The first thing I experience after opening the door of my house is the heavy stench of blood. The only thing I can compare it to would be when the whole village gathers to butcher a pig just before winter. Except that this is somehow different.

To begin with, there's no way they'd butcher a pig inside the house, right?

I step into the room, but my eyes aren't quite adjusted to lack of light. But I can still hear shaking breaths coming from the corner. And the soft moonlight streaming through the window is revealing a limp arm on the floor.

That arm happens to belong to my mother. And it looks like she might be dying. 

F.

I hold my mother's face and she struggles to lift her eyelids.

"...Jim...othy..." (Btw, I've chosen to accept my sister's suggestion to name him Jimothy.)

As soon as she speaks my name, she coughs and I feel blood splattering across my face. I get that she's dying and all, but she really could have coughed into her elbow. Like germs are very much a thing that I don't want to have to deal with. But maybe not say that out loud for now.

"I.... Have something.... I need you to know.... I only had fourteen children..."

Huh?

It's my seventh brother isn't it. He's totally my father's love child. 

I give a firm nod, and my mother smiles at me.

"We picked you up... That day... Under the willow tree..."

Wait it's me? I'm adopted? Am I cursed so that all of my parents just end up dying?

"The people who... did this.... They're looking for you... You need to go..."

I hear something crashing in the kitchen, and my mother tells me to run. I don't know what else to do. It's not like I want to just leave her there, but my feet are moving faster than I can stop them.

No matter where I go, the scent of iron won't stop chasing me. I just keep running. Deep into the woods. All the way to the willow tree.

And there I meet the man from earlier once again.