Shouldn't Be

prologue

The midwife sighed as she washed her hands. She could still hear the woman sobbing in the next room. And who could blame her, there had been a miscarriage. The baby was lying in the cot prepared, but with a stillness unnatural for any child.

“Poor little tyke” said the midwife “it just shouldn't be”

...

......

Shouldn't Be...

The midwife frowned, she felt a little woozy for some reason. She shrugged her shoulders and bent to pick up the bawling baby.

“Time for you to join your mommy” she said smiling as she walked into the next room.

*

The young boy sat crying under the stairs as he tended to do after his father hit him. The bruise was swelling up on his cheek, a painful purple countering his blonde hair, he'd tried to tell his parents that he was being bullied. They had just gotten angry, told him it was his fault and smacked him. Even now he could hear his parents voices as they argued with each other, the words easily carrying through the walls of the small house.

“Honestly, that kid, always complaining” said his mother.

“I know” said his father “probably being bullied because he's always whining”

The little boy curled up into a ball and cried harder.

“I don't see what we could do” said his mother “so why bother us?”

“He just causes us nothing but trouble” said his father.

“Costing money, causing problems” said his mother bitterly “it would be so much easier without him. He just shouldn't have been born!”

The little boy froze, blue eyes wide, and the sob died of shock in his throat.

...

Shouldn't have been

......

Shouldn't Be...

A huge fire ball, almost too bright to look at, blasted through windows. It ripped out the walls and the roof and engulfed the collapsing building in a raging inferno. The one survivor was a young boy who was found miraculously unharmed.