Wake up! Seriously, Jenny, wake the fuck up! I scrunched my eyes shut, and repeated this phrase in my head over and over again. But the same dirt path, surrounded by dense clusters of trees, stretched on before me when I opened my eyes again.

Maybe I had finally lost it, completely. Perhaps I’d slipped into one long delirium, and my body was lying in my cluttered bedroom, convulsing now and then. I could be in a hospital bed, and this was my comatose dream, while my family stood around me wringing their hands, as nurses checked my vitals. I didn’t know which thought was more grim: that I was lying in a coma that I may never awake from, or that what I was experiencing now was real.

The pain in my feet from walking on clusters of dirt, and jagged pebbles certainly felt real. But contrary to popular belief, pain wasn’t necessarily indicative of dream versus reality. I’d felt pain in dreams before, or at least it seemed like I did. So pinching myself would do no good, although I did try that a few times just to be sure.

If I had slipped into another episode this was certainly the longest one I’d ever experienced. None of them had lasted more than ten minutes, before. I did not know how long I’d been here, but it seemed like several hours. Or at least long enough for me to need to use the bathroom.

I wondered if the men had any intention of stopping soon, and just how long I could hold it for. There were about two wagons between me, and the Captain leading on horseback ahead of us. Could I ask him to stop? Furthermore would he even let me stop at all? I really didn’t want to talk to him, let alone ask him for anything, but the ache in my lower abdomen increased with each shaky step I took.

I heard the clatter of hooves next to me, and cautiously turned my head. Next to me rode a lanky fellow, with a dirty face, who was obviously struggling to keep his eyes forward and not down and over at me. He looked considerably younger than the other men, I guessed him to be about 17, but he had a hard look about his features that suggested his youthful looks would not last. He wore a beige-colored shirt (which I suspected had been white once,) frayed at the cuffs, with patches stitched into the elbows. A deep blue cap, somewhat mismatched with the rest of his garb, covered his light brown hair.

Unlike the other men he didn’t make snide comments under his breath at me, or ride his horse close enough to bump into and nearly knock me over. But he didn’t immediately ride off either as if he wanted nothing to do with me. I figured if I was going to get anyone to listen to my request it would be this guy.

“Hey, um… you there,” I said softly, but sharp enough for him to hear. “With the blue hat.”

The boy with the blue cap nearly jumped when I addressed him.

“Um… you talking to me, miss?” He asked, his voice cracking a bit. He seemed a little nervous speaking to me, which I found funny given that I was the one tied up. Under different circumstances I might have thought it cute.

“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” I replied. “That’s a pretty distinctive hat, after all.”

“Oh… ” he muttered. “I-I suppose it is…” He touched his blue cap, as a blush rose to his cheeks, and then tried to regain his composure. “There somethin’ you want, miss?”

“As a matter of fact…” I started, feeling the pressure in my groin growing more uncomfortable.

The boy frowned, and turned his eyes away from me. “If you’re wantin’ me to untie you, I’m not going to…”

“Erm, no…” I grunted, as I struggled to hold my bladder. “I mean, yeah, I’d like that, but… ugh… I know that’s not going to happen.”

His eyes flickered over to me once. “Then what do you want?”

“Well… do you think we could stop for me to use the bathroom?” I asked him.

He stared blankly at me.

I sighed. “I need to pee…”

“Oh… I don’t know, miss. These men rarely stop for anything except to sleep at night, or break for a meal,” he said.

“Or to pick up lost girls on the road…” I grumbled.

“I have to say that’s pretty rare too, miss,” he said.

I sighed again. “Can you just ask them?”

“Well…” the boy began, but I heard the elf call over his shoulder.

“Boy, stop talking to the merchandise, and tend to your own problems!”

“Can we stop, please?!” I yelled. “I need to use the bathroom.”

“We’ll stop when we’re ready to stop,” he said. “We have a long way to go yet, and we’ve already wasted too much precious time.”

Well maybe if you hadn’t stopped to tie me up and make me a prisoner you’d HAVE more time… I thought, but decided it was best not to say aloud.

“But I really need to go and now!” I exclaimed.

The men around me chuckled.

“That’s no concern of mine,” the elf muttered and turned back around.

“Please!” I pleaded. It was getting harder for me to walk, as I struggled not to lose control. “Please, just for a few minutes!”

The elf ignored my cries, though I begged several more times. Finally the young mercenary had trotted with his horse on ahead of me, leaving me alone to struggle. I tried to clench my legs together, while still keeping pace with the wagon pulling me along. I stumbled after stepping on a particularly sharp rock, and nearly lost control of my bladder in the process. I could hear the men behind me cackling at my awkward waddle.

