[ Mar's POV ]

It has been three years since I managed to hatch the egg. That makes it five years since my wife vanished. In hindsight, it really took me forever to hatch Aurora's egg.

Hatching the egg was quite the experience. I'm confident that I now know how a pregnant woman feels about her unborn baby. The moment the little guy hatched, was pure bliss. Long live a pre-established parental bond with an unborn child!

I named the boy Alex. It was really difficult to decide a name without my precious partner in crime. I kept gravitating toward ancient names, like Julius, Alexander, David or even Arthur, but I kept wondering what Aurora would think about them. I kept imagining that she'd ask me "Why that name?" and I wouldn't be able to give her an answer except "It sounds great." She wouldn't like that. Plus, it's what my dad would have done. So I tried a different approach. I tried to remember my friends from when I was little, and what their names were. But I could only remember one by name. Sweet Alex, my first crush. She changed my life. Because of her, I started resisting my dad's ways. Thanks to her, I am free now and my child is safe. I wanted to honour her by naming my son after her.

My little, soft, pink boy eats, sleeps and poops like a normal human boy.

I'm glad.

In the two years it took to hatch the egg, I had grown worried that raising this child would proof to be too much for me to handle. But luckily, I was wrong. Nothing beats the feeling of holding your newborn child for the first time. It makes me feel all mellow inside again just by thinking about it.

My perfect little bundle of pink soft flesh, with feet smaller than my thumb and the cutest little button nose! For a moment, I had been afraid that the child might be born with bird-like features, like feathers, a beak or chicken feet. Not that my wife showed any bird features, but you never know what will hatch from an egg.

"Daddy! I want to play with the blocks!" little Alex squeels excitedly as he pulls the box with blocks from the bottom shelf and pops open the lid. I grin.

"Not with mister Duck today? But we had so much fun yesterday," I reply. Little Alex frowns at me.

"But... aren't we going to make a castle for mister Duck?" he asks, a note of worry in his voice. My heart swells. Alex is referring to our game from two days ago, where mister Duck set out on a quest to become a loyal knight of king Alex. I'm kind of proud that he wants to build a castle for mister Duck now. It proves that he is resourceful and has foresight.

"Of course, buddy! I'll help," I laugh as I sit next to him on the soft carpet. But as soon as I bend over to reach for one of the blocks, my mobile phone buzzes. I sigh as I check the text on the screen. What now? Can't I ever enjoy a moment with my boy?

The text on the screen reads: "Alert! Energy surge. Location: home"

Wait… An energy surge? At home?!

I glance over to Alex to check if he is showing any visual signs of an energy surge, but he is already looking back at me with a sad expression.

"I know, daddy. It's important. You need to check. It won't take long," he says as he looks away and goallessly shuffles some blocks around.

My heart breaks, because he is echoing words that I have told him so many times before already. I want to deny the words he echoed and tell him that I'll stay with him. But not checking up on this might become catastrophic.

"I'm sorry," I say as I start to get up, but remember to drop a little kiss on his shiny black hair. "Thank you for understanding, Buddy. I just have to check something real quick."

I get up and hurry to the next room, where my computer is already idling. I type a few keys and a graph appears on the screen.

Wow, my assistant, Erika, was not exaggerating when she notified me of an energy surge. And even though Alex's readings have always been at least four times as high as the readings of normal humans, this is exceptionally high, even for him. Is this him growing? But if he keeps growing this fast, will his energy levels soon be higher than my wife's?

I'm distracted from my musings by Alex's voice in the room next to me. I can hear him talking, but I can't hear what he's saying.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"What are you saying, Alex? I can't hear you!" I yell in the hope that he'll have the reflex to come to me or shout louder, but he doesn't. I'm not even sure that he heard me.

Is he talking to someone? Playing perhaps? Conjuring up his own stories of Sir Duck the loyal knight of king Alex.

I stand up and sneak back as quietly as I can. If he really is playing, I don't want to disturb him. Honestly, I hope I get a chance to grab my video camera so I can record it.

But when I look into the room, my blood runs cold.

Where I expected to find a child safely playing on the ground with a plush toy, said child is standing on the window sill, window open, looking at the sky. He looks about ready to jump out too.

I suck in a breath as I want to call out, which notifies Alex that I am in the room. He looks over at me, the cheekiest grin on his face. A grin that I recognise all too well. It's a face he makes before he yells "Tag! You're it!" and runs away.

"ALEX! No!" I yell as my body instinctively lurches forward to try and grab the little boy, but the distance is too great. I grapple for the back of his T-shirt, but miss by a hair, because the child effectively jumps off the windowsill and out of the window, like a bird taking off to fly.

I hold my breath, as for a milliseconde, I think he might actually fly off like a bird. But reality quickly hits me in the gut as I see the child plunge into the deep and not coming back up.

I am almost glad when, instead of a sickening final kind of thumb, I hear a few snapping twigs, ripping of clothes and a much less final-sounding thumb than I had expected.

"ALEX!!" I yell as I look outside the window and see the boy, lying one floor below me on the ground, his fall broken by a single bush.

He isn't moving.

I rush downstairs and outside, almost tripping and falling myself.

"Alex?! Buddy, please answer me," I beg him once I make it to his side. But it quickly becomes clear that he can't.

The left side of his face which hit the ground is already turning black and blue from the impact, and from the awkward angle his shoulder makes, I can tell that it is broken. I feverishly check if he is breathing, and he is, albeit weakly.

I release a breath of relief at the realisation that he isn't dead. But we aren't in the clear yet. He is still unconscious. Who knows what the damage of the fall really is?

So I carefully gather him into my arms and rush towards the nearest medical institute; my lab.

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A few quick X-ray pictures reveal that Alex his left upper arm bone near the joint, clavicle, scapula and his two upper ribs had all snapped in half, clearly pinpointing the major point of impact. And even though the left side of his face is still swollen, and black and blue, he has not fractured his skull or jaw or neck.

It's been a few hours already since it happened. I have already set his bones and am nervously waiting for the boy to wake up. Although I can't deny that I am starting to worry, because it is taking longer than I expected.

I reach out to gently comb my fingers through the boy's hair, when the heart rate monitor suddenly flatlines.

My breath stocks as my first thought is that the device is faulty. It must have a bad connection somehow. But then I realise that he isn't breathing either.

"Buddy? Alex!" I call out as I slap his good cheek. When that gives absolutely no reaction, I start CPR.

"ERIKA!! Get the defibrillator and set it the voltage to the dosage for a young child!!" I call out to my assistant. She rushes in almost immediately. She must have drawn her own conclusions when the monotonous sound of the heart rate monitor flatlining kept continuing.

"Set," Erika says as she holds the two electrical pads above Alex's chest. I clear out and she shocks him.

Alex draws in a deep breath in reaction and starts crying.

I quickly hug him tightly and feel a tear of terror escape my own eyes.

"Ow- Dad! Everything hurts! What happened?" Alex gasps between labored breaths and tears.

"You fell," I say, hearing my own voice break.

"I fell? O no, I failed!" he says between tears.

"Failed what?" I ask, but he doesn't answer anymore. He only keeps crying that he is in pain.