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."

"Did you say something, Ms. Kelly?" Alan asked. He could have sworn she had just told him to see the counselor, but wasn't sure she had spoken to him.

"Pardon?" she asked back.

"Did you just tell me to see the counselor" he asked.

"Did I?" she thought. "Could I have been speaking aloud while thinking?" Figuring she had indeed mumbled the last of her private thoughts she looked up at Alan and said, "You know, Alan, that might not be a bad idea. Is something troubling you? You seemed to be out of it today, and that's not like you." Alan thought about it, and though he knew that she was referring to the incident when she caught him thinking about the Seed, he also knew that he was staring at her throughout the second half of the lesson. He grasped for an excuse.

"I was visiting my grandfather in the hospital yesterday and I saw the man in the next bed die." That was a good one, he thought, and it had the added benefit of being true, well, at least part of the truth. She swiveled in her chair and put her hand on Alan's, expressing her sympathy about that traumatic event, and then asked about his grandfather. Alan told her that his grandfather wasn't expected to live long, the doctors and nurses were just keeping him comfortable in the face of the inevitable. She rose and gave him a light hug, just to show that she cared. She really wasn't supposed to have physical contact like this with students, but she felt that in this situation a little hug wouldn't be inappropriate, and Alan had always been a respectful and conscientious student, one of her best. She just pressed her head up against his shoulder, and clasped his left hand with her right.

"Wow," Alan thought, "I should have told her some sob story months ago. I wonder what it would be like to kiss her." Immediately the light buzz in his head intensified, and Ms. Kelly tilted her head up, running her pink tongue over her lips. Her head came forward and she stood up on her toes, her hand at the back of his head, leading him into her. Alan stood about four inches taller than his teacher and angled his head down to meet her lips. Her tongue shot into his mouth, caressing his gums on above his upper teeth before snaking past into his mouth, stabbing his tongue and licking the roof of his mouth. They both moaned softly and Ms. Kelly's arms came around his body, pulling him into her. Alan hoped no one would come into to spoil this.

At that moment, walking down the hall towards Ms. Kelly's classroom was Judy McClould, assistant principal of Harry S. Truman High School. She and Ms. Kelly had planned to meet for lunch that day, but just as she was about to reach the classroom she stopped. Without knowing why she turned on her step and went back to her office, carrying her brown bag lunch.

Alan was in heaven. The most beautiful woman he knew was passionately kissing him, holding him close. He could feel her heartbeat in his chest, though he wasn't completely sure it was hers he was feeling, and not his own, and her hands were exploring his back with an almost frantic abandon. He brought his hands up to feel her back and hold her, and her tongue became more frenzied, exploring every corner of his mouth. But when he dropped them down to rub her behind, she stopped suddenly and pulled back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she asked archly.

"Me? I didn't do anything, Ms. Kelly. You kissed me."

"You better get going. Right now." She was still breathing a little hard. Alan hesitated, and Ms. Kelly repeated, "Now!" So he took his leave.

There were only two periods after lunch, and Alan was even more distracted than before. Not only was he still puzzled about his encounter in the hospital, he couldn't wrap his mind around what went down in the English classroom. His last period of the day was Physical Education, and he was so lost in his thoughts that he never noticed the basketball headed towards his head as he ran down court. It didn't hit him that hard, but it unbalanced him, and he tripped over his own feet, his head striking the gym floor with a sickening sound. The coach ran up to him, but he was already hauling himself to his feet, telling his friends that he was OK. The coach had told his friend Greg to take him to the school nurse, and no amounts of Alan's protests could dissuade him.

"What's up with you Alan?" Greg asked. "The whole day it's like you're in a daze. Hello? Earth to Spaceman Alan?" Alan just told his friend that he was distracted by his grandfather's condition, and Greg left it at that.

Because the nurse made him lie flat on a cot for more than an hour he missed the final bell and the hallways were nearly silent as he walked back to the gym to change into his regular clothes. After retrieving his stuff he realized that he needed to get a couple of textbooks from his locker before heading out to the hospital for his daily vigil. As he turned the corner to reach it he bumped into Ms. Kelly. Startled, they paused for a moment. Alan began replaying the kiss in his mind, remembering the soft feel of her lips, how her body shuddered in his arms, her perfume.

Chapter 2 »