Chapter 1
The Hospital
Sam
Sam here; I think. Wherever ‘here’ is. This abandoned, white place of nothingness is rarely what I would call ‘here’.
Beep beep. Beep beep. The sound of the hospital echoing in my head.
Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. Typical of me really; always forgetting. So, I’m half of a twin, the other half being my sister: Amy Braitesworth. She’s clever, intelligent, outgoing and happy. A complete contrast to myself. I’m 15, along with Amy of course.
This curious room, this hospital, which I am mysteriously found in, is as empty as a desert. The beds are filled with nothing and the walls are similar - bare white. The smell of a typical hospital wasn’t present in the room. There was nothing that my nose detected. You could hear a pin drop in this neglected building. The duvet is as soft as silk. The pillow cradled my head, comforting me. I see cream-coloured curtains (which are the size of a giraffe) as I glance across the deserted room. My eyes turn their attention to my oak-wood bedside table. It contained nothing apart from a Tudor book. I questioned to myself whether anything here had a purpose. It seems strangely familiar, she seems strangely familiar. The unknown nurse.
“She is creepy” exclaimed Amy. I couldn’t agree more. As soon as my eyes lay upon her, she was directly in front of me. Fear flooding throughout my body. I don’t even know who she is! She has long brown hair, just like Amy’s. She must be so lonely being in charge of this so called hospital. She was dressed in blue uniform from head to toe with shiny black shoes. She whispered in my ear,
“Read the book. The Tudor book.” How boring! Grudgingly, I took the book as there was nothing better to do.
When I opened the hardback book that’s spine was fragile, I saw a picture of some sort of queen. She had a massive dress and decorative jewellery. I soon fell to sleep through pure boredom.
Everything went black.


Chapter 2
Historic worlds
Amy
The world above me was silent, the air around me was cold. Where was I? I could hear someone else’s slow breathing next to me. Had I fainted? I was lying face down on the cold, hard ground. Is this what death feels like? All I remember was the hospital and then the blackness that swallowed me. I stretched my fingers, my hand touched something warm, possibly a body. Egh! A body. I suddenly opened my eyes. I was in a wood, next to me stood Sam. Why were we in the woods?
I curled up into a ball, I was obviously dreaming, how would we have got from the hospital to the woods? It was best if I just ignored the fact that this dream seemed very realistic. I would wake up in a few minutes.
“ Amy are you awake?”, Sam asked gently shaking me.
“Did we die in the hospital?”, I questioned him still slightly confused.
“ No, the thing is I think that I might have bought us here.”, I waited for a further explanation from Sam, “I… well … I looked at this book.. and then fell asleep.. and here we are.”.
“ Sam, How could this possibly your fault that we’re here? It’s obviously that creepy nurse. Maybe .. Maybe she drugged us into falling asleep and then dumped us here.” I explained thinking more about the possibilities.
“No, Amy that’s not what I meant.” Sam muttered.
Why did I always have to ask so many questions to finally get an answer from Sam?
“Well you see in hospital I read this book and there was this picture of a wood very similar to this and there were these men riding horses hunting. The book was about the Tudors.” He explained.
We both sat there for ages in silence. Why and more importantly how would a book bring us here? Was it enchanted? No, of course not. Sam suddenly stood up and ran behind a tree. I did the same. In the distance the quiet sound of hooves pounding the ground grew nearer.
Five men on horses and three dogs all flew past our hiding place at top speed. Sam went pale. I heard him mutter, “That was the exact picture in the book”.
It suddenly hit me, we were in the book, we were in Tudor times and it was the book that got us there. My natural instinct was to run, just run away from this mistake. We weren’t meant to be here. Sam was fast behind me. We ran for what seemed like a mile. The edge of the woods was visible. I slowed to a jog, in front of us stretched some green fields full of cattle. We were at the top of a hill behind the fields and down the hill was a huge town. There was something wrong with the town. I couldn’t tell what it was. All the buildings had thatched roofs, the streets were really dirty and…was that poo on the roads? All the people walking by were dressed in dirty rags and carried buckets and lead cattle. Then I suddenly looked down at my own clothes, they had changed from the hospital gown to a horrible dirty brown dress with smudges and a crisp white apron. We definitely fitted in with the people in this town.
As we neared the gates of the town we spotted a huge crowd gathered on a bridge. We walked to towards the crowd. What was going on? Would it help us get back to the hospital?


