Anne was a 12-year-old with all the same problems her peers might have. She went to school and in the afternoons, she would go down the street to the park to play and make flower garlands with her best friends just like most girls her age. Though her life seemed to be completely normal, every night, Anne had her most intense experiences when a wizard would come to her in her dreams to transport her through space-time.

She really couldn't recall when the enchanter first began coming to her. It seemed as if he had always been there. He was her Virgil, who would take her wherever she wanted to go. Like the explorers of centuries past in their sailing ships, Anne and her sorcerer voyaged along uncharted courses to plumb the history of mankind.

One night she walked along the Great Wall in China watching it being built. The next night, she attended to Julius Caesar during the siege of Alesia. Another she was on Ynys Môn in the north of present-day Wales, walking among the menhirs and studying with the Druids.

No one ever believed her stories. Though her words were uttered they were not heard, so much so that for a long time she herself doubted the reality of her travels. She even had doubts about the wizard. Despite everything, during her wanderings through space-time she learned of many things that she had not known. Just a few minutes of research online confirmed that the sorcerer's teachings were indeed true. So, her journeys must have been real.

In a literary salon in Renaissance Florence she listened as intellectuals discussed what the future would hold a hundred years hence. Anne smiled as she listened to them speak of a future that for her was in the distant past. Suddenly, she wondered what the future beyond her own time would hold. She asked the wizard if in addition to travelling into the past she could also see into the future. Even though he said it was within his power, he cautioned her against doing any such thing.

Anne continued to live through many more experiences of the past. She fought alongside the northern barbarians and celebrated their rites in the high temple of Uppsala. She rode alongside the Native American Indians Geronimo and Sitting Bull. With her face painted, she crossed the prairies hunting with a spear and drawing on cave walls with her bare hands.

Nevertheless, that one thought continued to torment her: What does the future hold?

When her curiosity was too great to bear, even though the wizard tried to dissuade her, she ordered him to take her beyond the barrier of the present.

The world she found was a wilderness with no trace of people. When she asked the wizard what happened, he replied that perhaps he had taken them too far ahead. He then took them back several centuries.

The first thing that struck Anne was the noxious smell of the air as it crept into her nostrils, filled her lungs and made her cough. Just a few scraggy trees were what was left of the forests. The wind-blown earth was dry and lifeless. War torn buildings were crumbling, and skyscrapers stood out like skeletal fingers. Sombre figures walked slowly through the acidic vapours. Such a deep terror took hold of Anne that she shuddered. Was this truly the fate of humankind?

Knowing that she had to warn everyone, she asked the wizard to take her back home. When she awoke, she ran into the street, where, with dread, she noticed that everyone had been horribly transformed: where before they had their eyes there were now only empty sockets; where before they had their ears, there was no trace.

She then decided that she would do everything in her power to change the future the wizard had shown her.

​Though for the rest of her life she did her best, it was already too late.