I opened my eyes to a war. At least, I was pretty sure this was a war. The sound of gunfire was deafening, and the air was so thick with a dirty gray smoke that I couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The sharp smell of gunpowder immediately made my lungs tighten. What was going on? This was not protocol. We should have appeared somewhere off to the side of this battle, not in its very heart.

Suddenly someone grabbed my arm and yanked me to the ground so hard I felt my shoulder pop painfully in protest. Before I could put together what was happening, a hand was on the back of my head, shoving my face directly into the soupy mud just as something exploded behind us. I’d forgotten about Elliot.

I yanked my head out of the mud and wiped furiously at my face as I spat out the mucky mouthful I’d almost inhaled. When I could finally look over at Elliot, I discovered that he was just as mud spattered as me, although his face was a whole lot cleaner.

“Where are we?” I yelled over the thunder of gunfire.

“How in the world would I know that?” he called back. He had a point. Another explosion went off, and I hurriedly surveyed our surroundings for somewhere safe to regroup. A little behind us and to the left was a thick line of trees, and I grabbed Elliot by the back of his shirt and hauled him toward them. They were farther away than they looked, though, and we were both huffing and puffing hard when we finally made it.

I let go of Elliot, who I’d held on to more for my own benefit than for his, and put my hands on my knees so I could hack up a mud-caked lung.

Elliot recovered faster than me and walked back to the edge of the trees to peer out at the chaos. I glanced down at myself and noted that I was wearing the same dark blue-gray jacket and coat as Elliot, although with the amount of mud we were covered in it was kind of hard to tell.

“American Revolution?” I guessed, trying to get a look at the back of the jacket.

“No,” Elliot said shortly, and I bent over to look at the boots I had on.

“Obviously not Pearl Harbor,” I said.

Elliot snorted and turned back to me. “Does this look like Hawaii to you?”

“I said obviously not,” I said. “Is it World War One?” He ignored me, his dark eyes taking in the chaos that was swirling out in the open. “World War Two?” I said.

“Civil War,” he said, turning back to me. “We’re Union soldiers.”