Chapter 3
The Execution
Sam
I and Amy slipped through the crowd nervously, receiving strange looks as I went. A filthy man who was as hairy as a dog approached us “What do you think you’re doin’, dressin’ like that.” he smelled terrible. We were hurrying away, wondering where on Earth we were when I glimpsed something that made my stomach do somersaults, “Amy look.” In front of us was a stage that held a basket, a chopping block, an executioner and a dark haired woman with her neck on the block. I could hear her sobs and pleads but the crowd just chanted “Off! Off! Off!” I also heard a name that made me understand what was happening. Anne Boleyn.
She looked straight at us and I gasped with disbelief. It was the nurse. She had tears streaming down her face and she was shaking with such a force that I could have swore the platform was moving. The executioner smiled whole-heartedly as he raised his sword, the crowd grew quite in anticipation. The sword was swung. I turned away as blood flew into the air, Amy was just standing there. The crowd cheered.
“C’mon, Amy! Run!” We turned and ran as fast as I could, no idea where we were headed. After a while I slowed down to collect my thoughts. I’d just seen the nurse or Anne Boleyn, whoever she was, executed. Now, even though I’m terrible at history, I knew I was in Tudor times. I needed to get somewhere to sleep, it getting dark, but we didn’t have any money. We’d have to sleep on the streets. We started to roam around looking for somewhere that provided at least a little shelter from the rain that had recently started pouring down, slapping the pavement with big thuds. I made sure that we didn’t sleep under any windows (I knew what these Tudors did with their waste) and, eventually, we fell asleep on the cold, hard pavement.
We were woken by a light shining in our faces. I was raising my hand to protect my eyes from the beams when a black silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway. “What do you think you’re doin’ sleeping outside my house,” he had a cockney accent”I should go get the police.”
“No! Please don’t! I have nowhere else to go,” Amy pleaded “Please, We’ll move!” I could make out that he had short, dark hair and a stern face which, as I watched, softened. “Do you want to come in? You can sleep on a proper bed.” he asked, without knowing it a smile had appeared on my face” Yeah! Thank you!” I stood up and walked into his house.
For a Tudor house it was fairly large. Inside it was table, cooking equipment a table and 2 chairs and a bed. You could actually see the beams holding the house up and the thatched roof. “What’s your name?” the man asked. “Sam,” I replied “and this is Amy. What’s yours?”
“Edward. Edward Braitheworth.”
We were too stunned to speak. Could this man possibly be my relative? No, no, that’s impossible, I told myself.”Is something wrong?” asked Edward. I hadn’t realized that I’d been staring at him.”No, of course not,” I didn’t know what to say “so, umm, Mr Braitheworth do you have any kids?”
“No, not yet but I plan to.” I suddenly felt something in my pocket. I moved my hand slowly to find out what it was. I felt the edge of a letter. “Umm, Mr Braitheworth, can we go to bed now please?” I asked.”Yes of course you can, let me show you to where you’ll be sleeping.” He showed us to a small bed in the corner of the house, we said thank you and he left the room.
I grabbed the letter out of my pocket, showed it to Amy and ripped it open. Inside was a picture of London. It had a date at the bottom of the picture: 2011.I was puzzled. Suddenly I felt weirdly tired. I lay down on the bed and instantly fell asleep, the memories of the day drifting away...


