When you wake, the first thing that comes is the sound. For me, it was birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the sound of a squirrel scurrying past me. I opened my eyes, but immediately closed them and opened them again, this time squinting. The sunlight was shining right on my face. I lifted my hand and blocked the sun from view, allowing me to see better.

I was sitting in a forest, leaning on a tree. The ground was covered in leaves of red, yellow, and brown, marking the middle of autumn. The trees blocked out some sunlight, but there was a hole above where I was seated, allowing a ray to fall onto me, lighting my body. I looked down. Somebody had taken off my jacket and shirt. When a slight breeze came by, I shivered. But what alarmed me the most was the dry blood crusted on my skin.

Then I remembered. My head became light as images of guns firing, people screaming, and blood spilling came to my mind. I stood up slowly, still leaning onto the tree next to me, and put my hands on my head as if that could push away the pain.

The pain.

My arms instinctively moved to my shoulders. There was no pain there, however. I felt them, and there were no wounds. My shoulders had healed entirely. I stood there, confused, as I kept stroking my shoulders.

But why was I here in the middle of a forest? And why was it the middle of autumn? Then it hit me. I remembered the scene just before I had passed out. People, bullets, desks, and everything else were moving backward. I had traveled back in time. No. This can't be real. According to Einstein's theory of relativity and almost everything I had read on the internet, time travel to the past is impossible. That aside, how had I even traveled to the past without a time machine?

But my thoughts were soon broken when I heard leaves crunch. My head cleared, and I became alert. I took a step forward and whispered silently, "Who's there?" I looked around. All I saw were trees, bushes, and a squirrel or crow here and there.

"Who's there?" I called out, this time loudly in fear.

When I finally turned to my right, I noticed. A girl was lying on the ground on her side, facing away from me, only five or six feet from where I stood. Angel! I quickly crouched down and crawled to her side, putting a finger on her neck to check her pulse. She was still alive. I sighed in relief, but my mouth opened in shock when I turned Angel over, sending the sound of crunching leaves through the forest again. Her back was to the ground now, and the view of her front sent chills down my back.

Her clothes were entirely covered in dark blood, but I could still see the even darker spots where bullets had gone through her. I backed away slowly, keeping my eyes on the horrible scene. It made me shiver, and a headache started to come to my head again, but I couldn't take my eyes off Angel.

There was the sound of crunching leaves again. It had come from somewhere out in the forest. And even more, it repeated in a periodic fashion, telling me that it was a person walking. I peeled my eyes off of Angel and turned towards the sound. It was subtle, but I could see the silhouette of a large person looming in the shade. He was walking towards us. I stood up and took a defensive stance in front of Angel as if protecting her from the mysterious person.

"It's okay," the person said, just loudly enough so that I could hear, "I'm here to help."

His voice was deep and firm, but it was the same soothing tone my mother used to use to calm me when I was little. I let myself relax, but I told myself to not let down my guard. He could have been using that tone just to get a chance to attack.

"Then show yourself," I called out to him.

He stepped out of the shade, and I was able to see his features much better. The first thing I saw was his clothes. He was wearing pants and a shirt of a natural brown color. His trousers were torn at the ankles, and the shirt was crudely buttoned. He also wore a small but thick fur jacket and a straw hat. The hat shaded his face from direct sunlight, making it hard to see his eyes. In his hands, he was holding an old wooden rifle, pointed down and to his side. One thing was sure about him: he was not from the time period I was from.

"I'm just a traveling merchant," he said, taking off his hat.

I didn't respond. I just looked. He had large bulky arms, but could a merchant really use those? Perhaps he carried heavy boxes as part of his job. I could see his face better now. Light shined off his bald head, showing dark, tanned skin. But what caught my attention was the thick scar across his face. The scar ran from his right temple, under a black eyepatch over his right eye, and ended at the tip of his lips. He looked nothing like a normal merchant, but more like a warrior, or even a murderer with the expression he was wearing now.

"Oh. I'm sorry," the man quickly added after he saw the fear in my face, "I'm also a hunter."

He waited, but when he saw that my expression hadn't changed, he continued.

"I heard a large animal over here, and I thought it was a deer. I came to investigate, but it seems that I was mistaken."

He shifted his eye slightly, but it was enough to know he wasn't looking at me. He was looking behind me—at Angel. He slung his rifle behind his back and walked up to me. I kept my defensive stance, not willing to move out of the man's way. I still couldn't trust him.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt her. I'm just trying to help."

I bent my knees, getting ready for a fight. Who was this person? Why would he want to help a random pair of teenagers in the middle of the forest? He didn't take my reaction quite well.

"You know what? I've had it with your stubbornness," he yelled at me.

The man whipped his hand out and gave me a firm punch on the side of my head before I could react. I staggered to the side and fell to my knees near a tree a few feet away.

The world spun around me—I had lost too much blood—but I tried to pick myself up, and I saw the man walk up to where Angel was lying. He clenched his teeth when he saw the horrible wounds. Then he looked at me with an expression of disgust. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was him crouching down beside Angel, with a faint aura surrounding them…