Dedications:
To Andy, as always, thanks for the Tea.
My eternal, undying gratitude to the makers of generic supermarket own-brand energy drink, Pro-Plus caffeine tablets and SodaStream for their cola concentrate. I couldn't have done this with out your products, nor would this have been so trippy.

Eight o'clock and all's well, Tayna thought as she strolled from the library, her place of work, to a café down the street for a late dinner. The street was fairly dim, but Tayna wasn't worried; she'd walked this route hundreds of times with no ill happenings. However, today was different. Today, the air seemed electric.

As she rounded a corner, Tayna saw two men walking towards her. She moved politely to one side but the men did not.

"Excuse me," she said, trying to pass.

"Aww, don't you want to chat, luv?" asked one of the men, catching hold of her shoulder. She looked up at him. He was tall, wiry, dressed in flashy gold jewellery and grinning in an unpleasant manner.

"Actually, no. I don't, thanks all the same," Tayna told him, trying to sound confident, angry. She turned back to walk the way she'd come, but found one of the others blocking her path. A small frightened noise escaped her throat. This one was shorter, more heavily built, just as imposing. He pushed her back; the other grabbed her arms. Tayna felt her heart quicken, her breath gasp, her throat clench in terror. She knew she had to scream, kick out, do something, anything, but her body refused to obey her.

"Just a quick kiss, luv," the second said, reaching to cup her cheek. She pulled away.

"Let me go!"

"Now why would we want to do that?" asked the first. "We only want to have a little fun." Tayna felt him move closer to her back.

"Stop it! Get off me!" she started to struggle.

"Oh don't you just love it when they squirm?" the first said to the second, who smirked back.

"Excuse me," said a new voice, behind the second.

"Huh?" the second turned, and Tayna heard a crunch, saw him stagger back towards her groping at his face. She screamed, then screamed again as a hand grabbed from the side and tugged her from the first one's grip.

Suddenly a dark, hairy face zoomed into Tayna's. Time seemed to stop momentarily before the face urged, "Run!" She forced her self forward, past the face, back to the way she'd come, feet pounding the ground as she crashed back into the library.

Somewhere, somewhen, somebody sneezed.

Her feet were still moving, her eyes shut when Tayna felt herself falling. She screamed yet again, because it seemed like an appropriate thing to do. But she was very surprised to find herself eating leaf litter once she had hit the ground. She pushed herself to her knees and, kneeling, looked around. It was very dark, the kind of dark only found in the middle of the countryside. Looking up, all she could see was a few pin pricks of stars. Back on the ground, pale silvery moonlight scattered down through the trees around her, making ghostly puddles of light. Behind her were the sounds of a violent fight – She heard tree branches being brought crashing to the ground, and the clang of steel on scale. Where the hell am I? was Tayna's only coherent thought as she stood, nonplussed, in the chill air. The fight sounds rang around her and through the rest of the dark night and shafts of silver cast shadows that pooled around her knees. She stood, reached to brush herself down and discovered she wasn't wearing very much. She yelped, and looked down at herself. In place of her jeans, sweater, jacket and comfy trainers was a huge cloak, leather skirt, knee-high boots and worst of all, a leather breast plate that left not much to the imagination.

"What... Why am wearing this? Where... Where am I?" She looked around again, turning this time, seeing nothing but the dark pillars of tree trunks. "And, just what the hell is going on here!" she demanded of the universe. Unsurprisingly, the universe deemed her unworthy, and refused to answer her paltry question, so Tayna glared at it instead [which the universe managed to ignore, even with an air of superiority], turned on her heel and headed, slightly doubtfully, to the sounds of battle.

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