Ch 2: Drafted

Michael was left in a small crib with only the blanket he’d been swaddled in before he’d been taken on his first night. He couldn’t see anything in the room, having only the vaguest idea of the shapes that surrounded him, or when something was light or dark. He couldn’t turn his head, nor could he move his limbs beyond weak flailing that pushed lamely against the blanket that covered him. He screamed and cried until he eventually fell asleep from overwhelming exhaustion.

He awoke to the feeling of warmth from a small sliver of sunlight falling across his cheek. He thought for some time that he was back in his hospital bed, but his inability to see and the lack of his family’s voices quickly dissuaded him of that. He had died, gone to something between life and death, and been reborn somehow. He could see that now that he’d calmed down. He had been taken from the people that he guessed were the parents of the body he was in. He heard their cries again. He managed to keep himself from screaming as he remembered everything that had happened, but his instincts were telling him that was what he needed to be doing, and his resistance eventually crumbled.

Shortly after he began crying, a door nearby opened and he heard the sound of footsteps approaching, but he couldn’t properly move his neck to look in their direction, nor could he see much beyond the edge of the crib. A light was turned on, or perhaps lit? It seemed slower than a light switch. The outlines of two people reached the edge of the crib, and he could hear some quiet conversation. The voices weren’t muffled this time and now he was certain that they were speaking in a language he didn’t recognize. He’d lived in a lot of places in the US, and had heard plenty of Spanish, Mandarin, Creole, Farsi, and even some Japanese from the shows his kids had watched, but it didn’t sound like any of those.

One of the outlines leaned close enough that he could make out some of their features. It was a man in his mid-thirties or perhaps early forties, with a serious expression on his face. He held a finger to his lips and made a soft shushing sound.

Michael tried to stop crying, and eventually forced himself into a quiet sob instead, though it was difficult.

The man gestured to the shape next to him, and that person placed a cross shaped object on Michael’s skin. It was cold, metallic, he’d guess. The shape placed a finger on the cross and said a phrase and the cross seemed to become a touch colder.

The middle-aged man leaned forward again.

“You should now be able to understand me. Blink twice if that is the case.”

Michael felt immense relief at hearing something he could understand and struggled to make himself blink twice, barely managing it.

“Good. Your control is higher than the last one. Though it’s been quite a few years. Do not attempt to communicate back to me. You will find it far too much of a struggle and it will be a waste of both of our time.”

Michael remained silent aside from his muffled sobs.

The man nodded. “My name is Vance. You are likely confused as to what has happened. I will explain everything to you once. When I am done, the translation focus on your chest will be removed and it will not be used again.”

Michael didn’t like the sound of that, but didn’t really have any way to respond to it.

“You have been found out. A diviner has recognized you as a Lifetaker. A man from a foreign world that has taken a life that was due to one of the citizens of Stent. This makes you a murderer.”

Michael barely held himself together at that, hearing the wailing of his body’s parents build up in his ears again.

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