The Calling
A man in dark clothes even darker features showed up in a vacant hospital hall. A newborn baby in the crook of his arm gurgled as the man looked around suspiciously. The man looked at the baby with ultimate concern, eyes softening as he did so, stroking the baby's brow. When all seemed to be alright, with the situation and the baby, he walked swiftly on, through the silent, sullen hall.
The man with the baby walked on until the heard the wails of child birth. Screams of the woman giving birth filled the hallway, and seemed to go on forever. After what had seemed like a lifetime to the man, the screams stopped. The man walked some more and saw the room where the woman was giving birth in. There was a window to the door to the room, so the man looked in to see the proceedings. The woman inside was pale and sweaty from giving birth and was sitting up weakly, holding her baby in her arms. Long brown hair covered her face as she caressed her child. The nurses and the doctors that were whirling about before were now almost gone out the room, so it was nearly empty. As the man watched, one by one the doctors and nurses left the room. The man watched the woman watch her child without passion, almost coldly. When he thought the woman was almost asleep, he crept in silently with precise movements that were, to the woman, freakish and scary. The baby was equally quiet during the wait, not because of the need, but because of sleep. The baby, a boy, was wide awake when the man crept in the room with the woman, gray eyes alive with wonder, with traces of a want to sleep.
The woman was not as asleep as the man thought she was, and she looked up immediately as the man walked in, hands tightening around her child. She didn't know why, but she felt the need to protect her child as fear swept through her. She felt a sense of evil and……..something she couldn't put her finger on. Something that made her fear him and make her blood run cold.
Such a fear that she couldn't explain a fear that seemed to fill her with a sense of dread. He didn't seem human, the way he moved with alarming speed and energy.
The woman was right to fear him, and fear she did as he walked in, quietly and softly. The man was one of the Greater Dead, one of the most dangerous dark-seekers, a vampire, and a vampire of the Council of Elders. The baby, who was now unnaturally quiet, looked on and shifted a little, making nervous sounds. The woman who could not seem to take her terrified eyes away from the vampire, now tore her eyes away, now placed them on the baby in the vampire's arm. As soon as she did, the vampire/man growled fearsomely as he said "Do not rest your eyes on those who are greater, more powerful than you, more powerful than you, me, and that pitiful baby of yours!"
The woman shrank back and shrieked a little and made no other sound. The baby in her arms shifted and made a little cry. The man seemed to act like he was above her and especially her baby as he heard the child's cry. He stared at her terribly, and she couldn't seem to do anything, scream, cry for help, and just stare into a pair of cold black eyes…… He seemed to immobilize her with those fearsome eyes, with the baby in his arms. She felt harsh tugging at her mind, as she thought these thoughts.
Oh my God, she thought panicking, he's reading my mind! She tried to stop him, block him, but try as she might, she couldn't. The man shifted through the woman's mind, her memories, thoughts and such. He learned all about her life, her name was Samantha, she was 21, no father for the child in her arms, died a long time ago in a car crash to work. He learned a great many other things while he stood there with that baby in his arms. After what seemed like an hour or so, he left the poor woman's mind, and said calmly and coldly, "You are fit." Then with that he walked toward her and the baby on the bed. As soon as he came closer to the woman, it became hard to block her scent, but previous years of training made him strong and willful. "You are about to take on a great responsibility so listen well." He paused for a minute watching her facial expression. Nothing but the same fear, he noted.
He continued, "The child in my arms will be switched with the child in yours," he watched as the young woman's eyes widened and filled with horror at those words, "You will also take care of this child as your very own, with great care. I will not tell you the purpose of this trade an what is to become of your child. You will not remember any of this until the time I right for you to tell what happened here to the child I have in my arms, when he is older, almost a man. You will remember none of this till the time is right."
The man from the Council of Elders, sealed his words with a ringing finality and he switched babies. Carefully, while placing the child from his arms to hers, he looked at the babe with certainty. "To you O Fated One, you will be great and embark a great journey to find yourself. You will be torn between the Human Race and Vampires. You are the one that will change the ways of the vampires and history." With these words the fated baby fell asleep in the woman's arms. The woman looked the baby in her arms and her own baby. The man looked at her and she looked at him. They both stared and seemed to confirm something. The man nodded, adjusting the woman's baby in his arms and disappeared out of the room.
Everything was silent as the woman and the baby in her arms looked at each other. The child seemed wide awake now that the man was gone. She sighed with almost content. "your name will be….." she hesitated. "Logan." She said with finality. "Logan." And fell asleep. The baby seemed to take in his name and closed his eyes ad fell into a deep sleep.
Faraway a woman, the mother of the child now named Logan, looked far off into the distance and seemed to see her child. "You will be great".