Claudia's parents.

Two weeks ago.

He took the crying baby into his arms. One could so easily see the enormous happiness he felt, his eyes sparkled, his smile was enormous. “Welcome to the world, Claudia. You’re so beautiful.” He said as he looked towards his wife, young Claudia’s mother. “Just as beautiful as her mother, just as beautiful.” He was only answered with the smile of an obviously exhausted woman.
“I’ll take her to the crib in the living room for now. