Cursed

Prologue

I was twelve when my life got flipped upside down.

In fact, it was my twelfth birthday. It had started out normal enough, Old Man Granger had smacked me over the head a couple times as I dropped his produce as I tried to protect it from the rain. He'd given me the old fruit and veggies that he said were unsuitable to sell and my fair share of our prophet. I'd worked there for about a year up until then.

I'd ran home, wanting to get home to make dinner for Bretta and me. She'd practically worked herself to death trying to keep me and herself alive and under a sturdy roof. Ever since our parents died when I was three, she'd taken care of me.

Just after I had finished our dinner, the door opened to let in my weary, seventeen year old sister. Her shoulders sagged and her eyes were closing. I walked over and hugged her like normal.

After we ate, she had told me the truth about our parent's death. She'd always told me mother and father had abandoned us and that's why she had been taking care of me for practically my whole life, but it went much deeper then that.

I found out that father had died in the war against our Southern neighbors, Chasim, about a month after I was born. He'd never gotten to meet me, because he was drafted in about three months before I was born.

Bretta also told me about me about my curse. The curse which had killed our mother.

Bretta or really anyone else had never looked me directly in the eyes. That was because that's what killed my mother.

My eyes are gold. Anyone who looked directly into them would die a slow, painful death, and it just got stronger as I got older. It had taken mother three years until she died and Bretta had taken full responsibility of me.

No one in our village had wanted me. Some of them had wanted to drown me, saying I was a demon, and I should go back where I belong, but Bretta refused to let anyone take me away or separate us. So she kept me and raised me. An amazing feat for someone who was under ten at the time. She worked two jobs. One was as a shoe cobbler and the other as a blacksmith's apprentice. She was no weakling, but she was also so worn down.

All this information had crashed down on me. I looked down at my hands for almost a full minute. Bretta had tried to comfort me, but I ran to our room. She left me alone with my thoughts for about and hour. I pretended I was asleep when she finally came in. It had taken me much longer and I had to cry myself to sleep.

I'd hardly slept for an hour when Bretta had shook me awake. I didn't know what she was saying at first, but she was shoving my things in a bag at lighting speed.

There was a heavy knock on our door. "Open up!" Came a gruff, deep voice that sent chills down my spine. Bretta had looked me, straight in the eye. "Whatever happens, you have to run."

She'd kissed my forehead and shoved the bag into my hands, along with a dark green traveling cape. "If I'm not back in fifteen minutes, run."

Then Bretta had grabbed the sword that she kept at the side of her bed and ran out of the room.

I shrunk up, my back to the door, too scared to move. There was screaming outside and I could smell fire. I was too scared to wonder what was causing all this, just wanting it all to stop.

Five minutes went by. No sign of my sister. Ten. I could hear people raiding the house. I tried to wait for five more minutes, but my nerves had gotten the best of me. I slipped out the door in our room. I had barely ran a few feet when I tripped over something and fell flat on my face. I turned to see what it was, almost throwing up.

I sat in shock as I saw my sister lying there in a pool of blood that ran from her side and her mouth, her eyes glazed over. I wanted to look away, but couldn't. Tears ran down my face as I shook her. "Bretta? W-wake up."

She didn't respond. "Bretta!" I screamed. Our house spontaneously caught on fire. I tried to drag me sister's body away, but I couldn't. Her legs were trapped under a pile of burning debris.

I slung my bag over my shoulder and pulled with both arms, still nothing.

My sister apparently wasn't all lost yet. "Run," she said, barely a whisper.

"No!" I said. "Bretta! You can't leave me! Not like mother and father! Please! You're the only family I have!"

But it was too late. She went still, using up all her strength for that one word. I glanced at our house, burning like firewood doused in oil. The entire village was like that. Tears ran down my cheeks, knowing this was all my fault.

I spotted two figures moving through the smoke. "Find that boy!" One of them said.

That had been the last straw. I took one more glance at my dead sister, and ran into the woods as fast as my legs could carry my, afraid, orphaned, abandoned, alone.

And cursed.