Guarding Michael

Michael is a good kid, a rare quality that has made my job easy, so far. Though he remains completely unaware of my presence in his life, I've been with him since the beginning. I've been charged with protecting the young man from birth until burial. As his Guardian, it is my duty to keep him from harm's way. People often assume everything is within God's plan but the painful truth is that the Creator has pretty much left everything up to us. He's assigned us our lamb and it's our duty to protect it from slaughter. Though Michael's protection has been a simple task thus far, guarding Michael will soon take on a dark new path. A path that may mean the end of us both. 


Michael has been a gentle natured boy since birth. His first smile, though mistaken for gas, was of sincere happiness. As a young boy, Michael had expressed appreciation for every creature he has encountered, whether animal or man. Michael's bright outlook on life endures, despite his family's dark past. Though he and his parents were born and raised in New York, Michael's grandparents were immigrants to this great nation. Having narrowly escaped Auschwitz in 1944, they fled to Switzerland with a small group of refugees. There they provided details of the concentration camp from which they fled and were offered safe relocation to the United States. It was at this point that their family had the chance to start fresh and leave the gruesome details of their past behind them. This was their intention but the door they closed behind them would not remain shut forever.


Michael, now in his senior year, looked forward to his final year at Iredell High, though it had only just begun. He had maintained the kind of grades to land him a scholarship at the University of his choosing and he looked forward to the opportunity to show his parents that he was able to make it on his own, as if they doubted that at all. Looking over his schedule he realized that if he didn't hurry, he was going to be late to his first class. Having barely made it through the door before the bell rang, he noticed every seat had been taken but one; back row, in the corner, next to a blonde, blue eyed young man who he would later learn to be Adam Braun. Adam's upbringing was similar to Michael's. His parents relocated from Poland to the United States in search of a new beginning, but for different reasons. When Adam and Michael's eyes met, there was a strange sense that they had met before. It was at this point that I came into contact with Adam's Guardian and our fates were forever changed.