Red Wine

1: Awakening of Premonitions

"Don't give birth today! Your child will be cursed!" These were the words of a midwife to a first time mother going through the agony of labor. If anything, these words were the last thing that the pained mother should be hearing. Her midriff was contracting far worse than she could imagine, and it's not like she could do anything to stop her child from finally being born to this world.

But why would the midwife say something so random anyway? Turns out, that day was a thing that the Catholics called a 'Holy Week', a sequence of days following the death and resurrection of Jesus. Said midwife was a strong believer of the Catholic faith, and so is the family of the man who's about to become a first time parent with his wife. However, to the soon-to-be-mother, as a believer of a different religion, the words of the midwife and her spouse's relatives were nothing more than superstition to her. If she could, she would have gotten worked up over it, but the pain of labor kept her entire body and mind occupied.

In the end, the woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl on that very day, at 15:03, literally minutes after what is believed to be the time of Jesus' death. Ah, the agony and panic of the midwife and the paternal side of the family as they internally scream within their wits. They kept a very close eye on the child as she grew from an infant to a toddler, still holding on to their superstition that she might be, in fact, laid on a curse by their Lord for being born after his death. The girl was supposed to be named 'Anastasia' like how the mother wanted; it meant some form of resurrection, because if the superstition were to be true, then it technically makes her child a reincarnation of the Lord that died. This was changed later on to 'Ava' as the mother of the husband thought that 'Anastasia' was too long and hard to spell. Needless to say, of course, that the actual mother of the child wasn't pleased with this decision.

Several years later, Ava is now six years old and is about to start her first day in elementary school. So far there has been no sign of the 'curse' of which they spoke of. As a matter of fact, Ava seemed too normal: a healthy girl with black long hair, she learned to speak at the age of three, and has picked up a keen interest in picture books. The girl loved to be left alone in the kids' section of the bookstore. Her love for stories also welcomed the potential of what the adults would call 'talking to herself', but the psychiatrist would just say that it's fairly normal for children her age to have imaginary friends, especially when they aren't exposed to new forms of socialization yet.

The obsession of the grandparents to keep tabs on Ava with every chance they get got to a point of stalking, going as far as making connections with her teachers and some other staff of the school to 'keep a close eye on a certain long and black haired girl with a red bracelet on her left' just to see if the child begins to exhibit any unusual signs of the curse. But the entire school year passed and all Ava developed instead were telltale signs of childhood paranoia and hypersensitivity to her surroundings. She has repeatedly complained that she can feel multiple eyes shooting directed at her, but clueless about this exact feeling being her own grandparents' fault.

During the summer break, months before Ava's transition to second grade, she was temporarily free from the eyes that bothers her. It was also during this summer that the young girl experienced her first vivid dream; a dream that was unpleasant to wake up from, with the bullets of sweat dripping down her forehead and several tears that must have flown down her eyes during her slumber. According to Ava's description of the dream, a really big white-and-blue boat sank into the sea, containing hundreds or even thousands of people inside.

Now, of course, this was a peculiar dream to have for a child. For instance, Ava has never seen a boat that big in real life other than in cartoons. And why would a child at the tender age of seven dream of something so morbid such as that many people losing their lives? The parents of Ava assumed that this was part of the child's developing trauma, as well as the effect of being exposed to the graphic news that her grandparents like to blast during the night. On the other hand, the grandparents never had a change of heart, and still holds onto the negative outcome wherein Ava potentially could still be cursed at some point in her life.

That very night after Ava told the dream, around the hour that her grandparents watched their favorite news channel, the first news headline shocked everyone in the room.

'Cruise Ship "Galactic Queen" missing; assumed sunken in the Pacific Ocean' wherein a local cruise ship with around a thousand people including its staff lost communications around 17:00 the day before the news broadcast. The ship was a newer model as well, meaning that there could have been a malfunction left unchecked before the ship set sail.

Upon hearing this, the entire household looked at Ava. And without hesitation, the grandmother, from the top of her lungs, screamed out "You ARE cursed! Blasted child!" as her flabby wrinkled arms attempted to reach out to the child. Thankfully, her mother was able to pull Ava further away from whatever the old woman's intentions were. You can immediately tell from the puffy and reddish face of the grandmother that rage was beginning to brew deep inside her.

But this wasn't the last of it. Several weeks later, Ava dreamt of another tragedy that was yet to come, this time being much closer to her compared to the previous sinking ship. Flames engulfed one of their relatives' houses located in the next city where Ava and her family lived. It was worth noting that Ava has never been to this place, and yet she was able to perfectly describe the detail of the structure - from the colors of its exterior, how many floors it had, and even the shape of the gate and fences.

The grandparents were no longer amused of this 'dreaming ability' of their grandchild, finally stamping her the 'cursed child', yelling and throwing things at Ava whenever they saw her. Because of this, Ava's parents made the decision of moving out of that house - it was the husband's parents' house to begin with anyway. Despite the current financial struggle with the parents, it just wasn't healthy for the child to stay in such an environment, especially for what has already happened for the last seven years.

Ava starts a new life in a new city in a new school, where no one knew who she was. It was for her own good. She continues to dream of random local tragedies, but only her parents knew about this. Whether this was the thing that she has been cursed with for being born after the death of Christ, it didn't matter to the parents as long as Ava was getting the proper love and care from them.

Until one night, Ava woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare showing her grandparents - the very same grandparents that she used to live with, the ones who didn't give her such a pleasant experience. In the dream, her grandparents were set to fly to a foreign country for a vacation, but just like the first premonition with the cruise ship, the plane malfunctions and crashes in the sea. Most of the passengers and flight crew were saved, except for her grandparents who seem to have died due to the panic and fright caused by the accident.

And that's exactly what happened.

Ava was unfazed about it too.

Knowing that the grandparents may have spread word about Ava's 'curse' to their other relatives, Ava and her father still proceeded to attend their funeral; they're still her father's parents after all. At the funeral, a swarm of people looked at the young girl with such perplexed and uneasy looks in their faces. Some believed that Ava was indeed cursed and that her grandparents weren't safe from it, while some were just in disbelief that a person - a child, even - would possess such an inhuman ability.

One of the grandmother's closest siblings bravely approached Ava upon the sight of the child. She had mixed feelings about the whole thing, but she just felt the need to ask something to the girl.

"Ava, is it true that you can see ahead in the future through your dreams?" The grandmother's sibling bends her body a little forward to look down at the shorter child. "Did you happen to dream about your grandparents' death?"

According to the account of the grandmother's sibling, Ava's hazel brown eyes were filled with even greater life when prompted the question. Like every innocent child out there, Ava looked cute as she smiled at her other 'grandmother' while answering her with such high enthusiasm. "That sounds cool, grandma! I would like to have superpowers like that. But superpowers are only in cartoons!"