The Astrologer's Vow

Family 1: Born with a Fire

Bjorn ran as fast as he could. His heart was racing. He didn't care about the stares he got from people. He just kept running. When he reached his destination he heard his wife screaming and ran into the room. Bjorn had gotten a phone call earlier giving him the news which was the reason for him rushing like this. 'Finally!' he thought,'We're going to have a baby!' 

"Freida!" 

"Oh Bjorn! Look! Isn't he beautiful?!" she sighed staring down at her newborn in her arms.

"He is, love, he is. He looks just like you!"

"Don't be ridiculous! His hair is black like yours!"

"Hair does not make one look like another. Look at his eyes. They are as blue as the sea. Like yours."

"Well, a little bit." She gazed at her newborn for a minute and suddenly her face lit up. "So Emil it is!" she said triumphantly as that was the name that she had chosen.

Bjorn chuckled,"Yes. Emil it is."

Freida was suddenly looking at her husband in concern.

"What ever is the matter, my dear?" he asked.

"Why isn't he crying?"

The doctor who was just leaving heard this and assured her,"Don't worry madame. Sometimes they take a few seconds to start crying."

"Bjorn?" She had a look of fear on her face,"Could it-could it be what the astrologer was talking about?"

Bjorn looked into her piercing blue eyes and said,"Don't believe a word that man said. It is his business to make people think something miserable is going to happen in their lives. People find that exciting." She still looked worried but the tension in her body had eased out a little. Once again, she started talking about trivial issues like what her neighbour did and what another 'friend' of hers did. Bjorn just watched her chatter, drinking in her beauty and simply thanking god for giving him such a beautiful life. While they were completely absorbed in their activities they didn't seem to realize the continued silence of their baby. Nor did they seem to realize the sudden silence of the hospital. 

Finally, a crackling sound brought the romantic couple out of their trance and into reality. Bjorn went over to the door and opened it to see what was happening and the last thing the two ever saw was an unnaturally high wall of fire that soon filled the room, reducing them to ashes. 

After that, all that could be heard was the crackle and hiss of the flames as their tongues slowly brought death to the place that brought new lives into this world.

Soon the hospital was surrounded by policemen, firefighters, mourning families of those who perished in the fire and many bystanders who had come to see this spectacle as though it were firecrackers in the sky during new year's. If anyone had looked close enough, they would have seen a small boy, who looked no older than a new born, slowly rise from the flames and walk away. But no one did. No one except the one man who had always kept an eye on this soul since the moment he entered that poor woman's uterus.