Prologue -

Master…

The voice was but a whisper, a whisper that could be heard by only one other, but the near silent word fell on deaf ears. The recipient was no longer able to hear, his body battered and broken, his life slowly oozing out.

Master.

Again the voice called, more urgently this time, with greater strength than it had ever used to be heard. His voice should have rang loud and echoed through his master’s mind, there should have been a response. There was none, there was not call back, there was no whisper, the body of his master did not even twitch.

Never had the nameless servant ever moved without the will of its master, though they were as one, not of body but of soul. It could be said that the servant was the child, the offspring of his master, seeded by the physical body of another. Now for the first time it exercised its own will and it frightened him, the sensations of physical movement desynchronized from his master’s will were new to him. He extended forth his nerves that lined the inner walls of the cocoon that encircled his father and master searching his body for response. There was a faint glow of life but it was rapidly fleeting.

Fear crept into him, not only for the potential loss of his master but also for the potential loss of his own life. Connected by the soul the servant child was completely tethered to his master and father, should either lose their life both would fall. In desperation it wrapped the cocoon tighter molding it to fit his father, it began stimulating the weakening heart pulling from it the spear that was hindering its function and sealing the tear. It pushed breath into the lungs and stimulated the brain doing his best to keep it from entering the eternal slumber.

It could not regenerate the battered body of its master, it did not know how and no matter how he tried the best he could do was maintain its functionality. The body was being poisoned by the breaks and bruises that covered it so it relinquished the parts that were not needed. It left only the brain and eyes fusing them to himself so that he might keep them alive. The eyes themselves were to give himself sight, it would need to forage for the nutrients the brain would need.

The soul of his master was only slightly tethered to what remained of his original body, it knew that it would need to replace the body or face death for both of them. It tried to replicate the body taking memories and knowledge from the brain but no matter what it did the vessel was always imperfect. It then tried consuming others and using their cells to create a new body, there was greater compatibility but the soul continued to reject fusion and slowly he could feel the connection weakening. Only his will to live maintained the strength of the link at a slow withering level, without it the link would have long ago faded.

When forging a body for his master failed he attempted to clone the body, each attempt to artificially inject the complete dna of his master into a female host ended in the death of the host or the abortion of the embryo. It was encouraged in its attempts when before the embryo was destroyed it presented itself as an almost perfect vessel for his master’s soul. The next host he impregnated he absorbed and maintained in a comatose state providing all the nutrients the embryo and host needed to survive.

When finally the embryo matured into an infant babe he discarded the body of the host and placed the infant child in stasis as it started to insert the soul into the vessel. While in stasis the infant would not grow and would not age or need to feed. Time flew by as the soul slowly took hold.

When finally the bonding approached the last stage, the first waking and the first gulps of breath, the servant child began to make its long journey towards civilization.