitch black. There was some more shouting going on, and then I heard the clattering of hooves and a carriage. I tried to move, but I couldn´t. My head was hurting like crazy. I reached out with my hand but could only feel a solid wall. I tried the same with my other hand. No luck. It was like the wall was all around me. I started to panic. I wanted to scream but no sound would come out of my mouth. My heart was beating heavily. I was now banging against the walls. It made a thudding sound but nobody seemed to hear it. Apart from my arms, my body seemed to be paralyzed. 'What is happening to me?'I thought. Then I remembered...
8 hours earlier:
I was running, running as fast as I could. But they were faster and they were quickly catching up. 'Hurry, Amelia! They mustn`t catch you. If they do you will never be able to help your friends...' a voice in my head was saying as I ran round a corner into a narrow alleyway. '... it`s not like they ever helped you though...' the annoying voice continued. 'Perhaps you should just surrender. It would be the right thing to do.' The right thing to do? I thought. They will lock me up for... like forever! 'That`s what you deserve, Amelia,' the voice said. "Shut up!" I shouted.
Just then two large hands grabbed my shoulders from the side and pulled me through an open door. With a loud thud I landed face first on a hard stone floor. It hurt but I quickly scrambled to my feet. As I turned round, my attacker slammed the door shut and locked it. He was an elderly man with white hair and roundish face which had turned a slight red colour as though he had done some kind of exercise. This looked a bit weird as the rest of his body clothed in a black suit was showing no sign of exhaustion. "What do you..." I started but I was stopped by another hand holding my mouth shut. It was a woman`s hand and it was surprisingly strong for its rather small size. I tried to shake her off, but she just tightened her grip. "Be quiet", the woman hissed. "We won`t hurt you if you do as we say, understood?" I nodded. She slowly let go of me, probably afraid I would start screaming once she did. I looked around. We were standing in a small room. It had worn off white walls and absolutely no furniture in it. The man was still standing next to the door, apparently anxious that we would be found. I turned round to look at the woman. She too, was wearing a suit but she seemed younger, maybe in her thirties? She had black hair and almost black eyes which were staring both worried and severely at me. "We need to take her somewhere safe." She said to the man without taking her eyes off me. The man nodded, took one last glance at the door and with two long strides he was standing next to me grabbing my arm again. It hurt. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Shut up!" The woman said angrily. Then she grabbed my other arm and suddenly we weren´t in the tiny room anymore.
I gasped. "How the hell did we get here?" I almost shouted. We were now standing in a grand hall. It had high white walls with all sorts of different ornaments. There was a beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It, too, had no furniture except for a man sized wooden box which looked a bit like a cheap coffin. But the more surprising and frightening fact was that there were no doors or windows in this room. We were trapped. Both the man and the woman let go of my arm and I took two steps back, my left arm still hurting where the man had held it. "Who are you?" I asked. It sounded weak. I felt weak. It felt strange. An old man and a small woman usually wouldn`t have been a problem for me. But these people were different from anybody I had ever met. They looked so normal and at the same time so strong and powerful. I hadn`t felt as scared as this for a long time. "It doesn`t matter, who we are." The man said in his deep voice. "You are the important person here. We have been watching you for some time, Amelia." "How do you know my name?" I snapped. "We know everything about you, Amelia." The woman continues. "How?" I asked. "Who are you?" I was now shouting. "Calm yourself." Said the man. "We don`t have time for this John." The woman took a step towards me. "Listen Amelia. You have been chosen." "Chosen for what?" I was now taking several steps back. "We can`t tell you now. We need you to stop asking questions and do as we say." "No!" I yelled. "Go away!" My heart was beating faster now. I felt that I was going to panic very soon. "This isn`t going to work like this." The man named John said. He came towards me and grabbed my arm at the same spot he had done earlier. It hurt and this time I flinched. "If you don`t do what we say, I will kill you. Do you understand?" He now said in a terrifyingly calm voice. I nodded as I felt the blood freeze in my veins. I had never been threatened like this before. "Good" The man continued. "We are going to send you back in time. Not very far. Just a couple of hundred years. You will be brought on a ship. It is called Pegasus. Once you are on it you have to hide where nobody can find you. You will travel on this ship for about a weak. As soon as you hear the ship`s watch shout land ahoy! you will read this!" He pulled out a sealed letter and held it out for me to take. I didn`t move. I was so perplex. "Why me?" Was my only response. "Because you are special." The man said with a weird smile on his face. "We have seen you work with those two boys. We know what you did. We know what you are capable of doing. You are absolutely brilliant for your age." "Why not just ask a specialist then?" This was all too much for me. "A specialist for time travel?" The woman laughed. "No. We need someone who can still believe. A child." Ok that was too much. "What the hell is going on here?" I screamed. I was not special or brilliant. I was 17 and definitely not a child anymore and I did those things because I had to. I was trembling with anger now. "John, I think we have to do this the hard way." The woman said. John nodded. The woman took a syringe out from her pocked and before I knew what was happening, she had already injected my right arm with a translucent liquid. I felt it go numb quickly. "What the hell did you do to me?" Tears were now starting to form in my eyes. "It`s going to be fine. Just do as we told you to and all will turn out well." There was that weird smile again. I definitely was panicking now. I wanted to run but my feet gave way and I fell to the floor. Just before I hit the ground the man caught me and picked me up and carried me towards the wooden box. I wanted to scream but my vocal cords seemed to be paralysed, too. The woman opened the box and John laid me inside. "You will fall asleep in a minute. When you wake up and the drug has worn off you will be on the ship. Then you will have to read this." And with that the man called John put the letter next to me in the box and closed the lid. "Good luck." Was the last thing I heard, and then there was only darkness.