Chapter 4
Streets of London
Amy
Sam, it’s my turn now, pass the mic. Come on, give it.
Thank you. Amy here.
Something must have fallen from the thatched roof onto me while I was asleep, as I’d just woken with a start. But what woke me couldn’t have come from the roof. Firstly, it was flat, silver and something clearly modern, with what looked like the head of a woman embossed on it, and minute numbers and letters round the side. Secondly, the roof was gone.
Where just last night there had been dense forest, large, brick and cement buildings had grown, the soft grass being replaced by solid tarmac. The horizon had been filled with glass towers, climbing up towards the sky, which while she had no memory of them, seemed familiar. A combination of cigarette smoke and car exhaust produced a noxious smell, making my eyes water. The peaceful bird song and forest sounds had disappeared, their place taken by the sounds of traffic, honking their horns like a feuding family, and people speaking into mobile phones. The sound of bells could be heard over all this noise. Bells that, despite having no recollection of them at all, told me there was only one place I could be: London. Which of course, I’d never heard of either. I lifted my head from the stump which had morphed into what looked like a tall, metal lamp, and looked around for Sam.
“Amy?”
Slumped against a beige cement wall, Sam was looking drunkly up at me, rubbing the back of head with his hand. Obviously he hadn’t been as fortunate as me when his bed dissapeared. Between us, crowds of people clad in black suits and jeans, occasionally burst of music coming from the mp3’s plugged into their ears, pushing forwards like a river of smart suits Their constant movement gave me only brief glimpses of my brother before he would be obscured by the crowd once again. I had to get to him; he was the only thing I recognised in this ocean of chaos. Barging my way through the crowd, much to the protests of the business men who obviously thought that their trip to work vastly outweighed what a teenage trouble maker was trying to do. Finally, the crowd seemed to end, allowing me to offer Sam my hand.
“Where are we?” he asked groggily.
“When are we?” I replied.
He slowly rose up from his position on the floor, only to be knocked back into the wall by some business man, swinging a leather briefcase, obviously late for a meeting.
“What do you think you’re doing!” He shouted in his direction, waving his fist at him.
“So sorry about that. Just didn’t see you there.” He replied smoothly, seeming to not see Sam’s fist just inches from his face.
Sam’s belongings were sprawled out over the pavement, not that he had many. I bent down to pick them up, but the business man intervened.
“No, it’s my fault. I’ll take care of it”
He scooped them up, passing Sam’s belongings back to him. Up close I could see that his appearance was immaculate. His hair was gelled down, his suit perfectly organised. He certainly didn’t seem be the short of person who ever ran late and he didn’t seem to have been running for long…
“Thanks mate. Sorry about yell-Hey!” Sam cut off mid sentence, as he saw the man hadn’t been as nice as he had seemed. He had palmed some of Sam’s belongings, putting them in his pocket. As he turned to run away, I snatched his arm, only for him to swat away my arm, sending me flying into the feet of the other pedestrians. He hit Sam in the stomach with his briefcase, causing him to double over in pain.
I did not!
Shut up Sam. You’re lucky I didn’t tell them about the tears when you hit your head. Now let me finish.
The man disappeared into the crowd. He was gone. Along with everything Anne Boleyn had given us.
We tried finding him again, but it was hopeless. Even by the time it had gone dark, we still had no idea where he or any of our stuff had gone. Eventually we just had to admit defeat, find somewhere quiet to sleep, and try to find warmth under a newspaper. Sam was asleep first, obviously less trouble by our predicament. But my mind was still tossing and turning. By the time I finally did succumb to fatigue, the large clock in the distance told me it had gone midnight.
“Amy? Amy! Amy!”
For the second time since the hospital, I woke with a start. Crouched over me was a tall man in a short green duffel coat, shaking me with his arm.
“Ah, good you’re awake!”
My first reaction to seeing a strange man with a creepy grin on his face bent over me was to try and run, but the man was so close that he could catch before I even got up.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt you. She sent me” He replied.
He spoke with a slight Scottish burgh, barely noticeable apart from when he finished his sentences. He had short blonde messy hair, which, along with the thin line of stubble along his chin told me that he didn’t have much time for his appearance.
“Who’s she?”
At this, the man frowned.
“Hmm. You should know that by now. But she probably wouldn’t like it if I gave you all the answers, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to work it out on your own.”
I was still only half awake, so this barely registered in my mind.
“You don’t know me, but I know you. Now, she told me not to tell you anything point blanc, but she didn’t know you were going to get mugged, which she should have expected in somewhere as busy and hectic as London. CCTV’s useless. But anyway, that’s beside the point. The book triggered it last time, right? Well you’re going to need to trigger it again. Tomorrow morning, catch the bus at the stop over there.”
He pointed to the tall stick with some sort of sign at the top, which was situated at the end of the alley.
“Here’s some money to pay the driver with,” he said, producing coins from his jacket pocket.
“Stay on it until you see a big marble building with stone dragons outside. Get off, and go outside. Now remember, Daniel Rashouk. Remember that name. You’ll find it in the gallery, and that’s all you need to get to the next stage.”
He turned and walked away. After having all this information thrown at me, barely anything sinking in, only one question came to mind.
“Who are you?” I cried out, trying to fill at least one of the gaping holes in her memory.
But he was gone.


