Episode 104: Kindred

Written By Karl White

For most people, a child is a promise. A chance to pass along a piece of themselves that’ll endure long after they’re gone. Leaving a mark upon the world, carrying their hopes, dreams, and bloodlines into the future.

But not every inheritance is a gift. Some legacies aren’t cultivated through love, but design. For the Incubus Kasson, every seed he planted represented another branch of a family tree whose roots stretched deep into a place only known to shadows. He was accelerating a plan only he had knowledge of...as the army of Demonspawn he was creating, weren’t meant to serve as soldiers. They were Spirit-bounds, destined for something else entirely.

Baby boom happening in small towns across the US - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

Scattered across the United States was a generation unlike any before it. Between 1980 and 1998, thousands of children were born who shared a carefully hidden origin. They’d become some of the brightest, and most gifted minds of their generation. The offspring of the Incubus and mortal women, carrying within them extraordinary abilities that would awaken as they matured. But it wasn’t their gifts that would ultimately define them, it was the terrible secret of who their father truly was.

In the spring of 1982, in the small town of Willow Springs, Missouri, a real life miracle occurred. A young woman, Lori, had spent years being told she could never have children, despite wanting nothing more than to be a mother. Doctors called it impossible. Her family had long since stopped asking, knowing too well the pain the subject carried. Then, after a one-night stand with a stranger whose name she could never quite remember, Lori discovered she was pregnant.

Kirby should never have existed, but on the day he was born, he entered the world as a healthy and happy baby. Yet from an early age, something about Kirby felt different. He exhibited extreme intelligence early on, speaking at just four months, and reading complex words before his second birthday. 

Lori and Kirby, 1983 - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

Despite his extraordinary gifts, Kirby struggled to form meaningful connections with anyone beyond Lori. Entering school, he found himself isolated from the other children, many admitting they felt uneasy in his presence, never understanding why. The feeling was mutual. Kirby found it impossible to relate to those around him. His teachers recognized his remarkable intellect, but consistently described him as distracted and distant, as though some part of his attention was forever fixed upon something just beyond the boundaries of the classroom.

He’d be sent to countless counselors and psychologists, each hoping to understand both his exceptional intellect and profound social detachment. But most sessions devolved from evaluating Kirby, becoming conversations about unsettling thoughts and dreams he described with impossible clarity. He spoke of a dark-haired man with piercing eyes who stood silently in the background of his dreams, watching.

As Kirby grew older, those dreams no longer remained confined to sleep, as they followed him into the waking world. Sometimes he’d catch sight of the man standing across a crowded street. Reflected in a passing window. A figment from afar.

Kirby convinced himself they were fleeting visions, momentary tricks of the mind, phantom glimpses of someone strangely familiar. The apparitions never lingered for more than a few seconds before disappearing. And each time seeming a little closer than before. The specter wasn’t threatening, he never spoke. He simply watched with a familiar smile...a smile Kirby recognized from his own reflection.

At age 7, Kirby was smart enough to piece together the connection, and pushed Lori for answers about the other half of his lineage. Her explanations about his father changed throughout the years. A college boyfriend. A traveling salesman. A man who died before Kirby was born. It was the same thing she’d tell others who’d ask. But none of the stories held or satisfied the growing certainty buried deep inside Kirby. He knew the man in his dreams, the figure watching from the edges, was the truth she couldn’t bring herself to tell.  

For Lori, the truth was painfully complicated. She’d spent years quietly accepting motherhood would never be part of her future. It cost her a marriage early on, strained relationships, and stole the life she’d always imagined for herself. She prayed endlessly to God, but eventually accepted her fate, withdrawing from romance, and little by little, from much of the world around her.

Lori encounters a dark stranger - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

But one night, in the summer of 1981, while eating alone in a small diner, a man walked through the door capturing her attention. She remembers feeling uninhibited, and strangely beyond her own control in his presence. They shared one single night of overwhelming passion, and by sunrise he was gone. But no matter how desperately she tried after, Lori couldn’t remember anything about him.

His name escaped her. His face faded from memory. Even the smallest details dissolved as though they’d never existed. It was as if she’d lived through the entire encounter in a trance. Months later, discovering she was pregnant, she chose to believe she’d been given the miracle she prayed for. Unwilling to question a blessing, she quietly put the missing pieces out of her mind altogether.

By adolescence, stranger things began to happen to Kirby. He’d occasionally know what someone was about to say before they spoke. He’d answer questions that hadn’t been asked aloud. Sometimes hearing fragments of thoughts belonging to strangers passing by. At first the experiences were brief and easily dismissed. But with each passing year the voices grew clearer, louder, and more difficult to ignore. 

But Kirby saw it as a gift, and as uncanny as it was, he noticed another curious phenomenon. Every so often, he’d cross paths with other children around his own age who seemed to possess the very same ability. 

Kirby hearing the voices of others - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

The first time it happened was at a water park on a vacation in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Kirby noticed a girl standing on the opposite side of a crowded wave pool. She looked like his mirror image -- dark hair…dark eyes. The resemblance was impossible to ignore. And the moment their eyes met, a flood of emotions and impressions passed between them. No words were spoken, but an entire conversation unfolded in silence. There was the same life. The same loneliness. Then, as suddenly as the connection formed, it was gone. Her mother gathered her up and disappeared into the crowd, severing the telepathic bond before Kirby could learn anything more.

There were other encounters. A boy in the next car at a stoplight in Kansas City. A girl seated a few rows from him at a movie in West Plains. A teenager staring from the opposite gate at an airport in Denver. Each incident carried the same inexplicable connection. Their thoughts brushed softly against his for a fleeting moment before they vanished back into the world, leaving him with more questions than answers.

For years Kirby believed they were kindred spirits, burdened by the same gifts. It brought him a sense of belonging, and in a way, a comfort. But his theory was only partially correct. They were connected, not by fate or shared power. They were fellow Spirit-Bounds...But life continued on for Kirby. He grew up, smart and ambitious, but still never connecting or having meaningful relationships. He wandered through the world alone.  

Waking to a headache - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

In the year 2016, early one morning, Kirby awoke to a blinding headache. A pulsating sound ringing between his ears, best described as someone trying to tune a distant radio in his mind. His telepathic gift no longer sharp. He thought maybe he’d grown out of his ability, a new chapter in his life...but he was wrong. 

Not long after, Kirby began to feel a strange sensation. Some sort of instinct deep down, telling him to head northwest. At first he ignored the urge. But increasing headaches, each with a growing and ferocious intensity, made him act. Noticing that facing northerly and directing his orientation to the western sky, the pain would subside. So one night, he quietly left home, taking a walk. The more steps he took in that direction the pressure inside his head eased...Before long, he realized he couldn’t stop himself.

Hours into his journey, he’d find himself on the side of the road, thumb extended, accepting rides from anyone going north or west. His body knowing the way, subtly correcting his course whenever it drifted. He was heading towards something undeniable.

Miles wore on, through Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota. The unseen pull growing, so was his telepathy. He wasn’t hearing voices in the normal sense, but somewhere ahead of him, he could feel a presence, waiting. 

Then, as he awoke in the cab of a semi crossing into Wyoming, he saw it -- The Devil's Tower. A massive stone monolith rising from the earth, standing alone against the prairie sky.

Devil’s Tower straight ahead - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC

Long before settlers gave it its ominous name, local tribes regarded it as a sacred place. A site where powerful spirits could be encountered.

As the first light of dawn touched its weathered face, Kirby felt certainty settle over him.

This was the place he’d been called.

TO BE CONTINUED…