Crow

Cemetery

A mirror of your soul

You shall become,

At night a human

To pray and repent,

At day a raven

A soulless fool.

You shall break the curse

When you find your love,

The one that is true

And comes within.

You shall break your curse

When redemption comes,

Or you shall die

A monster inside,

Or you shall die

A monster outside.

With black feathers and claws

A monster you shall die.

*****************************************

Maria was sitting on top of the patch of grass across the sports field observing how her friends played football. Sun rays fell lazily on her brown hair giving it a lighter appearance. Maria's friend, Luz, was by her side distracted on her phone, no doubt planning for her Saturday night activities.
"I will have to go in a while," Maria said out loud, more to herself than to her friend. "is getting late." She said this time while looking at the sunset.

The sun was ready to hide behind the small mountain that bordered west in the small town where she lived. Her mom was not extremely strict, but she did have rule for Maria : to be home before dark. That was a reasonable rule during the summer, when she was able to enjoy the longer days, but it was a pain during the cold months of fall and winter, when the days were a lot shorter.

"Stay longer." Her friend suggested, as she always did "Your mom it's probably still at the store."

With a sight, and with a resigned look Maria stood up and said bye to her friend Luz. With a wave of her hand she also said goodbye to Carlos and Luis, who stopped playing just long enough to also wave good bye, and started to walk towards her home with a rather fast pace. Maria's home was at the edge of the town, right across the old cemetery, and also at the edge of the mountain, which meant that the sun sat earlier at her house than it did a the town's plaza.

Maria was having fun with her friends and did not felt like going home and was dreading to find herself alone at home with her step dad Alonzo. She knew that her mom would definitely still working at the store, and just the thought of her step dad, drunk and screaming at the t.v. nauseated her. It was as she was getting near her home that another fear touched her mind, the cemetery. Maria had to walk through a small alley formed by the wall of an old abandoned house, that resembled more a colonial style mansion than a house, and the old cemetery wall. She knew it was stupid to be afraid of the cemetery, as she believed that alive people were probably more dangerous than the death, but the cemetery gave out an eerie aura that even after all this years she could not shake.

The alley between the abandoned mansion and the cemetery became more narrow as Maria approached to the end, which meant she had to walk even closer to the cemetery’s old gates. As she approached the gates, she looked at them, they were almost falling apart, Maria was conscious that's if she walked across the cemetery she would be able to get home faster. Something irrational, a mind created fear, made her and every body else in town take the longer route walk around the cemetery along the alley instead of crossing the small paths created around the graves.