Saira

CHAPTER 1

SHE WAS SAIRA, a nomad trapped in a world where space was restricted only by the limits of her imagination, and time was nothing more than a highway between the then and the now. She lived in the present only because it suited her, with no idea of her true age. Time was too irrelevant, and she was too old for it to have meaning. She had always existed, long before the light, long before the creation of the planets, long before the birth of the universe.

In the beginning, there was only consciousness with no spectral body. At least, that's how she remembered it, although without light it was hard to know for sure. Eventually she grew aware of other beings and sought them out, only to become frustrated by her failure to discover their pasts or their locations. It was as if they, too, had always existed; they being the First Born, a name Saira had given them. She soon realized the futility of looking for pasts too difficult to untangle, and so she set aside her desire to discover more about them and concentrated on more attainable goals. Worlds were evolving, and with them, life.

In time, populations grew enormous, making it impossible to track every inhabitant. Each eon grew more interesting and more complex. Eventually, she lost the desire to choose which life to trace, simply following the nearly irresistible tugs, especially those that were the strongest. When a tug came, she would journey into the past, searching for answers to the questions that plagued her.

Saira was infinitely curious. Perhaps that was why she always made her home in the now. It provided her with opportunities to search for what had once been and the now, seeking answers that might give some hint of the future.

To her, the past was a story already written, and thus it only needed to be reread. The future was an empty slate waiting for its authors to scribble their messages. It rarely revealed its secrets, making her existence both an adventure and a challenge. New people brought new experiences. Those who were special provided the greatest opportunities to journey backward or forward across time to discover why some events had escalated beyond reason and others had stagnated beyond logic. Ancestors were as intriguing as their descendants, since they also had stories to tell. Each provided an unlimited source of mysteries for Saira.

Today someone new was pulling at her, a human more unique than any mortal she had ever met. The encounter would teach Saira a valuable lesson. Curiosity could be more than just an interesting pastime. Recklessly pursued, it could destroy worlds.