The Lullaby

I wandered through the long halls, walls painted admiral blue. I’ve been here before, I recognize these walls. They appeared eerie as I tiptoed cautiously along the white ceramic tile floor - something is wrong.

 

I’m not supposed to be fearful here, I placed a hand hand absentmindedly to the wall. An electric shock prompted me to yank my hand back, rubbing comfort into the appendage. I peered at it with a frown, my hands were dainty; fingernails messily painted maroon. I sucked in a ragged breath, curling the fingers into a tight fist. I stared down the hall, my breaths seemed to echo throughout an endless hall.

 

A soft voice also smoothed along the walls, brushing past like a breeze through tree branches. It gave me shivers, made my hair stand on end, my jaw hang limply and tremble with horror.

 

An angelic voice cooing softly from the only open door, the tile outside of it bathed in pale light. Her tone hypnotic as the words wisped through the air, “Ninna nanna, ninna oh…”  

 

That lullaby. The italian lullaby my mother used to sing oh so silken through the air. I stumbled a few steps, leaning to the door frame and retracting my hand in hesitation over and over again. It felt as though I had been there for hours, listening to the lullabye in a trance- hanging onto every word. I withheld the urge to shake, the scene, the voice- it was haunting.

 

“Questo bimbo a chi lo dò?”

 

With a ragged breath and darting eyes, I pushed the door open with a bare toe. It creaked open, revealing a red washed room.

 

Light walls, clean white floorboards and plush carpet. And with a flash, I could see it, carcasses littering the floor, I could hear the screams- see the hands clawing at the walls. But with another blink it was gone.

 

“Se lo dò alla Befana, Se lo tiene una settimana.”

 

My legs buckled under me, and I clawed lines into the doorframe as I sank. A guttural gasp and breathless hyperventilating as I sat through glimpse after glimpse and scene after scene of deaths.

 

“Se lo dò all'uomo nero, Se lo tiene un anno intero.”

 

I covered my ears with my hands, pleading cries, “Stop, stop, please...make it stop.”

 

And suddenly it did, I peered up- the cleanly decorated bedroom was back. There was a cooing sound from the corner, a woman with curly, black cherry hair was swaying lightly in the corner of the room. The woman had thin lips and strong features, worn smile lines and stress wrinkles. Dark eyes, a narrow nose, blinding straight smile. She had a voluptuous blanket spilling over her arms, hanging down as she nuzzled the creature wrapped inside it. “Ninna nanna, ninna oh.”

 

It had been the lullaby she would sing to me, hum softly into my hair when I was hurt or ill. This is my mother.

 

“Lullaby, lullaby, ooh,

Who will I give this baby to?

If I give her to the old hag,

For a week she will keep her,

If I give her to the bogeyman,

For a whole year he'll keep her,

Lullaby, lullaby,

I will keep this baby for me”

 

As she crooned on, she seemed to transform, and with it the room. The moonlight poured in, reflecting off the puddles of blood that sat idle and soaked into the carpet. She no longer held an infant in her arms, she no longer stood.

 

The woman seemed to shrink in size, shoulders hunching and hair growing damp with thick liquid. She held a head in her lap, a feminine figure with black cherry hair lay stiff. The woman on the floor brushed away the hair in front of the deceased womans eyes, again and again, moving it from the same position. Italian lullaby falling from her lips in twisted words, contorted uncomfortably like the body that lay before her.  

 

“Ninna, nanna, ninna oh. Questo bimbo a chi lo dò.”

 

I crawled toward them, hands trembling terrible and they pressed through the carpet, blood squishing out. I crawled over the slashed body of a man that resembled my great uncle, and a small boy similar to my cousin. I stared at the live person that now sat in front of me.

 

Her hair hung limply in front of her face, dripping red. I leant down, pressing myself even closer to the blood logged floor. I began to breath hard, “Stop that. Stop singing.”

 

She didn’t stop. She didn’t react.

 

“Hey!” I yelled, feeling myself grow angry, “I said stop! Stop it! Stop.” I gripped her arm tightly, ripping it from its place at the woman’s - my mother’s- hair. Her head snapped up, face streaked with tears and blood. Her body shook terribly.  

 

“Why did you do this? How could you do this?” I didn’t answer, my anger was quickly turning to petrifying fear.

 

“Do you know what you have done?” The girls eyes seemed to shake in their sockets, even worse than her frail body. “They’ve been slaughtered. What have you done, Angela? What have you done?”

 

I jumped to my feet, legs finally seeming to have found their strength in fear. Her hand grabbed my wrist before I could venture too far. “What have you done?” Her voice was strikingly calm and collected. With a look of fear and disgust, I ripped my hand away. I took a step back and fell, tripping on the broken body of what looked like my aunt. I swallowed a horrified scream of anguish, crawling away and stumbling into the hallway - crashing into the wall and barely managing to get sturdy ground under foot.

 

I took off like a bullet, but the hallway stretched on and on. I could hear her voice echoing from down the hall, “Do you know what you did, Angela? Why did you do it, Angela? What have you done, Angela?”

 

The floor was like cold marble as I collided with it, I pushed myself up, hands slipping and sliding the way my foot had in the pool of blood before me. I looked up through my lashes, the kitchen. Not a single surface was void of arterial spray, the girl was now sitting like a ragdoll on the oak dinner table. Her thighs straight, and bent outward at the knees, her hands clutched one another tightly. “They’re all dead. Blood. All this blood, their blood. All of their blood. What did you do, Angela?” Her eyes suddenly locked on me.

 

I slipped and slided, face landing right across from my second cousin Janet. A scream bubbled from my throat as I crawled out of the blood pool. I could still hear her voice, calling to me.

 

“Why did you do it, Angela? I don’t understand, why? There’s so much blood. So much...I don’t know how to clean up. Will you help me, Angela?”

 

I screamed back as I found myself in the hall again, blood smears up and down the walls. “I didn’t do it! Leave me alone, you evil bitch! It wasn’t my fault, I swear.” I began to taste the salt that was running down my cheeks. I was sobbing as I screamed at her, half heartedly wandering back until I found myself at a door. My hand was slick with their blood when I tried to turn the glass handle. When it finally opened, I fell back to the floor.

 

“Why?” The soft voice whispered as it neared, the girl was nearly touching her forehead to mine.

 

I sobbed, “I didn’t do it, it wasn’t my fault.”

 

She put her hands on either side of my face, staring deeply into my eyes. Her auburn irises seemed to glow, they made me shudder.

 

I heard the lullaby in the background, it brought with it a new wave of tears. Pleads continued to slip from my lips as she stroked back my hair now. “Why did you do it, Angela? How could you do this to everyone? What have you done, Angela?” Those words rang louder and louder and louder in my ears.

 

What have you done, Angela?

 

Why did you do this?

 

What have you done?

 

What have you done.

What had I done?