Chapter 1 Life Cycles
Alan Marshall was a fine, respectful, upstanding young man. He visited his grandfather in the hospital every day after school He was a senior, and in his last semester, and he had plenty of free time, just counting the days until graduation. After graduation he had an internship at the local newspaper, a job he had won through a writing contest he had entered with one of his school newspaper pieces. Since getting into college and winning the contest he had passed off his editor-in-chief duties on the paper to his successor.
His grandfather was dying of congestive heart failure, and he had spent the last month in the cardiac care unit. There were no private rooms in the CCU, but there was a comfortable chair next to his grandfather's bed, and when the old man was sleeping, which was most of the time, Alan sat next to him and did his homework. When his grandfather was awake they chatted, mostly baseball, their common passion. One day while Alan was visiting, a new patient was brought into the room, and placed in the bed next to Alan's grandfather. Alan stood and looked over his grandfather's hospital bed to see the new arrival, but the nurse quickly drew the curtain to block his view. Soon after the new man was brought in, the nurses left. Alan then noticed that his grandfather was stirring, and the conversed for a bit, before he drifted back into unconsciousness. His parents arrived and they all stayed a few hours before going home for dinner.
A few days later Alan was leaving the hospital room and he couldn't resist the urge to have a peek at his grandfather's roommate. When he put his head through the curtain he saw that the man was awake, and he was gesturing at Alan to come closer. With a bit of trepidation Alan approached him. When he was right next to the bed the old man reached out and grabbed Alan's exposed forearm and gripped him tightly. Alan felt a strange sensation throughout his body, sort of like an electric shock. Then he heard a voice and looked down at the old man, but he could tell, even in the diminished light in the curtained off area of the hospital room, that the old man was not moving his lips.
"I am giving you my gift." The voice in Alan's head said. "You have the power to control the actions of others, and more powers will come to you as you develop your skills." Alan was scared by this strange experience, but he couldn't remove himself for the old man's grasp. The old man was staring up at him intently. Soon the strange sensation passed, and he stood rooted in place for a few seconds. Alan then realized that the old man was now talking to him." You are such a good boy, so devoted to your grandpa. You are a worthy vessel to carry the Seed. Use it well, and all you desire can be yours." The old man's voice was weak and raspy. When he released Alan's arm, his eyes closed, and an instant later all sorts of alarms on the monitors went off. Alan quickly left the room, passing two nurses and a doctor as they rushed to attend to the old man.
The next day the bed next to his grandfather's was empty. When the nurse came to change his grandfather's bed Alan asked her about him, and learned that he had died the previous evening, shortly after Alan had left. Alan thought about what the man had said, and couldn't make heads or tails of it. If not for the strange feeling in his body when the man had held his arm, and that voice in his head, Alan would have chalked the whole experience up to coincidence: the man's death and their encounter happened at the same time merely by chance, but he knew that something had happened between them, and that the man's last act was deliberate. He had given Alan something called "the Seed" and had done so by the touch. Alan didn't know what the Seed was, but instead of doing his homework while his grandfather slept, he kept replaying yesterday's strange scene in his mind. He didn't even notice when his parents entered the room. Alan had been sitting still in the chair for more than two hours, and he hadn't even noticed the time.
When they got home that evening Alan's father asked how his day was. For a brief instant Alan considered telling his dad about the old man and the Seed, but he quickly reconsidered. He didn't understand what had happened, and he was certain that his father could shed no light on the situation.
The next day in school Alan found himself thinking about the old man and his message, and that strange voice in his head more and more. He wasn't concentrating, and during English class he was flustered when the teacher had asked him a question and he was so lost in thought he hadn't heard her. She raised her voice slightly to get his attention, but because Alan hadn't been paying attention he had no idea how to answer the question.
"Alan," she said with a note of exasperation, "I know you and your friends are suffering from senioritis, but you really do need to pay attention in class." Alan was stung by her rebuke, but only slightly so. English was one of his best classes, and he had been earning very good grades all year. He apologized to the teacher and the class continued. He resolved to pay more attention to the lesson, but was soon drifting out again, though this time he was concentrating not on the strange episode, but on his English teacher, Ms. Kelly. This was a familiar distraction for Alan and his male classmates. Ms. Kelly was a drop dead gorgeous example of the feminine form.
She stood about 5'7", with dark red hair worn perfectly straight down to her shoulder tops, porcelain white skin dusted with a few very small freckles on her face. She had a slim figure and nicely rounded breasts, though she dressed conservatively, usually wearing a skirt which fell past her knees, and never too tight so as not to flaunt what Alan and his friends imagined was a spectacular ass, coupled with a blouse and a sweater in order to hide her bust. This being springtime, it was a cotton knit, a light yellow. She never dressed to turn the little boys on in their seats, but the effect was there, despite her better efforts.
Alan didn't know how old Ms. Kelly was, but she had been teaching at his school for two years, so he estimated her to be about twenty five or so. She looked younger, and one of Alan's friends once remarked that she wouldn't look out of place on the high school's cheerleading squad, waggishly adding that she would raise the standards of that squad considerably.
When the bell rang to release the class to lunch Ms. Kelly asked Alan to stay after. As Alan approached her desk at the head of the classroom he felt that strange buzzing in his body again, the same one he felt in the hospital with the old man, but this time it was concentrated in his head. After the class had exited Ms. Kelly busied herself with some papers on her desk, leaving Alan to wait quietly. This was part of her classroom management strategy, making a student wait after he or she had wasted class time by either inattentiveness, as in Alan's case this time, or by disruptive behavior. She thought to herself, "That Alan is usually pays attention, I wonder if there's something going on with him. Most of the boys I catch daydreaming are usually staring at my legs, but he seemed to be staring into space. I'll ask him if he needs to see the counselor."
