The Authentic Experience

Sarah Chen had always been a meticulous planner.

She color-coded her lesson plans. She wrote grocery lists that were divided by aisle. She once reorganized the faculty lounge fridge because the condiment shelf had become, in her words, “a moral failing.”

So when she saw the flyer for the Historical Immersion Society pinned crookedly to the bulletin board next to a half-torn flyer for lost keys and a laminated reminder about microwave etiquette, she read every word twice.

Experience history like never before!

Perfect for educators seeking authentic teaching materials!

The phrase authentic teaching materials hooked her instantly.

As a high school history teacher, Sarah had spent the last decade trying to make the Black Death compelling to teenagers who believed anything that happened before social media barely counted as real. She had shown documentaries. She had assigned diary entries written from the perspective of medieval villagers. She had once brought in a replica plague mask she found online, which resulted in three students screaming and one very concerned email from a parent.

A weekend reenactment felt harmless. Educational. Possibly even fun.

She pictured costumes. Maybe a candlelit hall. Some butter churning. Something hands-on that did not involve multiple-choice questions.

The meeting was scheduled for Saturday morning in a downtown office building that looked aggressively modern. Floor-to-ceiling glass. A minimalist logo in brushed metal. A lobby that smelled faintly of citrus and ambition.

This should have been her first warning.

Inside, a woman with perfectly straight teeth and a headset greeted her before Sarah could even finish checking in at the front desk.

“Sarah Chen?” the woman asked brightly. “Fantastic! Welcome! I’m Brittany.”

Brittany wore business casual clothes in colors that suggested confidence training seminars. Her smile never wavered.

“You’re here for the 1347 package. It’s our most popular immersive experience for educators.”

“Immersive how?” Sarah asked.

Brittany handed her something that looked like a sleek smartwatch. It was warm to the touch.

“Just pop this on,” Brittany said. “It syncs automatically.”

“Syncs with what?”

The floor tilted.

Sarah had just enough time to register a sudden pressure change, like the moment before an elevator stops, before her stomach attempted to exit her body in protest. The room folded inward. The light fractured.

Then everything snapped back into focus.

She was standing in a narrow street ankle-deep in mud.

The smell hit her next.

It was not one smell, but several layered together. Waste. Rotting food. Smoke. Damp wool. Something sour and organic that she suspected was once cabbage and had died a long time ago.

Around her, a group of people wearing khaki vests and sneakers stared at their phones in confusion.

A man nearby raised his phone and frowned. “No signal.”

A cheerful voice cut through the noise.

“Welcome, everyone, to Avignon, 1347!”

The speaker stood atop a crate, wearing medieval robes paired with modern hiking boots and a Bluetooth earpiece. He waved enthusiastically.

“I’m Chad, your Temporal Tourism Coordinator. If everyone could gather in close, that would be great.”

Sarah’s heart began to pound.

“Excuse me,” she said, stepping forward. “There’s been a mistake. I signed up for a reenactment. Like costumes and roleplay.”

“Oh, we have costumes,” Chad said, gesturing to a cart piled with rough tunics and cloaks. “Authenticity is our brand promise.”

Her voice dropped to a whisper. “You mean this is real?”

Chad grinned. “As real as it gets.”

A commotion broke out nearby as a tourist rushed toward a figure in a long robe and bird-beaked mask.

“Sir! Sir! Can I get a photo?”

The plague doctor turned slowly. He said something sharp and undeniably angry in medieval French. Even without fluency, Sarah recognized the tone.

“This is not what I signed up for,” she said aloud, her voice shaking.

Chad misread her distress as excitement. “Right? Everyone says that at first.”

He clapped his hands. “Quick safety briefing. The mortality rate in this period ranges from thirty to sixty percent. But do not worry. Our insurance covers temporal displacement injuries.”

“Thirty to sixty percent?” Sarah repeated.

“Statistically speaking, you will probably survive.”

Probably was not reassuring.

They moved through the city in a loose group. Sarah clutched her smartwatch, tapping it repeatedly. No response. No return button. No instructions.

The marketplace was in chaos. Vendors shouted. Chickens darted between legs. Rats scurried freely, bold and disturbingly large. A woman in a sun visor asked if there were gluten-free options. Chad pretended not to hear her.

At one point, a monk tried to hand Sarah a wooden charm and muttered something about corrupted humors. She smiled weakly and backed away.

As the hours passed, the novelty wore off, and the fear set in.

They passed a mass grave.

Several tourists took photos.

Sarah turned away, her throat tight. She thought of her students. Of the sanitized way she had taught this period. Charts. Numbers. Timelines. None of it had captured the weight of it. The smell. The quiet resignation in people’s faces.

A bell tolled somewhere in the distance. Low. Heavy.

She realized her hands were shaking.

“How do I go home?” she asked Chad again.

“Six o’clock sharp,” he said cheerfully. “The portal opens near the city wall. Plenty of time left.”

Time stretched unbearably. Every cough sounded ominous. Every scratch felt suspicious.

When a rat brushed against her ankle, she yelped.

A man in an “I ♥ Time Travel” shirt offered her hand sanitizer. She accepted it like a relic.

As the sun dipped lower, they gathered near the walls. Sarah counted the minutes. When the air shimmered and folded again, she nearly cried with relief.

The transition back was gentler. The modern lobby reassembled itself around her.

Brittany reappeared instantly.

“So,” she asked brightly. “How was it?”

Sarah stared at her.

“I am never doing that again,” she said.

Brittany nodded, typing something into a tablet. “Great feedback.”

Sarah removed the smartwatch and placed it carefully on the counter.

She walked outside into clean air, sunlight, and the comforting hum of traffic.

On Monday, she rewrote her lesson plans.

The students noticed.