here's a short story i wrote for my is module.
the theme is superstition.
i havent written fiction since primary school so i felt a bit awkward writing it.
tell me what you think of it.

“You are bad luck, Kane.” Countless were the times I had heard that phrase. Bad luck. Was that all I was to everyone? The embodiment of ill fortune? Alas! Perhaps I was, nay am, nothing but that. Why, you may ask. Let me regale you with my sorry tale, lifted from the dreary corners of my minds like a dusty tome.

I was born on the 28th of November 1977. My sister, elder by 8 years, remembers the day well. It was a stereotypical stormy night. A blustery one, with sheets of rain and all that. I was, of course, born at home. Right on the kitchen table, to be precise. My family was never rich enough to afford the hospital. Anyway my sister said that the precise moment I was born, a raven flew in the window and landed in front of my mum. She promptly froze and dropped dead. When I was old enough to know anything, my family kept reminding me that I was bad luck. My father eventually went mad. He kept rambling on about some raven haunting him. Shades of Edgar Allen Poe, I suppose. Anyway, he hung himself from a tree when I was 8.

Due to my, shall we put it delicately, unfortunate childhood I never was happy. Also, I began to become convinced that the same raven haunting my father was, too, haunting my life. The raven appeared right before anything bad happened to me. It seemed like some kind of sick opening act to whatever twisted misfortune due to befall me. It seemed that it was… following me. Was it but mere coincidence? Or was it another recurring motif in the perverse tragedy that was my life? It was everywhere. Following my every step. Waiting to herald my doom, perhaps? Was the reaper a droll bird feeding on carrion?

Many more were the times that the dreaded phrase has tormented me. Misfortune seemed to stalk me just like disease plagued Typhoid Mary. My house caught on fire. My sister got raped. But all these mattered naught compared to the most recent misfortune to darken my door.

Not long ago, the raven visited me again. It was, amusingly enough, a day pleasant enough that it seemed nothing could go wrong. The sun kissed my worn cheeks as it cast merry shadows along the furrows in my face. We were strolling along the beach. We being, of course, me and my girlfriend. Yes, the raven had not visited that corner of my life. Yet. On that fateful day, we strolled barefoot along the length of the sandy beach. The heavens were kind, as the weather is not known to be often mild. The skies were clear and a flock of seagulls soared past. There was not a single cloud in the sky. All of a sudden, I heard a screech. It was the sinister cry of a raven. It was to be my girlfriend’s death rattle. A bolt came from the blue. Zeus had sent down a present for us. The gift of death. I blacked out.

Turns out that the bolt of lightning struck down the both of us. We both went into cardiac arrest. While I survived, she did not. If only I were able to die in her place. Why was it that my angel had to leave alone? Why could I not leave with her, to guide her spirit into the afterlife? She is and always will be my beautiful angel, whom I shall never stop loving.


Am I being tested? Like Job was in the bible, perhaps? Or is karma sinking its vicious fangs into my Achilles heel? Admittedly, I have not led the noblest of lives. I am a sinner. Aren’t we all? Do I really deserve to be singled out and branded like my namesake was? I am Kane, not Cain. I don’t deserve to be branded with the mark of the beast and cast out into the wilderness. But yet I have been cast out and forsaken. Shall I not be branded too? Let it be so, then. As I write these words, the branding iron heats up on my stove. Let me be branded with the mark of the animal that has haunted me so. The raven has followed me thus far. Let it be with me always.

The branding iron burns itself into my skin with sweet, delicious agony. I relish the pain as I accept the punishment for which I seem to be marked. I am destined, I suppose, to be eternally punished for crimes I do not know of. Yet, I accept my punishment. My sins should have been grave, for the magnitude of my punishment to be like this. I stab my torso with the branding iron, again and again. My body is marked with crow’s feet. Just like the accursed crow has marked its imprint on my life, time and again.

You have won, my dear nemesis. There you are once more, high up in the rafters. Watching me. Waiting for the inevitable death. Are you the reaper? Whoever you are, it matters little. You have followed me far enough. For 30 years you have stalked me. For 30 years you have cast your dreaded shadow across my path. Every time we meet you bring death into my life. That is to be no more, my deadly acquaintance. This is to be the last time we meet. Today you collect the soul you have waited 30 years for. Mine.

This is to be the end, I suppose. For 30 years I have anticipated this moment. You are bad luck, Kane. You are the embodiment of ill fortune. That is all you are. Let me no longer darken the lives of my contemporaries with my taint of ill fortune then. I tighten the noose around my neck. I stand stoically, face drawn. You will not have the pleasure of claiming your victory with your dirty grasp. I shall deny you that perverse pleasure and die by my own hand. Adieu, world. I bid you all farewell. I shall now kick the chair out from beneath my feet and collapse into eternity.