Ruth Writes

Lara sits at the table, chewing her chocolate cake as she smiles and listens to her family chatting animatedly around her. She blinks quickly trying to clear the blurriness edging around her eyes. Her head starts to spin a little and then she’s falling off her chair. She hits the floor, and everything goes dark.

Lara wakes up confused with a headache. She’s sitting in a field on a red checked blanket having a picnic with her friends. She inhales the piping hot chocolate in her hand and takes a sip. The same blurriness and spinning occurs. She falls back, hot chocolate falling all over her and passes out.

Lara jumps awake with a start, her hands flying to her chest to feel the mess that the hot drink left but she’s clean. She’s in her school uniform in a quiet exam hall with her maths test in front of her. She grabs a square of the chocolate bar sitting in the corner of her desk and eats it. Her vision blurs immediately and she falls back unconscious in the chair before she can feel her head spin.

She opens her eyes side stage in a feather costume standing in line with four other dancers she doesn’t recognise. Music booms loudly across the stage and inside her chest. The dancer behind her taps her shoulder, holding out a bag of chocolate buttons. She smiles, and Lara takes one, popping it into her mouth. She sits cross legged on the floor, prepared for what is about to happen next.

She wakes up, bleary eyed and bewildered, lying on a hard floor.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she shouts into the empty room she’s in. An elegant woman emerges from the shadows and extends a hand.

‘Why don’t you tell me, dear?’ she says, in a voice smooth like caramel. She takes her hand and lets the woman help her stand up. She shrugs slightly as she looks around the room. It’s a large room with only the loose lightbulb above them lighting it up, casting strange shapes across the floor. She has no idea where she is, no idea how she got there and no idea how to get out.

‘I don’t know. I keep fainting and waking up in strange places. Different places. Different times. With different people and in different clothes.’

‘And what’s the last thing you remember before you faint?’ the woman asks, raising an eyebrow. She thinks. Chocolate cake, hot chocolate, chocolate bar, chocolate buttons.

‘Chocolate. I’ve eaten something chocolaty each time,’ she says.

‘Interesting.’

‘Why is that interesting?’ she asks.

‘Because, dear, you are a time-traveller and chocolate is what transports you. If you wish to move through time, you must first consume chocolate.’

Her mouth drops open.

‘Are you on drugs?’ Lara says and the woman laughs.

‘Not at all, but I am a traveller of time myself, dear. A bit of an expert, actually. Would you like me to show you the ropes?’