Birth

And when my eyes closed, it was not death that I saw. It was not sleep, nor dreams, nor agony that I felt creep upon me. It was the silent comfort of shadow, and the feeling that I could be in them - forever.

"Do you feel it?" The voice echoed deeply, and eternally, within me. It came from everything, for everything was it. Everything was darkness.

"Yes... I feel life."

"And what else do you feel?"

"I feel You. I feel Your pain... M'Lord, you are sad."

"Why do you think that?"

"You are sad, M'Lord, because You thirst. Not for the blood - mostly, but for knowledge mostly. You thirst for the world. You thirst for it all, everything. M'Lord, I feel that you are the most raw emotion that I've ever contacted in all this time, and it... it..." I could not speak, for my voice was caught it my throat.

"Overwhelms?"

"Yes," I could only weep.

"My Son, for you will be My Son, do not cry. I will walk beside you always, and you shall always feel this emotion, my emotion, echoing across the distance. It will be a reverberation of your own emotion, and it will echo your own emotion as if across from a vast canyon, for it cannot be helped. Your's pales in comparison to Mine. My son, I will feed you, and you in turn shall feed me, for it has been deigned that way. The so called 'Divine' would have it no other way than that we both desire this blood. My son, I will hide you in shadows, and from there you will live the rest of your life like any human - but you will live it for Me, and I will live it for you. In Shadow We are One, and in Shadow We are All. Remember these phrases, for if nothing else, they will guide you on your new life."

And it faded, only it didn't. I knew I was asleep now, but the Shadow didn't leave me. Father stayed with me.