The Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

right?”
                  Mark shrugged.  “There are reports, from time to time.  I hear them, rumors and such.  I haven’t been here long, so I'm not entirely sure.”  Mark’s voice was sharper than he had intended, mainly due to lack of sleep the night before.
                  There was an uncomfortable silence and then Abby said, “You seem a little distracted, I must have interrupted something.  Would you like me to go?”
                  Mark smiled and shook his head.  “No, no, please, tell me more about this article.”  The truth was, he did want her to go.  He was tired, he was feeling old and worn out and it seemed that no matter where he was, as quiet as he attempted to be, people were drawn to him.  Abby, however, was a sweet girl, young and good, and it wasn't often Mark met people who were simply good.
                  She spoke again, her voice colored with excitement, and she shook the newspaper article as she told the story.  “Well it says here that a homeless man wandered into Grace Chapel.  The man was staring up at the crucifix and when one of the younger parishioners tried to help him, he threw the guy twenty feet across the room and then started bleeding from his hands!  By the time the paramedics got to him, his hands had stopped bleeding and he was unconscious.  There's no way that's coincidence.”
                  “It definitely sounds like something for your collection,” Mark said.  Abby had a large collection of newspaper articles from all over the world categorizing religious miracles and incidents.  Mark was never completely sure Abby was a true believer in the Judeo-Christian faith, but something about stigmata and weeping saints fascinated her, and for some reason, so did Mark.
                  Abby folded the paper and put it into the pocket of her ankle-length skirt.  She checked her watch and grimaced.  “Sorry, I gotta go.  I have that late afternoon tutoring session, and then I'm meeting my brother for dinner.”  She paused and then added hesitantly, “You um... you wanna come to dinner with us?”
                  Mark smiled and shook his head slowly, “Ah thank you for inviting me, but I believe I'll stay here this evening.”
                  Abby rose and put her hand down on Mark's shoulder.  “You never come out with me.  Someday I'll get you out into the light of day... or even the dark of evening.”
                  “Perhaps,” Mark said and gave her hand a friendly pat.  He showed her to the door and when her small footsteps had faded, he locked the bolt, pulled the contacts from his eyes and gave a sigh.  He really was tired; living over two-thousand years was exhausting in itself, even without the constant need to hide, and the constant worry that someone would figure his secret out.
                  Watching people born, grow up and die, all the while living, and sometimes just existing, in the world but not of it, hurt Mark.  It was terrifying some nights, as he lay there in the dark, watching the world grow up around him as he spent an eternity trapped in his thirty year old body.
                  He hadn't changed; no matter how many years he avoided looking in a mirror.  He was still tall, slender, with a tan face, smooth now that beards had gone out of fashion.  His hair clipped short these days, curly as it had ever been, but sitting neatly just above his ears.
                  Mark supposed it was good his look was rather timeless, he could slip in and out of centuries with only a change of fashion and slang as he mastered each and every language of each and every land.  He truly was ageless, the curse had seen to that, the curse he still didn’t understand.
                  Beyond his exhaustion, however, was thrill, thrill because for the first time in months, something had