Maybe this isn’t a coma. Maybe I’m just in hell… I thought.

Several minutes later the caravan did stop. The Captain had decided that the horses needed a break for water, and his men could do with some rations. No sooner had my wagon’s wheels grinded to a halt, than I was scurrying behind it and trying to wriggle my pants and underwear down my hips. I squatted, holding myself steady against the wagon with my bound hands. With a long sigh I released onto the dirt path. Of course some of it splashed onto my feet and calves, but that was preferable to having all down the crotch and legs of my pajama pants, which is where it would have ended had we stopped a moment later.

When I emerged from behind the wagon, relieved but still uncomfortable, the men were standing around and conversing amongst one another. They muttered crude jokes between bites of cheese, and crunchy-looking biscuits. A few of them sipped from water skins, and others took long gulps from silver flasks. No one offered me anything, and even covered in dirt, urine and sweat I was too proud to ask. Although the softly growing rumble in my stomach made me wonder just how far my pride would go before hunger claimed it.

Perhaps there were berries or something nearby that I could nibble on, but looking around me revealed little more than fruitless trees and shrubs. I shrugged and willed my stomach to stop growling, it’s not like I would have known what berries were edible, and what weren’t, anyway. I lowered myself to the ground, and rested against a wagon wheel, glad to be off my feet for at least a few minutes. They were filthy, of course, and bleeding from a few shallow cuts on the bottoms. My knees were already feeling stiff from the exertion, and when I lifted my pants legs several spots along my calves were beginning to bruise. I’d be feeling all of that tonight.

What the hell is going on? I thought to myself for probably the 100th time since I’d been rudely awakened this morning. I still wasn’t convinced this was all real, or maybe I just didn’t want to admit to myself that this was real. If it was, it only raised a number of questions that I had no answers for. For example, what had actually happened for me to get here? Any explanation I could give reminded me far more of every fantasy novel I’d ever read, and far less like reality.

But maybe… Initially I brushed away the thought. It was too absurd.

But maybe… No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

But maybe you really have fallen into a fantasy world… I finally admitted. Even in my head, it sounded ridiculous. People being transported into other worlds was the stuff of books, comics and fantasy. The kind of stories geeks, like me, appreciated; the kind of stories that rational geeks, also like me, knew were fictional.

Alternate universes were not a foreign concept to me, of course. I’d read plenty about String Theory, or at least enough to have a rudimentary understanding of it. Although I remained somewhat skeptical, it did make the idea of multiple realities seem plausible. But actually traveling to one, was a different story entirely.

All geeks and nerds dream of being transported to fantasy worlds long into adulthood. We play video games, and read books, so that we can mentally and emotionally retreat into such places. But most of us had accepted, past a certain age that being transported into King Arthur’s Court was never going to happen. Things like this were impossible. But what do we do when the impossible is the only explanation we have left?

All of the episodes I’d had flashed quickly through my mind. These past few months I thought I’d been going mad. But maybe, this whole time, my body was actually passing between realities. It wasn’t my mind that was slipping, but perhaps space and time itself. Physics hadn’t been my strongest subject in school, but I doubted that space and time actually worked that way.

And why me? Out of all the people in the world, or many worlds given the circumstances, why would I be the one to travel between realities? In movies and books, characters were “chosen” by some higher power, or determined through prophecy. The heroes were brought to strange worlds to right a great and terrible wrong, or achieve some bizarre, but sometimes trite, purpose. I’d always had an appreciation for melodrama, but it was hard for me to imagine I had that much importance.

Haven’t you always dreamed of a fantasy story of your own… I thought. Yes, I had. Ever since I was a little girl, I’d hoped that the full-length mirror in my parent’s bedroom would one day become a portal to some magical world. As an adult my lifelong fascination with imaginary worlds and realities took the form of romance novels full of paranormal creatures, time travelers, and mythical beings.

What I’d wanted were worlds ruled by mischievous goblin kings who asked me to dance among mysterious masked partygoers. I wanted lonesome beasts who surprised me with roses and libraries. If an intimidating demon with Tim Curry’s voice had asked me to be his bride I would have said yes before the words had finished leaving his lips. Castles, ballrooms, mystical islands, magic ships, werewolves, elves, pirates, vampires, monsters, Vikings, orcs… that’s what I wanted. Not being dragged on a chain by filthy mercenaries to God-only-knows where.

I brought my knees to my chest and buried my face in them.

Figures I’d end up in a fantasy world that sucks… I thought.