Problem was, I had no idea where the Chapel was. Whitechapel itself was already big enough and I didn’t know it well enough to find it on my own easily, especially since it was so different now. Maybe I should have asked that old man where it was? Sadly, I had already been traveling for nearly an hour. If I tried going back now, he might not even be there. I had no other choice than to keep looking.
After a good while, I finally found the Chapel. It was dark, and the watch I had showed 10:38 in the bloody morning. Despite that, it was night time in London, and I had apparently arrived in this time period towards the end of the day. The chapel, which I originally assumed to have grey-ish white-coloured bricks, had turned a disturbingly darker shade by the lack of sunlight. Despite this, it seemed like a beacon of hope in the otherwise awful-looking district. Its pyramid-like roof, sitting atop the rectangular building with a bell tower in the front, sat among all the other buildings with great contrast.
All around me were beggars who were attempting to stay somewhat warm with whatever they could find. Some of which dogpiled together in the alleys, while others were bundled up under layers of stuffed coats similar to my own under shopfronts. Prostitutes also hung around the street, attempting to seduce any drunk that passed them by. The Chapel seemed so much nicer since no one dared to do anything on their front stoop. It was hard to tell if it was out of respect, or fear.
Since I had come this far, I climbed up the stone slab steps leading to the Chapel’s big plain wooden door and knocked upon them as hard as I could. After a few moments of me standing in front of the door, it opened just slightly. A man who was so old he didn’t look like he should be alive anymore, let alone moving around, peeked his head out of the crack between the doors. Drool hung from his chin like a spider's thread, as he eyed me up and down with an unimpressed look.
“It’s bloody ten, what do you want?” He asked me harshly.
“Sir, I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour but I could use a place to stay the night and I was told you could house me. It just doesn’t feel safe out here at night,” I said. He eyed me up and down with a judgemental glare.
“You’re right about it not being safe, but that isn’t my problem. Ye have a penny as donation?” he said as if looking down on me. This money-grubbing geezer, he just wanted to extort me.
“No, I haven’t, and I do not yet have the means to do so. Someone has stolen my wallet, and I am new to London,” I lied, as I knew he probably wouldn’t believe that I was from the future. Though most of it was the truth.
“Well, then we have no rooms for you. Begone with ye.” he said, slamming the door in my face.
“Well, that’s not very Christ-like!” I yelled from the other side of the door.
I was ignored, so without anything better to do, I set off to find a bridge or alleyway that might serve as a temporary shelter. My luck, which I thought was getting better, ended up not being good at all. I had no home, no job, no friends, the list could go on and on. I was starting to feel rather depressed about all this. Nothing was coming as easily as I thought it would, but you live with what you got. Now that I think about it, am I even alive? Could this be hell?
With nothing else to do, I just kept wandering for what seemed like hours, but my watch only showed 11:27. Hearing what sounded like a metallic thump, I looked down to see a small cloth pouch resting next to my foot. Picking it up carefully, I looked inside to see five coins that I recognized from old coin collections. I considered going back to the Church but it was so late that I didn’t care. Deciding that I shouldn’t wander any longer, I found a random alley and laid down on a stack of old newspapers underneath a tarp-style roof, hanging from the top of the alley. It was starting to get damp from the natural fog that had been coming in all day, and neither the papers, nor the tarp did anything to prevent it.
Right when I finally found a comfortable position to sleep, I heard the yelling of a young woman, followed by her screams. Getting up from my spot in a panic, I began running towards the screams. After a few seconds of running, I arrived at the place the screams had come from, an alleyway that was slightly bigger than the one I had chosen to rest in. In the shadows of the alleyway was a woman, laying on the cold, wet ground, in a pool of her own fresh blood. She was still breathing and had lost consciousness, but what quickly caught my eye was the three men standing above her.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
One held a blunt bat-like object covered in blood, and each of the men were somewhat muscular. They could definitely do far worse than the boar-like men that pummeled me earlier. Each of them was dressed in worker's clothes with thick coats over top of them, and two of them were wearing newsboy caps. Two of them were also older looking and had dense bushy beards, but one was bald, and the other had short oily hair. The youngest of the three looked like he was in his teens, with a soot-covered hairless face and short blonde hair. He turned and saw me staring right at them. He clicked his tongue and, as if on cue, the other two turned to look at me. The white in their eyes shone like daggers in the moonlight amidst the gory dark backdrop.
