Marek ran for his life, whipping around trees as best as he could but he was still getting slapped across the face by twigs and narrowly avoiding tripping on roots. He was actually in 1357 in the forests outside of Castelgard, France and he was being chased by an English knight on a horse who was intent on killing him. ITC had invented a bloody time machine but it couldn't have picked a worse spot to drop them off! The forest suddenly ended and Marek frantically searched for a place to hide. He saw an outcropping where the hill he'd been descending ended and a little cave had been formed under the roots of some of the trees. He dove for cover only to be slammed into another body.
It was the French boy who had warned them that the English were coming. The boy was screaming in panic. Marek put his hand over the boy's mouth to silence him and put his finger to his own lips.
"Shhh, it's all right," Marek said, but as their bodies lay closely together Marek realized this was no boy. "You're a girl!" he exclaimed in shock. He looked into her green eyes and felt a jolt of recognition. That was impossible! She lived 600 years in time before him. There was no way they could've met before. But Marek would swear that somehow he knew her. The girl's eyes widened in terror as they both heard a horse stamping the ground directly above them. They both held their breath and waited for an eternity before the knight moved on, looking for them elsewhere. Marek would have preferred to remain right where they were until nightfall if necessary, but the girl squirmed her way cautiously out of the hole.
However, as soon as she reached the light, a knight jumped on her and she started to scream again. Marek scrambled out behind her, grabbed the knight's sword and ran him through. The knight grunted in surprise and then slowly melted to the ground. Marek was horrified at what he'd done. He'd just killed a man! He'd never killed anyone before and all of the moral ramifications of what he had done were now slamming his heart into his rib cage. What if he'd just killed generations of people that would've done the world good? He wasn't supposed to be in this time after all. Marek wanted to vomit.
The girl tugged impatiently on his sleeve and jerked him to his feet. Marek had no time to mourn the anonymous knight. There were more knights lurking in the forest waiting to find them and kill them both. They had to get out of there before they were found. Marek stumbled after her, letting her lead the way.
He had to find the others: Chris, Kate, Francois, Frank Gordon—head of ITC security—and one of his remaining helpers. Josh had refused to come with them, his knowledge of what the science would require of them—breaking them down to their electrons—overpowering any desire to see the past. And they had to find the Professor. That was why they were here in the first place as the Professor had traveled back in time a few days ago and had gotten stuck here somewhere. Well, at least that was the reason everyone else had needed. Not Marek, though he was just as concerned about the Professor as the rest of them. He needed no excuse to make this trip. He had jumped at the chance, regardless of the risks. He had the opportunity to see what medieval France had actually been like, to see Castelgard and La Roque in their original glory! There was no way he was going to pass that up!
But now, he wasn't finding it so romantic. He'd seen one of Gordon's marine buddies slaughtered right in front of him by one of the English knights and he'd just killed a man. Marek could feel the bile beginning to creep up his throat again. He had no time to be sick. He had to survive. Everything was happening much too fast. He had no time to take it all in. He laughed. He had just traveled back in time, shouldn't he have all the time in the world?
The girl in front of him turned around to look at him in consternation. Her eyes flashed him a warning as she motioned for him to be quiet. He really shouldn't call her a girl. This was a woman who had survived God knew what horrors of battle and had helped save his life as well. He looked at her red hair glinting like amber in the sunlight that peeked through the trees and was again haunted by that feeling that he knew her. It was almost as if there was something at the back of his mind that he just couldn't quite capture. Perhaps it was this time. People bonded much more quickly in the misery of war. He convinced himself that this had to be it. Marek staggered along behind her and hoped that they would be able to find the Professor soon. God only knew what had happened to him.
Disclaimer: these characters are not my own. I borrowed them from Michael Crichton. Any dialogue is taken directly from the movie version.