Luffs (Transcendence 1.5)

Chapter 1

“I need to get back to where I was. I don’t know what happened, but whatever it is, my father will figure it out. When he does, I need to be in the same place where I started.”

What feels like only moments ago, I was in my father’s laboratory. I had been on a class trip to the natural history museum where my father worked and where my mother had an exclusive exhibit from one of her archeological digs in Hungary. I had slipped away from the group to hang out in my father’s lab when something extraordinary happened.

My father had been working on a physics experiment regarding wormholes. Somehow, while poking around his equipment, I had triggered the device he had built. Bright light surrounded me, and I felt as if I were being turned inside out. A moment later, I had found myself in a hole in the ground, staring up at the scruffy face of a caveman.

He dragged me out of the hole and across a field. Now, I’m standing at the entrance to what is clearly a cave nestled in a rock wall just a few feet above a valley floor with what is clearly a caveman in front of me.

The tall, rough, and brutish young man tilts his head and narrows his eyes. He stares at my mouth and makes a move to grab my arm again. I pull back, and he straightens up to tower over me.

Even with the beard, I can tell he’s not much older than I, but he’s built like Thor from all those Avenger movies. His wild, long hair and beard would be frightening enough on their own, but combined with the dirt all over him and the long streak of what is clearly blood across his chest, he is positively terrifying.

“I can’t stay here!” I yell at him. “I need to get back home!”

Home. Where is home? To know that, I would have to know where I am now, and I don’t have the faintest clue. My stomach churns.

“I realize you don’t understand me,” I say, trying to be ever so slightly calm despite the pressure in my chest, “but I don’t belong here. I’m not supposed to be here, and I need to get where my dad can find me.”

With a grunt, the huge, feral-haired guy pushes my back against the rock wall and presses his grungy body to mine. He places his hand over my mouth, gripping my jaw at the same time. Apparently, he didn’t appreciate being bitten a few minutes ago.

I can smell the earth and sweat on his nearly naked body as he holds himself alongside me. I’m fairly certain what I feel against the thigh of my jeans is his dick, but I’m not about to look down to find out for sure. I can’t speak or scream. I can’t even move with his body crushing me against the rock at my back. I swallow hard and look over his shoulder, trying to stop my mind from conjuring up the most horrible possibilities.

He grips my face tighter and moves to look me in the eyes. I stare through him, trying not to let the tears pour from my eyes and down my face.

Abruptly, he releases me and steps back, giving me a slight push toward the dark opening of a cave. Without another option, I step through the narrow opening and glance behind me. He has to turn sideways to fit through, but he’s right there with me as I make my way through the passage and into a dimly lit cave.

It takes my eyes a few moments to adjust, but when I can see enough to look around the small space, I see a fire and a pile of furs but little else. I glance over at the bearded man to find him watching me closely with apprehension in his eyes.

With a nearly inaudible grunt, he suddenly moves toward the fire and crouches to grab at something. I watch as he pulls the carcass of some animal off a spit and tears off pieces to shove in his mouth.

Has he forgotten I’m here?

I take a tentative step toward the opening of the cave, and he suddenly jumps up with a large piece of meat in his fingers. He approaches, and I back away. His wild expression as he holds the dangling hunk of flesh out to me makes my stomach drop. With a scream, I rush for the small opening, my only means of escape.

I don’t get far.

“Let me go!” I scream as he grabs me by the waist and hauls be back into the cave and close to the fire. For a moment, I think he’s going to throw me into the flames, and I scream again.

“Leave me alone!” I shout. “Please, please, just leave me alone!”

He holds me so tightly, I can hardly move. I struggle as much as I can, feeling my arms and legs burn as I kick and hit, but he barely even notices my efforts. With ease, he holds me against him as he sits near the fire and holds me in his lap. I twist and turn, but I can’t get away.

He’s not hurting me.

Telling myself this over and over again does little to relieve the terror inside of me. I push against his chest again but to no avail. I’m exhausted—body and mind. I can no longer hold back, and I surrender to my sobs as I go limp in his arms.

As I sob into his shoulder, the caveman gently strokes my hair.

“Please,” I say through wails, “please just let me go!”

He grunts and holds me to his chest. I try to resist, but I’m simply too tired. My muscles don’t want to obey my commands, and all I can do it sit there in his lap and cry as he runs his hands over my hair. He begins to rock me as if I were a child in distress.

After a while, he reaches over to the fire and yanks a piece of meat off the bone. He holds it up to me, and all I can do is turn away to cry again. I don’t want

anything from this man. I want to be left alone. I need to get back to where I was before—in the hole—so my father can locate me.

How long will it be before he realizes I’m gone? How will he even know where to look?

I go over the events at the museum in my head yet again. One moment, I had been at the museum in my father’s lab, trying to find some solace from the crowds. I had tripped over the table leg and thought I had dislodged a wire from the back of Dad’s invention. Wanting to make sure I didn’t break anything, I had shoved the loose wire back into place. The next moment, I was somewhere very different. I was trapped at the bottom of a hole in the ground, staring up into the blue sky and the green eyes of the caveman.