I was there for her dying breath, darkness enveloping the room like a great cloak, the wind seeming to whisper and the house seeming to groan. She held my hand, her dark, damp hair draped across her cheek like a veil, her youthful bloom faded into the paleness of death. The Reaper stood at her bedside tonight; as the clock struck three the heat drained from her hand, the life from her limbs.

 With her death came the birth of her daughter. Feeling empty inside I was handed the child, quiet and motionless in a bundle of blanket. My heart caught in my chest as I pulled back the cloth farther from the babe's face, my blood running cold. The child had the paleness of one laying in a grave, eyes closed as it remained motionless, as if unbreathing. Slowly my daughter opened her eyelids, terror striking at my very soul. Her eyes were black, black as a starless midnight, gazing at me silently with a gaze of all-knowing.

Trembling, I thrust the child back into the maid-servants arms, hiding my head in my hands. "Take her away!" I shrieked. The girl seemed stunned, gaping at me. I knocked over my chair as I stumbled out of it, backing toward the window. "Do you hear me, take that beast away!"

Wide-eyed the servant hurried from the room, though the babe's eyes haunted my head. She was one of the living dead, I was certain. My fists were bound tightly about the back of the chair as I replaced it, my gaze still lingering after where the child had disappeared out the door.

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Based in an English Abbey in the 1800's, Lord Edgar Moorehouse loses his wife during childbirth in "The Witching Hour" and the daughter that is born drives him from his sanity.

updated Jul 14 '10 by ZillaGirl