Without hesitation, I ran as fast as I could, but I wasn’t someone who ever did cardio by choice, so the three attackers began gaining on me quickly due to my lack of exercise. I began wanting to buy them off with the little money I had so I reached into my newfound moneybag and began throwing two of the coins at them. Although the money didn’t exactly have the effect I wanted, it did something upon hitting their skin. Each of the coins burned two of the attackers' skin as it hit their faces, causing them to slow down as they winced in pain. What exactly was in these coins?
Seeing their reactions, I grabbed the last three coins and started stuffing them between my fingers so that they were sticking out just a little. I didn’t know why they burned them, but I didn’t care. It was the only thing I could think of. As the youngest of the men was closing on me I leapt forward, wrapped my arm around a lamp post, spun around it, and struck him right in the jaw. To my surprise, rather than knocking him out, it knocked him back and there were burn marks across his face from where I hit him. The other two watched eagerly as we fought with entertained looks. They obviously thought I was going to lose and didn’t mind not lending a hand.
He lunged at me again, so I quickly dodged to the left and with a right uppercut, and struck him in the chin from below. He held his mouth and cried out as burn marks had formed on his chin. His mouth started dripping blood as he opened it up, letting out a pained yell, before I struck him in the mouth again. When I did, one of the coins in my fingers, upon making contact with his mouth, slipped from my grasp and into his throat. He cried out in agonizing pain as he choked on and then swallowed the coin. Clutching his chest, he began to vomit a blend of char and blood before falling to the ground. The other two men and myself watched in horror and surprise as their friend's body turned into an ashen-dust.
This was definitely hell. The others were no longer surprised, as they were both now rushing at me with pure rage. With both of them coming at me, I couldn’t block or dodge them. I was as good as dead, but before I could accept my fate, a new player entered the ring by kicking them both as he fell from the top of a nearby building. Upon landing, the man stood with an aura that made you want to back off due to his mere presence, or at least he did, until he pulled out a flask and took a huge swig.
Now he didn’t seem any different from any other drunks that roamed the street other than that he was clean-shaven. His body was rather toned from what I could see, and he wore similar clothes to what I was wearing, except his coat was brown which clashed with his black leather gloves. Strangely, his gloves seemed to reflect glints of moonlight every so often. The strange man had short golden hair except for in the back, where he had a long ponytail that stretched down most of his back, and was tied with string every twenty or so centimeters.
The two men quickly got up, as Mr. Ponytail put away the flask and raised his hands in a classic martial arts position. Both of them rushed at him, throwing a heavy fist each toward the ponytail man’s face, but before the attackers could touch him, he dodged out of the way and in one fluid motion launched both opponents into the air.
Landing on their backs with a loud thud, they couldn’t comprehend what had just happened to them, before the bald one received a swift punch to the throat. Now, most of the time this would just knock someone out cold, or crush their windpipe, but his strike beheaded him and the man turned to dust just as the other one did. The last one left alive saw this and ran off as fast as he could, causing the ponytail man to give chase.
“Wait,” I called out, but he didn’t listen. I was alone once again. Remembering the woman who they attacked, I ran back to her. She was still there, unconscious. I began to see if I could wake her, only to be called out from behind, by two cops.
“Come out of there, kid!” one of the officers said.
“It wasn’t me I swear. I heard a scream so I came to check it out and she was like this,” I replied as I came out of the alleyway.
“A likely story,” the officer said, cuffing me as his partner ran up to the girl.
“She’s still alive,” the other said reluctantly.
“Get her to a doctor. I’ll take this one in for questioning,” the officer replied as he led me away.