To be Cursed

Prologue

A woman lay on a bed in a dim-lit room. Sweat rolled down her skin and soaked into the mattress as a man tightly grasped her hand in his, staring at her face with worry. Worry for there child, and worry for his wife.

She held her eyes shut as another lady, gave her instruction to push. The woman let out a cry and pushed with all her might. It went on for several hours until a wail broke through the sweat. The man's gaze never left the woman's face. She looks so pale, he thought.

"It's a girl," came a voice from the foot of the bed.

The man's eyes lit up with excitement as he dabbed the woman's forehead with a wet rag. "Ariana? Did you hear that? It's a girl, our baby girl."

The woman gave a tired smile and lifted her right arm as much as she could before it flopped down on the bed again.

The man stood up and held his hands out for the baby to which the lady handed the miniature human to him. He cradled the baby in his arms and gently placed the infant on his mother's chest. The woman's eyes opened for the first time in hours, and she wouldn't have given it up for the world. She slowly lifted her hand and cradled the child's tiny figure.

The man starred at the sight completely silent. A family. He finally had a family, and he wouldn't have given it up for the world.

"Arabella, that is the name I give to her," said the women hoarsely as her body went slack and the room grew quiet once more.

"Ariana?"

"Ariana!"

****

A man's shoes creaked on top of a wooden chair, as the sound of a rope that wouldn't give wafted in with the dead silence of the night.

In the window, was a silhouette. A creature holding a child firmly in its arms, the moons light avoiding the sight, not wanting to become tainted with the greed it displayed. It watched a man dangling in the wind and a grave that had yet to be filled all in the cover of the moon's light with a great big grin.