It was a cold night, Rain poured out from the sky as though the sky itself was trying to drown out something. The streets were slick, empty and silent. Except for the screaming.
A woman staggered through the darkened, barefoot and drenched with her outfit that looked like a different era. Her right hand clutched around her swollen belly, the other pressed against her sides, Her face was pale , her lips trembling. With every step she cried out, more in fear than pain.
"They want to kill my baby" she kept saying please...please help me. They're coming
No one answered.
No one except a single passerby — a man on his way home, drenched and startled— who ran to her side and half carried her to the nearest hospital, his heart was racing with more than just panic. He would never forget the way her eyes looked— like something ancient and hunted.
The hospital lights flickered the moment she was wheeled into emergency room.
The Doctors and nurses scrambled. The woman's body trembled violently, as though something greater than labour was tearing its way out. The monitors screamed. The wind howled against the window like a beast denied entry.
She kept repeating the words through her gritted teeth:
"He must live . Please don't let him die."
The labor was long, brutal. Her strength was failing fast. Every breath came slower than the last, but she held on— clinging to something deeper than survival.
At last, the child came.
A boy, silent at first, his tiny form slick with blood. For one still second the world held it's breath.
Then he cried— it was loud and furious.
The storm outside broke instantly.
The monitors steadied.
The woman smiled.
She reached out with shaking hands, pulled the baby to her chest, kissed his forehead. Her lips hovered near his ear and she whispered one final word.
"Thalon."
And with that, her breath faded.
She died with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes.
The nurses tried to revive her, but her body was still, cold and empty. Whatever spirit had held her together passed into the child now wailing in her arms.
No one knew her name. No family came forward. The man who brought her in disappear was that same night.
The child was left with no answers.
Only a name no one understood.
Thalon.