There was a flash.

  Not the slow kind, not lightning—just bam, light everywhere. One moment I was staring at a long stretch of I-77, tapping the steering wheel with a stale gas station corn dog in my hand. The next moment, I wasn’t.

  The road was gone. The trees were wrong. The air even smelled different. I rolled the van to a stop, foot still hovering over the brake like I could undo whatever just happened with enough pressure. Spoiler alert: I could not.

  My name doesn’t matter yet. Just know I was coming back from a gun show with a van full of things I probably shouldn't legally own and absolutely didn’t need. I’d made some decent sales, loaded up on discount “mall ninja” clearance junk—throwing stars, a half-size katana made out of some mystery alloy, tactical vests with MOLLE webbing that would rip if you breathed on them too hard.

  I also had a couple real things. And enough ammo to make a backwoods militia proud. Again, I’m not a terrorist—I’m a collector with poor impulse control and a working credit card.

  Anyway, I sat in the van for a full minute, trying to decide if I’d had a stroke. My phone had no signal. The GPS froze. Even the clock blinked “12:00” like it had given up on reality altogether.

  That’s when I noticed the horses.

  Not cars. Not trucks. Horses. A group of six men in mismatched armor were riding down what looked like a dirt road, staring at my van like it had just hatched out of the earth. One guy had a flintlock. I didn’t panic until I saw the cross stitched into one of their tabards. It wasn’t decorative.

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  Religious military.

  Now, I’m not a genius, but I do remember one thing from that short-lived semester I did at community college: You do not want to be a heretic in a century where people still burn witches.

  I waved. Just a casual, palm-out wave like “Hi, I’m friendly and probably not a demon.”

  They waved back.

  Sort of.

  More accurately, they drew weapons.

  That’s when I decided to drive.

  The road wasn’t much of a road, but I bounced the van over it like a shopping cart possessed. I heard gear clatter and slide in the back—swords, rifles, riot shields—everything I’d brought either to sell or show off. A mall ninja convention crammed into a tin can.

  I didn’t know where I was going. There were no road signs. No fences. Just me, my cargo, and the horrifying realization that I might not be in Kansas anymore, metaphorically or otherwise.

  I didn’t stop driving until the woods got too thick. Then I parked, turned off the engine (because what if gas was finite here?), and sat in silence.

  The silence was deep. Not like nighttime quiet. Like before-thunder quiet. You don’t notice how much background noise the modern world has until it’s gone.

  Eventually, I stepped out and stretched.

  That’s when I noticed the sky.

  Not wrong. Just… older. Like it hadn’t been polluted yet. The stars looked too clean.

  And that's when it hit me:This wasn’t just a different place.

  This was a different time.