• Preface


    It all started twenty years before I was born.
    Our village was cursed by the Gods for committing
    an unforgivable injustice. A crime so atrocious
    that all believed they deserved the punishment. All
    but Mr. Felish that is.
    Mr. Felish was a nutty old man. He thought that
    everything he said or did was correct. He lived in
    the middle of the forest. Miles from the village.
    His house was a rundown shack filled with rats and
    hunting equipment. Coats of dead creatures were
    mounted onto the walls and covered the wooden floor.
    There was a creaking staircase in the middle of the
    house that lead up to the one bedroom, where Mr.
    Felish slept. For years teenagers would creep around
    his house as a dare or to impress their friends. One
    night that all ended. Mr. Felish came into the
    village at midnight, with a spear in one hand and a
    knife in the other. He broke into every household and
    murdered every child in the village. The sun rose in
    the morning and screams of mothers entering the rooms
    of their children filled the air.
    The angry villagers knew who had carried out this
    devilish deed and set off with pitchforks and torches.
    When they arrived at the old shack they seen Mr.
    Felish inside and started burning it to the ground. A
    couple of braver men ventured inside to make sure he
    died. A nineteen year old man was the one to kill him.
    Took a spear straight through his heart. When Mr.
    Felish died he looked up at his killer, Dakota Lebar,
    and laughed. He laughed an unbearable laugh that
    haunted Dakota his entire life.
    Dakota and his wife, Marie, were expecting their
    first child any day now. It's why Dakota was so
    frightened of the mass murder. It wasn't until after
    Marie had a very painful labor and delivered a baby,
    that the villagers realized their Gods had put a curse
    on them. The child did not breathe. He had pale blue
    skin but a large, unnatural smile across his face.
    Dakota himself burned his child in a fire, hopefully
    to rid the town of such evil.
    It didn't work. Every child that was born for the
    next twenty years had those same features. The villagers
    were getting older and soon it would be impossible for
    any of them to even conceive. Dakota and Marie, at the
    age of thirty nine, tried once more for a baby.
    Marie didn't have a great pregnancy like they hoped.
    They all still prayed to their Gods for forgiveness. One
    day Marie hunched over her swollen belly clearly in
    pain and said "Dakota! It's time! The baby is coming".
    Dakota gathered two midwives and rushed back home just
    in time to see a small baby wriggling in a puddle of
    blood. The midwives dropped their equipment and ran
    over to Marie and the baby, that was now crying. "She
    has lost too much blood!" one of the midwives cried.
    Dakota was in too much shock to even move from where he
    stood. One of the midwives wrapped the baby in a blanket
    and handed it him to Dakota. "Congratulations, it's a boy.
    We need you to leave the room now." He was in so much shock
    he wasn't sure if he should even be holding this miracle
    in his hands. The midwife pushed Dakota out of the room.
    He sat down in the living room and looked at his son.
    He had black hair and dark brown eyes. Soon the room
    filled with villagers in awe. All of them wanting a turn
    holding the new baby. "I am going to name him Sebastian,
    Sebastian Lebar" Dakota announced.
    One of the midwives came in to break the bad news.
    She hung her head when she said "Marie has lost too much
    blood. She won't make it through the night. I'm sor-".
    Dakota got up and practically threw Sebastian to her and
    ran into the bedroom. He frantically told his wife to
    hang in there. He held her hand until her last breath
    was given. Immediately afterwards he got up, didn't say
    a single word to anyone. He went to Mr. Felish's old
    house, got down on his knees and cried. "You've taken
    her from me!" He yelled. "You took her from me" He
    repeated in a whisper. Then he got up with a shard of
    glass in his hand. "Why didn't you take me instead?!"
    Right then he jammed the glass as far into his midsection
    as he could. The villagers found him weeks later.
    Nobody was sure what to do with Sebastian because babies
    were being born in nearly every house. They placed him
    in the Tumbler household. Where he soon had a brother and
    a sister.

    *****
    Many people thought I was a great omen. Something
    wonderful. They believed I was a gift from God. A gift
    that told them that the Gods forgave them for past
    mistakes and that life can move on. They were DEAD wrong.