Vigilant - Chapter One (PG)

His imagination had been a thing of wonder since he was a young boy. Early on in life, he wrote fantastic tales and drew incredible pictures from the ideas blossoming in his mind. He fell in love with science fiction and fervently collected toys in all shapes and sizes to act out the stories he created. Soon the playthings he had were not enough and he started disassembling them for parts and making his own toys. His skills were almost magical! As he grew into a man his passion drove him to channel his powers into the design and sculpting of toys like no one had ever seen. Space travelers and fearsome alien creatures came to life in his attic workshop. The toymaker was meticulous in his art, and he cast and painted every toy himself to ensure its perfection. Collectors, enthusiasts, and children alike bought the toys as soon as the paint had dried and before long the toymaker had far more customers than toys to sell them.

He worked day and night to meet the ever growing demand, but the time came when the toymaker had to have his toys made in a factory. He toiled just as hard, inspecting and touching up each toy before he would pass it on to the lucky recipient. He was kind and generous and often gave away more than he sold. His reward was the look of joy on the face of a collector, or the laughter of a child playing with one of his creations. His craft led him halfway across the world to where his toys were being made. The toymaker wanted to improve the process and the final product even further. He was a tall, broad shouldered man full of energy, and his intensity was felt throughout the building as he worked side by side with the employees on the assembly line.

Before he could leave the foreign country to come home, the toymaker was struck with a mysterious illness. He tossed and turned in the grip of a raging fever in his rented room on the highest floor of a great tower. Hours and days blurred together in an inferno of dreams as a monstrous typhoon battered the structure mercilessly. The building swayed under the weight of the storm, yet the toymaker lay oblivious of the peril close at hand. Suddenly, the large window next to the bed exploded outward, leaving a swirling vortex in its place! In an instant the toymaker was sucked out of the room and into the darkness...