The Beginning

The Truth

I was born on April 13, 1642, in Moscow, Russia, to Robert and Svetlana Tchaikovsky. My real name was Svetlana, a type of "family heirloom". My grandmother owned the beautiful hourglass before I did. The base was encrusted with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Oh, how I love the rubies. I considered them blood red stars that fell from the sky directly onto the hourglass. I always assumed my grandmother was crazy because she never dared touch it. She always used thick work gloves to handle it, and raised my mother and I to do the same. Apparently, her own mother was a psychic who felt a dark energy pulsing from the object.
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One day, when I was just a child, I went to my grandmother's bedroom, hoping to finally be able to touch a precious ruby. I snuck in and sighed gratefully when I saw her peacefully asleep on her bed. I removed the glass covering the object in question and touched a ruby.
My grandmother shrieked and pulled me away from the hourglass by my collar. "Noooooo! Oh, no! What have you done, wretched child?"
"Nothing, I...I just...wanted to touch a ruby!" I stammered, my throat thickening as I took in my grandmother's despair.
"I warned you never to touch it with your bare hands! Why did you? Why are you so disobedient?" She shrieked, claiming the full attention of everyone in our home.
Mother came running into the room about a half hour later with three men in white robes. She had called the nearest mental asylum and requested my grandmother be sent there until she was mentally stable once again. The men grabbed my grandmother and rushed her out of the room.
"She will never die! Death will never meet little Svetlana!!" My grandmother shrieked, in a crazed state, "Destroy that hourglass! You must!"
The nurses shoved her roughly into the back of a truck and drove off. I never saw her again. Years later, I was informed of her sudden death by heart attack. My parents refused to sell or destroy such a valuable hourglass. They sealed it in a box in the cellar. They both died decades later, not knowing that my dear grandmother was right; I would never be in death's shadow.
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My brother realized the truth when he was in his own deathbed. He was younger than me, yet he died first.
"Lana. Sweet, gentle Lana," he whispered, his voice gravelly with age, "you mustn't be afraid be afraid for me. I have lived a full life and will be going to Heaven. Before I go, you must promise me never to let anyone touch that hourglass. Ever!"
"I swear it!" I promised him. He smiled a weak smile at me, then his grip on my hand loosened. I had lost my brother forever. To this day, no one has ever touched that hourglass.