Chapter 5
The gallery
Sam

I woke up first. Amy lay next to me, her brown hair covering her eyes. I held her shoulder and shook it gently.

“Amy, wake up.”

She frowned slightly before opening her eyes. She doesn’t take to being woken up when she isn’t ready, it seems. She sat up and looked around.

“Where are we again?” She asked, trying to figure out what happened yesterday. To be honest, it took me a little while to remember too. Then it came to me. The arrival in London and the mugging. Wasn’t exactly a great first impression.

I told Amy what happened. She seemed to be a bit disappointed at first, but then she smiled.

“Well, no use us sitting here doing nothing, is there? Let’s go look around, see if we can find that relative again.” She stood up off the floor, me following. I had a look around the area. It looked like the rest of London that we had seen before, grey concrete paths, black tarred roads and lots of white buildings. Shame, not a bit of nature in sight. Well, there were a few flower baskets but they didn’t really count. Amy suddenly tugged my shoulder. I turned to her.

“What is it Amy?” I asked. She seemed excited.

“Look, look! Lots of people are going somewhere! It must be popular! Can we go?”

“Do we have to?” I whined, sounding like a little kid.

“Well, you decide.” She commanded, crossing her arms. I swear, she’s so bossy sometimes.

I bit my lip. We couldn’t really waste any time, seeing as we needed to restore our memories, but we weren’t really going anywhere …

“Alright. Let’s go.”

She smiled and started walking to a nearby bus stop. She handed the driver some money. I didn’t know where she got it from. How did she get it?

Anyway, we arrived at a large crowd. Amy got off the bus and walked up to the crowd’s reason of gathering. I followed closely behind, a bit nervous. Last time we followed a crowd, it led us to an execution, and that wasn’t very pretty. However, this seemed to be a nice time, seeing as everyone was chatting cheerily and some little kids were holding balloons.

We soon saw the building that was causing the crowd. It was white (big surprise, being in a city that looked like it was carved out of chalk), and had pillars at the front. A sign was above the double doors. It said ‘TATE MODERN’.

“It looks like a temple. Maybe it’s a modern temple!” I exclaimed. Amy hit me at the back of the head and sighed.

“It’s not a temple, stupid! It’s an art gallery. I overheard someone talk about it.”

She turned to the gallery. Her forest eyes seemed to light up like fireworks at the sight of it. Chuckling, I trailed after her and entered the cream walls of the gallery. Sis seemed to be glancing around, looking for a particular picture. I, however, just strutted around, admiring the different styles of painting. Suddenly, I noticed something a little odd. I beckoned Amy over, and then pointed to a Tudor painting.

It looked like the execution of Anne Boleyn, and seemed a bit overdramatic for my liking, but that wasn’t what was strange.

What was strange was the fact that there was a boy and girl in white clothing with brown hair and green eyes.

That was us to a T.

Amy seemed to realize it too. “We’re … In a painting? What the ...?”

