I wrote for so long in my last entry. It's been a while since I did that. Guess now that I'm not doing it so much anymore, it's a bit tiring. So, I asked Zyra what was the date? The full date. It was late March, 2020. I totally couldn't believe it. I had finally done it. I'd done it, and I had come out on the other side. I thought back to the months and years of slaving over this dream. And I took a deep breath, lifting my face to the ceiling.
"Cuzzo? You even listening to me?"
"Yes, Zyra, yes I am. I was just lost in thought for a moment." I paid more attention as she talked about us having dinner together the next night. I knew it would be an opportunity to learn more about this family, the things that had changed since... Well, since I traveled through time into this past.
The next evening, I'd only been in the house for a minute when I realized that things were so much different than I had ever imagined. First of all, the house itself was like something out of a fairy tale. It was evening, and so the lights gave a soft glow that filled the house with warm energy. Plus the sheer size of the property... Even for a plot of land this size on a Space Station was truly magnificent!
The next thing that gave me a haunch that things were totally different in this era was when a servant dressed in a pretty cool uniform came to open the door. Everything screamed old money, deep pockets. I wanted to ask for Zyra, to let her guide me in this suddenly strange situation. I wasn't a coward though. I glanced around, but the servant had withdrawn. He probably expected me to know where to go.
I walked into the living room, and the first picture I saw stunned me. It was a picture of two people, Zyra and the man I knew as General William Raylor Mellis Sr. Not that there was anything extraordinary about the name. It was the fact that he was a billionaire veteran that shook me to the core.
By the time I'd looked at every picture is there, I realized that I was in way over my head. I had entered an alternate reality. That was the only explanation I could think of for how my sister... erm... my cousin's father was a billionaire, and a General at that!
It also seemed from the pictures that Zyra was older than I. I wasn't sure by how much, but I'd learn more as time went on. My phone rang just then. It was Zyra. "Are you here yet?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then what are you waiting for? Come on up," she yelled, almost splitting my eardrum.
I didn't know where she was, but I assumed she meant the upper floor of the house and climbed up the stairs. I'd knocked on four doors before one finally opened up to Zyra. When I saw her, it took me a lot to keep my shock under control. She couldn't have been less than five years older than I was.
I was so shocked, when she threw arms around me, it took me a long moment to respond. I walked round the room as she talked, looking at the knickknacks scattered around. A picture of her high school graduating class hung on her wall.
I noted the year, then did my calculations, and realized that she was ten years older than I was. The age difference probably would have affected our reactions to each other, if Zyra hadn't been really witty and humorous.
She soon had me laughing at something that had happened at work some weeks before. As I watched her dress, I suddenly felt under-dressed. I hadn't prepared to come to the house of a billionaire or something.
When I said that to Zyra, she just laughed and told me not to worry about it. I heard a bell ring from somewhere in the house and assumed it was the front door. At least until Zyra said, "C'mon, that's our summons to dinner."
They rang bells for meals. I shook my head as I followed my cousin down the hall. And as we entered the room, I saw General William Raylor Mellis Sr. in the flesh. He's the founder of the Lunarian Society and the Lunar Space Station. He was beside a woman who I knew from the pictures was his wife.
I tried to act really normally, smiling and shaking his hand as if I'd seen him a million times before.
From the door another person burst into the room. "Hey, guys." Will Junior was probably the most handsome young man I'd ever seen. If he wasn't Zyra's older brother—which meant familial connection, I'd date him. Everyone called him RJ.
Dinner was fun, with Zyra and RJ throwing teasing comments at each other, then at me and their parents. I spent most of my time just listening and trying to work out all of the dynamics of their relationship. The General, as what everyone called RJ's father, even in the future where I was from was an absolute playboy. He had several marriages, and divorces, but no children. The picture I got of him now, as I watched the family, was one of love and affection. It was odd.
I also imagined what my family would be like. I knew Norman would still be my dad, and that was because I saw pictures of dad and the General. I needed to do some checking into my past as soon as possible, to learn what I had to know. I also didn't think I had any siblings. If I did, their pictures should have been here there. Unfortunately, I didn't. Though it hurt at first, at least I didn't lose Zyra. Even in this timeline, she's still my favored relative out of all of them—the one I felt understood me the most.