<strong>Name</strong>: Michael Sandalphon<br/><strong>Time</strong>: 2 - 7 years before the plague<br/><strong>Tagged</strong>: No one<br/><br/>Michael wasn't born blind, though not many people these days knew that. His vision was lost suddenly and without warning the day he turned ten years old. Fate didn't much care for the time and effort Mrs. Sandalphon had put into planning her son's birthday party, turning events so it would never occur. In fact, after that day, he would miss six birthday's.<br/><br/>Dusk still coated the outside world in a scattering of gold and grey when the screaming started. The heart rending pain in the sound woke even the neighbors and within moments the police had been called. Michael's parents had been jolted from their sleep, but quickly realized the source of the scream - their son. Panic set in and both were down the hall in moments to protect their baby from whatever bastard was hurting him. Except there was nothing to protect him<em>from</em>. At least nothing tangible.<br/><br/>Laying on his space ship and rockets bedspread in his cowboys and indians pajamas, the youngest Sandalphon stared at the ceiling and screamed as bloody tears coursed their way down his cheeks. There appeared to be no reason for it. The boy was whole, had no fever, and there was no one in the room. And yet, he continued to emit a sound that suggested his very soul was under attack. Distraught by their son's agony, but helplessness to do anything but watch, Mr. and Mrs. Sandalphon may have spent a good hour just trying to get Michael to respond to them, or to stop screaming. The distant sounds of sirens were lost on them, but the harsh pounding against, then shattering of their front door wasn't. The police had arrived and, assuming someone was in eminent danger, charged in with shouts of "Police, no body move!"<br/><br/>When the arrived at the Michael's bedroom, the police were shocked by the scene they stumbled in on. There was no assault taking place, no murder, no one being tortured. A boy, crying tears of blood, cradled in his mother's arms as she too sobbed and begged him to tell her what was wrong. The father staring blankly as he leaned on the wall, lost in his failure to protect his family. They called an ambulance and sent mother and son to the hospital, though by then Michael had screamed himself hoarse. Those who saw him after wondered how they could be more disturbed by the exhalations of air that were recognizable as the boy's continued attempts to scream than by the scream itself.<br/><br/>At the hospital, the doctors had no choice but to sedate the hysterical, bleeding child and hope that when he awoke it would be over. It wasn't. The children's wing was rocked early in the morning of the next day by the boy's agonized screams, though they faded quickly as his damaged vocal cords gave out yet again. The doctors were unable to find a cause and promptly labed Michael as mental, unstable and hopeless. He would never be normal again.<br/><br/>Michael's parents refused to believe it and paid good money to doctors in a private hospital to try to fix what was wrong with their son. Eventually, they claimed some success, though it had nothing to do with anything they had done. On his thirteenth birthday, as the drugs wore off, Michael opened his eyes and a scream pierced the room. The nurse it came from promptly covered her mouth in shame, but everyone was feeling some measure of unease. The child's blue eyes were a kaleidoscopic of shattered pieces, like someone had literally shattered the "mirror to the soul" that they were said to be.<br/><br/>Despite this new development, Michael didn't wake further. It was no longer required that he be medicated, however, since he no longer screamed or wept blood. The young man was catatonic, whatever horrors he had seen having forced his young mind to lock itself away. The doctors said there was a chance he would come out of it, but they weren't hopeful. Michael's parents finally decided to move on, though they never stopped paying for the best medicine money could offer.<br/><br/>Little known to them, Michael watched them as they had another child and he saw the pain that his return to their lives would cause, the guilt and shame that they had given up on him. So, when he finally woke from his catatonia, Michael didn't go home. The hospital he was in didn't even notice as the blind sixteen year old walked out of his room, stole a change of clothes, and simply left the grounds. He knew this too would hurt them and it hurt<em>him </em>never have a chance to meet his little brother, but it seemed the best of his options. The baby wouldn't live past his fourth year, even if Michael went to get him, and his parents wouldn't last another two. Pain from his disappearance would leave his parents in a few months and they would be able to be relatively happy for the rest of their short lives. This was better for them and he, well, Michael had a mission.<br/><br/>Over the last three years, Michael had been learning to cope with the overwhelming sensations and visions that assaulted his every sense. For a time, he was insane, but had come back from that madness once a chance journey down a pathway in time lead Michael to the only way to stop<em>him</em>. The image, of the black eyed, self-proclaimed King of Chicago and the future he would create had been what snapped his sanity. If<em>he</em>wasn't stopped, there would be nothing left of this world but terror and pain and death. Humanity would survive, but as a pale ghost of itself and everywhere Michael went showed him the same bleak end. There seemed no way to stop it, until by chance Michael's visions had shown him the clean, peaceful fort-like home in southern California where<em>hope </em>would be brought back to the world. A place he could have a real life and where the young men and women had a real chance to stop<em>him</em>.<br/><br/>Fighting with all he had, Michael had clawed his way out of the blackness that had become his mind and learned to sort the visions so they weren't so painful, so debilitating. Always, he held fast to that shining light, to the people he could see there. His hope, his strength, and the only chance the world had. From there would come a cure, from there would come reason and<em>peace</em>, but it was so fragile. Fate had not decreed it<em>would be</em>, only that it<em>might</em>be, but Michael knew his mind wouldn't be able to cope with its loss. And thus came his mission, to save himself by saving them and in turn, saving the world.