Zyanya

• Rachel Isaacs, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2009

I used to be normal. That was a long time ago, a very long time. Now I’m different. I call myself a traveller because that is what I am. I travel through time, space even parallel dimensions. I call myself a traveller though some call me a god.
This is the story of my beginning…

I was born in 1841. When I was eight my sister had a psychotic episode and killed our parents, when she realised what she had done she killed herself.
I ran away that day and never looked back.
Ten years later everything changed. I woke up before midnight to see someone standing at the foot of my bed. A light seemed to shine from within her. She was difficult to see though she was clearer than anything in my room. She was an angel, ageless, timeless.
She reached out her hand and I held it. As we touched there was a flash of gold and a phrase of delicate music.
It took me a while to realise that I wasn’t in my room anymore, I wasn’t anywhere. My angel was speaking to me, her voice was indescribable. My angel told me all that I was and all that I could be. She told me how to shape eternity, though she cautioned me to make things right for others before thinking of myself. She showed me how to create new worlds from stories written by others.
Then she started vanishing, like smoke that grows thinner and thinner until it cannot be seen any longer, the last words I heard her say were “death will be my next great adventure”. Then I was alone. After a time I started travelling as I travelled I learnt even more. I learnt about the essence of time and how to manipulate it. Wizards taught me how to create life with a single word. After a while I stopped being human, stopped ageing, and became something else. My skin became almost translucent after I spent thousands of years in darkness. My black hair shines gold as a result of travelling through time.
I travelled for millions of years never expecting to stop, but all good things must come to an end.
Now my time is ending. I have lived an extremely long life. I have seen wonders which cannot be described, my time is over but it still hasn’t really begun. I know who the stranger in my room was and now I am ready to play the role destined for me from my beginning.

I’m standing in the year 1859 at the foot of my bed watching myself sleep. Soon I will wake then I will change. My life is stuck in a loop through all eternity. I create myself. Soon my life will be over, I’m not afraid because I know that death is only the beginning. I have seen everything that is possible to see in life and now I’m going to see even more.
I am Zyanya