The Switching

Chapter 15

The name instantly made some sort of connection with me, making me shriek out. I couldn't control myself, it hurt to think and move. I somehow knew that name, somehow it was a familiar and sad recollection. I doubled over, and my vision dissolved into a memory.

She knew not what would happen, nor where her precious daughter would go. As she ran through the cold, rainy night, her cloak whipping around her like a shadow, she slipped, the ice could not withstand her weight. She screamed, her body falling into the ever frigid waters. Desperate for a way out, she flung herself to the edge of the crack in the ice. Soaking wet and nearly alive, she pulled herself up and staggered to the connection of the frozen pond and the frail grass, where she had gingerly threw her newborn. She scooped up the whimpering baby, and fled to the woods. She stopped, clutching the infant to her chest, her heartbeat in rhythm with the baby. A gust of sharp, freezing wind struck her like a million tiny shards bursting through her skin. She cried out again, and the wind so powerful formed itself into the shape of a man. Her lips barely moved as she whispered,"Sephiroth," The figure nodded, and he stared his cold, gray eyes on the woman.

"Ahliah," His voice boomed throughout the forest. "What a suprise."

"You know why I'm here," The women said, with a hint of anger and fear in her voice. "I almost died getting here. Do it now." The wind simply shook his head.

"I cannot, alas, there is only one who can protect her from the rage of the Keeper. It is a young boy, just born, by the name of Charles Dawner. He is the only one." Sephiroth repeated the last part with stern force.

"It can't be...but, Charles is a...shapeshifter!" She protested. But Sephiroth disappeared taking the five pound baby girl with him. The woman screamed and fell to the ground in distraught. Her yells echoed through the woods, and the calm, healthy newborn girl was gone, never to be seen again.

Until now.