Chapter 6

Sharp pricks to her skin woke her up from the restless slumber. Her eyebrows twitched in annoyance as her arms attempted to wave away whatever ate at her skin. Whatever she touched felt warm; yet sharp. The sound of wings spreading out over her head made her eyes open wide in shock.

Her hands immediately reached out to her face as her gaze searched for the culprit. Ravens stared at her with their empty yet longing gazes, making the hair on her arms rise. The three ravens all stared at her. Now and then, they cocked their heads to the side as if they were waiting for her to move.

There was no way she could explain the discomfort of being in the raven´s line of sight. They all felt like an omen of something dreadful in store for her.

After a while, she managed to turn her head away from the ravens and realized where she was sitting. Her cabin stared right at her, beaming in the sunlight above their heads. Confused, Ava turned around again and looked over at the waterfall behind her.

Her gut immediately told her that something wasn't right, but the overwhelming joy of finally being home drowned out every other feeling. The only eerie feeling she allowed herself to recognize was the three ravens; still staring at her from a few meters away.

With quick steps, she got closer to the cabin, which radiated the comforting warmth of home. She reached out for the doorknob but halted as she heard the loud cries coming from inside. Her eyebrows twitched confused by the loud cries. With a shaking hand, she opened the door to see what was going on inside.

Walking in, she couldn´t recognize her surroundings. The cabin was completely different from what she remembered; furniture had been moved around, the wooden table didn´t have any scratches, the curtains had a different color; everything seemed out of place but was still familiar. The sharp cries caught her attention again, and she quickly realized that they were coming from one of the bedrooms to her left.

Looking around as she headed towards the bedroom, she finally started to remember the time when the cabin looked like this. The cabin had looked this way, new, clean, and bright as she had been growing up.

The first memory of the cabin that she could remember; was her at the age of four with mudstained feet and flowers in hand to give as a gift to her mother. Nonetheless, of the act of kindness, she had been forced to scrub the floor clean by her mother.

Ava never cared for cleaning but had gotten familiar with it. It was calming at times. Nonetheless, she hated cleaning up the blood. Her kitchen table had so much dried blood within the cracks of the wood that she would never get it out.

She came to a halt outside the room where the cries were the loudest. It sounded like the person inside was in a great deal of pain. The cries drowned out the calmer voice. She could barely hear the warm voice of the man, telling the woman crying to keep breathing.

Curious, she opened the door in front of her and looked inside. For some reason, none of the people in the room seemed to notice her presence. Two women were standing by the bed, holding the hands of the crying woman who had her legs up by her side. Ava couldn´t see her face as one of the women was standing in front of her. A man buried between her legs, who was desperate to see between the blood.

Tilting her head to the side, Ava realized that she had walked in on a birth. It felt wrong. Standing here and watching a stranger give birth didn´t sit right with her. Even though she knew she should leave, the energy in the room drew her in.

No matter how close she got, no one paid her any attention, as if she wasn´t even real. She stopped behind the man and looked concerned over the amount of blood he was trying to deliver the baby through. Ava glanced over at the face of the woman for a brief second before she looked directly away. Her heart stopped in her chest for a split second as she realized who she had seen.

As she had looked at the woman, Ava reckoned it felt like looking into a mirror. Staring at the carbon copy of herself, she had never realized how much she had grown over the years to look like her mother.

They both shared the same dark wavy hair, the thick yet straight eyebrows, even down to the same bump on their noses. The only thing which differentiated the two of them was their eye color, which Ava had inherited from her father.

Shaken to the core, Ava couldn't help but continue to stare at her mother´s face. Was she watching her birth? What was going on? She took a step backward, and in the process of hitting the wall, she knocked down a drawn picture.

As if the universe was telling her to look at the picture, she turned her attention turned over to the drawn photo. Three people, a woman, a man, and a little girl with the same unruly curly hair Ava had when she was young. The three people in the photo were drawn badly, but she recognized the picture, as she had smeared mud on it when she was five to cover up her mom.

As the puzzles started to come together, she looked over at the man who had now turned to face Ava. He wore the same face as her father, but she could immediately tell that it wasn´t him. The odd golden eyes didn´t belong to him. He held a bloody baby in his arms, as a sinister smile spread on his lips.

She saw that the baby was screaming, but she couldn´t hear anything. Clouds had formed in her ears, preventing her from hearing what was going on.