Another painting was next to it. It seemed similar to the one we were looking at, so I had a look. It had us in it too.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, scratching my head in thought. “How are we in paintings hundreds of years old?”

Amy looked clueless too, but then muttered something to herself and walked away. I was too busy thinking up options as to why we were in the painting that I didn’t notice. I gave up after a few minutes and turned to where Amy was last time I saw her.

She wasn’t there.

Realisation swept over me as I remembered that she was looking for a certain picture. Luckily, twins have some sort of physic power, so it would be easy to track her down. Sure enough, I found her with her arms crossed and concentrating on an A3-sized sketch. I walked next to her and stared at the picture too.

It looked like a futuristic city of some sort. Buildings were mainly made up of silvery steel and glass, and there were a few floating contraptions that resembled cars. I turned to Amy, confused.

“Why are you looking at this painting? It isn’t exactly a masterpiece,” I said. She pointed to a plaque under it. It read ‘”The Future” by Daniel Rashouk’. Amy seemed to recognise it. I asked her if she knew the picture. She sighed.

“Someone told me that we needed to find this picture for some reason.”

I shrugged. “Well, we found it. Now what do we have to do-“

I didn’t finish as I was suddenly out like a light. Again.


Chapter 6
The Future
Amy
Hi, it’s Amy here. Sam and I have both been transported to this really futuristic place, not sure what year it is but I think Sam’s already off to go and find out, I had better be going. Bye. Hey Sam wait up!”

“Get a move on!” exclaimed Sam. “Are you entirely sure we should be venturing of into the unknown the minute we arrive?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Sam said enquiringly.

No but I think we need to be very careful.” “I’m going to ask that lady over there what year this is” said Sam; w-e-l-l be careful “and what do you think an old lady like that is going to do to me?” questioned Sam.
Sam’s gone off to ask this lady what year it is so I’ll just sit here and wait for him. “Hey Amy, The lady says it’s the 12th November 3000, our birthday!” exclaimed Sam, I don’t care what year it is all I want is to get out of here. All these people must weigh the same as 5 elephants and they’re hovering around on wheel chairs without the wheels. It’s creeping me out.
Ever since I found myself in that mysterious hospital I’ve been feeling really strange. I don’t think it’s an accident that we have travelled through time. I think we can control it. Wait I’ve got it! When we read those Tudor books in the hospital they got our brain thinking about it triggering our time travelling ability and straight afterwards we found ourselves in Tudor times. That has to be it.
“Hey Sam, I think I know how all this happened”.
“How?” Sam asked. “Well you know how we read those books about Tudors?
“Yes” said Sam enthusiastically, “Well my theory is that we can control our time travelling ability by getting our brain thinking about a certain era. “Yes” said Sam starting to see the reality of things. “So all we have to do is find a book about the year 2011, right?” questioned Sam. “Somehow I don’t think things are going to be quite as simple as that”. “Ohhhh” groaned Sam.
“Look there’s a lady coming towards us”.
“Hello twins I’m your guardian basically I’m here to help you through your adventure, get in my car and I’m going to take you to the only place in the universe that will tell you how to get back” said the guardian smugly. “But where are you taking us” said Sam trembling with fear, it will be okay Sam. The car was luxurious with a TV, games, and huge seats with a massaging machine. It was like Heaven all squeezed into a car.

“So where are you taking us and what is your name?”
“My name is Mary and as I said before I am taking you to the only place in the universe that will get you back” said Mary getting a bit tired of having to repeat herself.
“Right” said Sam restlessly”.
The car finally arrived at our final destination.
“Get out Sam and Amy”
“Hey how do you know our names?”
“Err um I just do I’m your guardian aren’t I, I know these things”
As we entered the strange plain white building our so called ‘GUARDIAN’ locked us in and left us there.
“Let me out, let me out” said Sam on the edge of having a panic attack.
“CALM DOWN SAM! She wouldn’t have just left us here to starve and die.
“She might have” said Sam recovering from his near panic attack.
“ Look over here it’s some kind of scroll it says ‘OPTIONS’.


