Chapter I
I was born knowing that I would die a premature death. We all were.
In my world, thirteen is an unlucky number. All the others like me, they die on their birthday, but it’s always a birthday that’s a multiple of thirteen. I knew someone recently that died at twenty-six. I never even knew that they were one of us.
It’s just pot luck. We are born, branded with a mark imprinted on our palms. On our thirteenth birthdays, we hold our breath, never knowing if we’ll ever let it out again.
One in thirteen. Why did I have to be the thirteenth child?
The cockerel crowed, and it sent a shiver down my spine.
Three times, I thought. Never let it be three times.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t my thirteenth birthday yet, so even if it crowed three times, it wouldn’t kill me. Still, just hearing the empty call spurred on a cold flame rushing down my throat, causing me to taste bile.
Thirteen days to my birthday. That’s when it all starts to go downhill.
Clenching my fists, so no one could see my mark, I hurried down the town square, attempting to spot my family in the crowd. I should never have stopped to watch the buskers. Now I would never find them!
But soon enough, my twin brother’s unmarked hand waved above the sea of heads, followed by his unmistakably unique voice.
“Ophelia! Over here!”
Pushing people away (much to their distaste), I sprinted towards him.
“Angelo, thank God!”
I hugged him briefly, before pulling away quickly.
“What happened?” One of my little sisters wondered.
The three triplets stared up at me with wide eyes. It was almost funny.
You see, in my family, I had three, identical, little six-year-old triplets for little sisters , and a non-identical twin brother. Lucky for him, he didn’t have an eye emblazoned on his palm, carved in like a curse.
He was a medium-height, bright boy, with short, black hair, and a solemn attitude to life. He occasionally had a sense of humour, but it was hard for him when he knew my dying date was set in stone. We shared few aspects of our looks and personality, but we both had the same hair, though I wore my charcoal hair in a single French braid down the back of my head, while he let his lie loosely over his eyes.
My three little triplet sisters were identical in nature and appearance, with very slight differences. They all had brown pigtails, though Tilly had a fringe. The other two were named Kate and Ariana. Kate and Tilly had dimples, and they all cheekily laughed at my jokes, even though Ariana was the naughtiest.
Three pairs of baby blue eyes gazed up at me expectantly.
“I stopped to watch the musicians and got lost,” I explained, watching their eyebrows go up as they listened to me.
My parents looked on at us grimly, knowing that in thirteen days, I could die. Of course, there’s a chance that I wouldn’t, but most people like me didn’t make it past thirteen.
My mother’s black ringlets covered her chocolate eyes slightly, hanging over her face to hide it. My brother and I took after her, though both our body builds were more like our father’s. He had straight, hazel hair, and emerald eyes which sparkled when he was excited.
“Let’s just go to the museum now, shall we?” Mum continued, in a forced, happy manner.
“Ok,”
My dad grabbed the hands of Tilly and Kate, who held onto Ariana tightly. My mum put her arms around Angelo’s and my backs, nudging us forward.
We often visited places like these at the weekend. All of us loved to sight-see, so we made frequent journeys to monuments and nationally famous attractions. Infatuated with the belief that I had to see everything before I died, my father insisted that we had to travel all the time.
Wandering up to “The Museum of Our Worlds and their Histories”, our parents hushed us in, and sat us down on the stools outside as they queued up to get tickets.
I hung my head, leaning against Angelo sadly.
“Thirteen days. We all know what that means…”
“Don’t say that, Ophelia. I won’t let you ruin your own birthday,”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s no birthday to be ruined. It’s just a day of being huddled up in my room, wearing ear defenders so as not to hear the cockerels.” I shivered. “They always find us anyway,”
He put an arm around me, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. There was no point in crying about something I knew would happen my whole life. It was so highly anticipated that most families bought mourning dresses and suits in advance, but not my family. Dad believed that doing something like that would pre-curse the birthday sleepover to be my deathbed. Not that I was having one anyway.
Our parents returned, clasping four tickets in their right hands, flapping them at us excitedly.
“Look, everyone! Kids six and under go free!”
My three little sisters squealed like the three little pigs, twirling around. Dad gave a deep, rumbling, laugh, and grabbed their hands, dragging them into the museum. Ariana tried to pull away and hide, but Dad just grabbed her by the waist and hurled her into the air, before catching her with gusto.
I sighed. In thirteen days, this could all be over. Fear choked me like a girdle, pulling at my waist and trying to jostle me into falling over. And I wouldn’t let it.
Swallowing thickly again, I stood up, shaking, and wobbled forward towards them. Angelo ran to catch up.
Later, we were wandering through an exhibit.
Ariana had her face squished to the glass case of a skeleton. It belonged to an animal that we were evolved from, with large bones, a hunched figure, and a horribly deformed skull. I shivered just looking at it, imagining myself at the claws of that beast. I wouldn’t stand a chance.
I turned to the other side of the room, attempting to distract myself. That side wasn’t much better either. A few other families were staring at it, in awe.
I looked a little closer. On the wall, a modern art piece thrived. It consisted of the number thirteen papier-mâché-d to the exhibit, which was a human skull mounted on the wall. Below it was a plaque, that read:
Ever since aeons ago, this legend has been known, and spread far and wide. Every thirteenth child is born, branded with a mark on their right hand. And what’s really interesting, is that it is exactly thirteen. See, in most statistics, the number you see is actually rounded up or down. In this one, it is exactly thirteen, and has always been. Exactly every thirteenth child is born with this mark.
Many people believe that these children are cursed for the rest of their lives, and the evidence would suggest that these people are right, if you believe in such things.
I wanted to stop reading.
But I couldn’t.
Every thirteen years, that child has a chance of disappearing. Vanishing. A very high chance of disappearing, as scientists have worked out that it is two to one. Two times out of three, these children disappear on their thirteenth birthday. And likewise, in another thirteen years, on their twenty-sixth birthday, two times out of three, the remaining adults alive will disappear of the face of this planet.
And how do we know if they will disappear?
Well, it may seem unlikely, but if they hear the cockerel crow three times on said birthday, they go missing, and presumed dead. Many families lock their children in their rooms on those days, and plaster ear defenders on them, but the children are always tempted by fate, and take them off, only to face their last breath.
I stumbled as I read that last sentence, and caught my breath. Why was I reading this? It was horrible, just plain horrible.
Now, why do people believe that they are cursed? Other than their disappearance, of course, their bad luck does not seem so bad. See, these children cannot die in the years between. Immortal, if you will, or as if their gravestone is already planted in place.
Well, to answer that question, we must go back to thirteen days before a marked child’s thirteenth birthday, or a marked adult’s twenty-sixth, or thirty-ninth, etc. The bad luck begins to kick in.
A popular children’s tale consists of Johnny, the-
I stopped reading abruptly, my breathing quickening, my pulse racing, feeling sick to my stomach. I didn’t want to hear the story about Johnny again. Not now, not ever.
Not in this museum.
