South African scholar, writer, and digital creator Christina Engela shares how she balanced two very different perspectives in her science-fiction story Lifetime, using pacing, investigation, and a temporal anomaly to build a story where survival and rescue move toward the same devastating truth.
In Lifetime, Christina Engela explores a survival scenario shaped by something far more powerful than physical danger: time itself.
At the heart of the story are Virian and Harald, separated by circumstances that place them on two very different journeys. Virian is fighting to survive alone on a distant planet, while Harald is surrounded by people as he begins the search for her.
For Engela, balancing these two timelines was an important part of creating the story's emotional impact.
Two timelines, two experiences of time
Virian's sections were deliberately structured as a day-by-day journal, allowing readers to experience the slow passage of time alongside her.
As Engela explains, Virian is completely alone. For her, time can feel as though it has both stopped and continued endlessly, with each day becoming part of the struggle to survive.
Harald's experience is very different.
His journey takes place among advisors, crew members, investigations, and the practical processes involved in trying to locate Virian. His world continues to move, even as his search becomes increasingly difficult.
This contrast allowed Engela to create two distinct experiences of pacing within the same story.
Virian's timeline emphasizes isolation and endurance, while Harald's emphasizes investigation and the desperate attempt to find an answer.
Cold facts against human emotion
One of the interesting elements of Lifetime is the contrast between the technical investigation surrounding Harald's search and the emotional reality facing both characters.
Engela describes the investigative details, including the identification of the anomaly and the processes involved in understanding what happened, as a backdrop of "cold, hard facts" against the emotional experience of the characters.
That balance is particularly important in science fiction. Technology, scientific concepts, and unexplained phenomena can establish the framework of a story, but it is often the human response to those elements that gives the story its emotional weight.
In Lifetime, the investigation gradually brings Harald closer to an answer, but the answer itself is something he cannot bear to confront.
When the mystery finally becomes clear
The significance of the temporal anomaly only becomes fully apparent toward the end of the story.
Harald's search ultimately reveals that the separation between him and Virian is far greater than he had understood. The discovery transforms what initially appears to be a rescue mission into a confrontation with an impossible loss.
Rather than using the anomaly simply as a science-fiction device, Engela uses it to examine the limits of human control.
As she puts it, the story was created around the idea that wealth and power cannot completely insulate people from grief or loss. No matter how much influence or privilege someone possesses, there are circumstances that remain beyond human control.
A story with no easy resolution
Engela describes Lifetime as one of her more tragic stories and says that she intentionally created a narrative without winners or conventional happy endings.
That decision is closely connected to the story's larger theme.
The characters fight against circumstances they cannot ultimately overcome. Virian fights to survive, while Harald fights to find her. Both struggles are meaningful, but neither can change the reality created by the temporal anomaly.
This gives the pacing another purpose: the reader follows the characters' efforts while gradually approaching a truth that changes the meaning of everything that came before.
"Sometimes, not knowing is better"
When asked what the ultimate message of Lifetime might be, Engela offered a simple but unsettling conclusion:
"Sometimes, not knowing is better."
That idea captures the tension at the center of the story. Harald's determination to discover what happened drives the investigation forward, but the truth ultimately carries a weight that knowledge itself cannot solve.
Through Lifetime, Christina Engela combines science-fiction concepts with questions about human limitations, grief, power, and the consequences of discovering truths that cannot be changed.
Her approach to pacing demonstrates how contrasting timelines can do more than move a story forward. They can allow readers to experience isolation and urgency from completely different perspectives, while gradually bringing those perspectives toward the same revelation.
About Christina Engela
Christina Engela is a scholar, writer, and digital creator from South Africa. Her work spans science fiction and other creative projects, bringing together imaginative storytelling with ideas about technology, society, humanity, and the challenges individuals face when confronted with circumstances beyond their control.
Explore Christina Engela's work:
Featured book: Lifetime by Christina Engela
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