The night Johan Černá was born, the wind howled through the quiet countryside of Germany. The storm had rolled in from the mountains without warning. Heavy rain was drumming against the rooftops of the tiny village where Věra Černá lay in labor. Thunder rumbled in the distance, loud and foreboding, like the growl of an unseen beast lurking just beyond sight. Věra, a young woman with delicate features and tired eyes, lay on the small bed of a dimly lit cabin at the village’s edge. She had come here seeking solitude, away from the remnants of a past she never spoke of. The villagers barely knew her, and she had offered them no reason to pry. To them, she was a ghost of a woman. She was a thin and quiet woman, existing only in the margins of their world. The only person present at the birth was an elderly midwife, a woman who had delivered many children in her lifetime. Yet, as she worked, she felt a strange unease settle over her, like an invisible hand pressing down on her chest. Though it wasn’t the storm outside. It was something else. Something in the air. Věra barely made a sound. No screams of pain, no cries of distress. She labored in silence, staring at the ceiling with vacant eyes, her mind drifting far away from the present moment, as if her mind was either completely empty, or she was completely trapped in it. The midwife had never seen anything like it. Women screamed and wailed. They clutched at anything they could in their throes of labor. But not Věra. She endured the pain as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience, something to be tolerated and then forgotten. Finally, the child emerged. For a brief moment, there was silence. The midwife frowned, wiping the newborn clean of blood before glancing down at him. He hardly cried. He did not gasp for his first breath in desperation like most newborns. Instead, he simply stared. Dark, unfocused eyes blinked up at her, eerily still, eerily aware. A shiver ran down the midwife’s spine. "Strange boy,” she muttered under her breath, wrapping him in a thin blanket. "Most babies scream the moment they come into this world.” Věra turned her head slightly to look at the child, her expression unreadable. She took him into her arms with mechanical precision, her fingers wrapping around the small bundle with neither warmth nor hesitation. She should have been relieved. Happy, even. But instead, she felt an inexplicable dread creep into her bones. Johan had little emotion. He only blinked at her, as if he were studying her, memorizing her face in a way no newborn should be capable of. Věra pulled the blanket up over his tiny head, shielding her from his view. Something was wrong. She could feel it. Though Johan’s birth went unnoticed by most, there were those in the village who felt something shift in the air that night. The storm had been fierce, unnatural in its intensity. The trees had bent under the wind’s force, branches snapping like brittle bones. Doors rattled in their frames, and the villagers huddled inside their homes, whispering prayers against unseen evils. And then there was Věra Černá—a woman of unknown origin, living in seclusion, suddenly appearing with a child. To outsiders, it was nothing of interest. A woman had given birth. Nothing more, nothing less. But to those who knew the Černá name, there was something deeply unsettling about it. An old man, sitting at the village’s only pub, muttered to himself that night, his hands wrapped tightly around a half-filled mug of ale. "She was right to run,” he mumbled under his breath, staring at the flickering candlelight. "The past was bound to follow her. That boy… that boy is cursed. Mark my words.” Few paid him any mind. Most dismissed him as an old drunk, his mind clouded by age and regret. But there were others who listened—others who wondered what he knew. A child born into shadows could only bring more darkness. Věra never spoke much, and motherhood did little to change that. She did what was required of her—fed him, clothed him, held him when necessary. But there was a distance between mother and son that could not be explained by mere exhaustion or depression. It was something deeper, something unspoken. She never sang to him. She never cooed at him or whispered soft words of comfort. She hardly ever called him by his name. "Johan.” It was just a word to her. She said the name rarely, like it was an obligation. And Johan, in return, never cried for her attention. Most infants wailed in hunger, screamed when left alone, reached out for warmth when afraid. But not Johan. He was quiet. Too quiet. At first, Věra told herself it was a blessing. A child who did not cry was easier to care for. A child who did not demand was a child who would not burden her. But over time, that silence became suffocating. At night, she would wake to find Johan staring at her from his crib, his unblinking gaze locked onto her with an intensity no baby should possess. She would freeze, her breath caught in her throat, her body stiff with unease. It was unnatural. It was as if he were waiting for something. But what? She did not know. And she feared the answer. By the time Johan was three, the villagers had begun to notice him. Not because he caused trouble. Not because he misbehaved. But because he didn’t act like other children. While toddlers played in the fields, laughing and tumbling through the grass, Johan would sit at a distance, watching. Always watching. His small frame remained still, his expression blank, as if he were merely observing a collection of moving parts rather than people. If another child approached him, he would turn his head slowly, his gaze locking onto them with quiet scrutiny. It unsettled them. They didn’t know why. They only knew that something about him was wrong."He doesn’t laugh, hardly even smiles,” one mother whispered to another as they stood near the village well. "Doesn’t talk much, either,” the other replied, casting a wary glance toward the child sitting alone beneath a tree. The first woman hesitated, her fingers tightening around the bucket’s handle."My son says Johan stares at him when he sleeps.” The second woman frowned. "He’s never even been inside your house.” A shiver passed through them. Neither spoke another word. By the time Johan turned four, Věra had resigned herself to the truth: Her son was not like other children. His silence was more than just a personality trait. It was a void, an absence of something vital. She had tried, in the beginning, to treat him as any mother would. She had told herself that love would come naturally, that time would build a bridge between them. But that bridge never formed. And as she sat alone in their cabin, staring at the small boy who never smiled, never cried, never behaved as a child should… She wondered if, deep down, she had always known the truth. That he was never meant to be ordinary. That something else had been born into the world that stormy night. That Johan Černá was not merely her son. He was something else entirely. And the world had not yet realized what it had welcomed into its arms.