Since always, horror stories people used to tell me has fascinated me, all kind of them, myths, folkloric stories and recently, creepypastas, but I didn’t like any of them as much as the horror stories my relatives used to tell me around a fire when we used to camp in the mountain, those stories froze the blood and made your hair stand on ever and, between all those stories, always there were some scarier than others, of course, but I think that I never got me so shocked as the one about the ravens.
Yes, I'm conscient about how smart those birds are, they can even talk and laugh sometimes, but from there to attribute them bad omens and that things, I don't know. Always I've had my doubts about how real could those stories be, however it is, my family’s stories about that used to be really curious and full of data that made them looks really certain.
The first story of the ravens we heard was from some generations ago, when our great-great-grandfather's dad lived. He worked on a charcoal mine, so, their life in general was very hard. His son, our great-great-grandfather explained to his bigger son that the day when his father dies into a collapse inside the mine, a raven stood up onto one of the windows of their house and sang. What’s weird about that? Really talking, nothing, but the fact that in that area, ravens were so scarse, so much that you can pass your entire life without seeing one.
The next story was about fourty years later the first one, this time explained to the next generation for our great-grandfather. One day, drunk, he explained to his cousins and younger sisters the story of his grandfather and his own father’s one. Some night, a strong earthquake woke up everybody, taking them off their beds and forcing them to look for somewhere refuge themselves, but wasn’t easy for them to escape from the tragedy, because when their thought they were safe, the earth movements made a big landslide that caused a huge tree fell down in their direction, smashing our great-grandfather and his three bigger sons. That afternoon, a bit before the sunset, a raven was on their window, and sang when their all could hear it.
Well, two coincidences are something sinister, right? But this doesn’t stops here. Our grandfather explained to his sons what happened the afternoon when the great fire got half family involved in. His father, his mother, his bigger sister, his aunt, with her three daughters and four more cousins were trapped on that tragedy that took away besides the familiar house, eleven lifes. That midday, before going to the town to do some business, our grandfather saw clearly a raven in the window, singing.
Our father, when we were younger, explained us one of that fire and camping nights, the strange circumstances which our grandfather died. In the middle of our country’s political riots, he was lucky, because, even when they tried to catch him several times, and everybody knew that being catched then means not seeing alive again, never got to catch him into those attempts. But one night he just didn’t come back home. Everybody thought that, or he was sleeping somewhere way to home, drunk, or lying with a mistress, maybe, but reality was harder, because he was found aside of way home with a thread on his heart. That day, a raven was seen on their window, singing.
All those stories together are so sinister, yes, but I didn’t know about the last one, the one our father refuses to tell us because is very painful for him. About twenty-five years ago, with our bigger uncles living out of our little town, each one into a different area, giving some space to our very settled family, so, the family meetings turned into something way more meaningful since then. That year, they agreed to meet into a coast town, and each one headed there by their own means. On the road, our bigger uncle got sun blinded for an instant and that ghoulish luck wanted him losing the control of his car, having a frontal crash with his third brother and his family, whose came from the opposite way. In that accident there were nine people involved, two uncles, their two wives, our bigger uncle’s three daughters and our other uncle’s two children, they all died instantly by the crash. In that moment, I was five years old, and I'm sure to had seen a raven in the window of our house when we leaving, but you know, childhood memories can be confusing sometimes.
So well, all those memories from our family tells a lot of weird, macabre and terrifying coincidences about how the tragedy has marked all of our generations. Currently, I'm 30 years old, I've been married for seven years with the love of my life and have a beautiful daughter that is the joy of my life. My wife’s family lives at the other side of the country, and having two vacation weeks while I have to work, she decided to go there with our child to visit them. Five minutes ago we hung up our call because the plane was about to take off. So, what does it have to do with all those stories? Well, I just said it, we hung up our call five minutes ago, so, she can’t talk with me on the phone, and a just a moment ago, a damned raven has stood on my window and started singing.