Chapter 7
The Decision
Sam

Options

You have come to the future, to the past from the present; some may say you’ve crossed the path of destruction, for now you are going to have to choose, which time period won’t make you lose?
Choose one …
Past: You shall go back to the past, and keep your powers but split.
Present: You shall go to the present, where you belong. You shall have each other, but no longer your powers.
Future: You shall go to the future, but forget all that happened before then. You won’t know about your powers or your twin and may or may not discover them.
Choose one …


Sam here. We’ve just read this sheet, faded and worn, explaining three horrible situations they call options that we don’t want to happen. It feels kind of strange even imagining these things going on, because we don’t want to lose our powers, but NEVER each other. What would Amy do without me? I’m the oyster to her shell.
“Do you think these are real?” Amy questioned, biting the corner of her lip, her lips making a parallelogram. She’s trying to be brave, so brave, but Amy can’t hide emotions like I can. I was pretty close to breaking. Not good. This whole experience was pretty darn strange.
“I don’t know how we can tell … I hope they’re not real. All three are lose-lose situations. Losing you-” I broke off. See, this is what happens when I’m in a bad situation for more than a few hours. Oops. Can’t lose this emotion barrier, or else we’re both doomed.

White again, so much darn white. That place … before we went to the Tudor period … this room reminds me of it. Apart from the fact that there’s a cuboid block of glass in the middle of the room instead of hospital beds and I feel a bit crazier in here because we can’t get out.

I heard tapping. Yep, I’m definitely crazy. I wandered over to the glass block and examined it with as much interest as I could muster. I felt Amy stiffen beside me, and her head whipped around. I spun around, too, and I found a woman, so very familiar walk carefully into the room, as if we were bombs needed to be tended to with care. The woman that was stalking us through time. Time to get some answers.

I edged closer to Amy, one foot slightly in front of her, my body turned towards her. This woman is mysterious, emotionless, a stalker – and we don’t even know her. She was probably the one who locked us in this room.

“Hi kids. Remember me? I’m sure you do,” she laughed quietly, perhaps sadly, but she showed no expression on her face. “I can almost hear your thoughts by your face Sam; you always thought no one could suss you out, but I always could. And Amy, you’re such an intelligent girl, and strong and independent. You don’t need Sam to lead you.” I think she paused to give us time to digest this, but also to try and get a grip of herself. She was hot and flustered and her eyes were wild. Your stalker claiming to know you is pretty overwhelming.

“I always did love you, and when I lost you, I travelled through time to try and see you, find you, so I could restore you.” Her face trembled and she faced downwards. Maybe she wasn’t so emotionless after all, a bit like me.

“I don’t understand. Randomly, you keep appearing and you think we’ll believe that you have an OK reason for following us and do you think we’ll believe that you know us? Who are you?” I wish she’d just tell me the facts but none of this nitty-gritty stuff. Like I cared about her problems. I just want to be normal again and I want this nightmare to end.

“I know this sounds strange, even crazy, but I’m related to you. OK? I’m your mother, and I do care about you. I’m not some random stalker,” She flung her arms around, trying to get her point across, but she looked a bit crazed. “These are options you have to choose from and they have major consequences, so you’d better choose a good path. I’ll have to leave you after you decide, but I just wanted to tell you the truth and also that I love you.”

I don’t really know what to say, to be honest. I’m stunned into silence, and do you want to know why? I’m starting to feel sorry for this woman. She could be saying a load of dog’s turd for all I know, but she sounds like she’s telling the truth. I’m confused.
“Just discuss it with each other and use the talent you possess. I love you.” She paused for a second, as if thinking about doing something, but turned around and walked back through the door.

I think there’s only one thing to choose. We have decided.

Chapter 8
Bye
Sam and Amy
We felt ourselves slipping through time again …

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.03.2011

Alle Rechte vorbehalten

Widmung:
To Mr Lancaster for being amazing