Author's notes: This is a submission to Ever After Contests with the prompt "tell a story of a character, who makes a sacrifice to save a member of their family".

It is a sort of prequel to a story I'm working on which features Micah when he's 18.

Word count: 499

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"Maggie, I'm home!" seven years old Daniel - or Danny for short - announced as he bounced into the small apartment.

His mother came to meet him at the door, her expression worried. "Father had to take Maggie to hospital," she told him.

Mother or father had taken Maggie, his two months old baby sister, to hospital awfully often. She's be her usual happy self for a day or two, but then she'd get sick again. Once Danny had heard his mother cry how she didn't want her to die. That if only they'd have enough money for her treatment.

After giving his mother a hug, Danny retreated to his own room and took a simple calling card out of his desk drawer.

The Order of the Guardians. The organization that protected them from the alien race known only as "tenebris" that had nearly wiped out the entire human population of Terra in the past.

They had come to his school before Maggie had been born to test all the children. To find suitable candidates to be their "chosen ones", warriors who'd inherit the powers of the legendary beings who had saved them from the tenebris. They had said he'd make for a perfect chosen one, but he hadn't wanted to leave his family back then. Nor had his parents wanted him to go.

But they did have the best resources in the whole planet. They could do anything.

~*~*~

It only took one phone call. The next day two representatives of the Order arrived to their home. One of them was a very regular-looking man wearing a doctor's coat. The other he really wasn't sure of. She - or at least Danny thought she looked more like a girl than a boy - was tall like adults, but her body was all straight lines like children.

"My name is Kira," she introduced herself. "I represent the Chosen Ones of the Order of the Guardians."

"Um...Nice to meet you," Danny replied quickly. "I'm Danny. Daniel."

"The commander explained everything over the phone, didn't he?"

He nodded. "Yes. If I join the Order, you'll help Maggie."

He had talked about it with his parents last night. They didn't want him to go, not at all, but this was one thing they couldn't decide for him. And as they couldn't change his mind, they had reluctantly agreed to let him take Maggie along. They'd never see either of them again, but at the very least their little girl would live.

"We will," she promised. "Now please take off your shirt and lie down."

There was a momentary sting as he was injected with sedative. The small metallic device that was placed on his chest only felt a little cold as it attached itself to his flesh.

"Micah," Kira spoke softly. "Your name will be Micah. And you will grow up to be so much more than human."

That didn't really feel so important. What mattered was that Maggie would be safe.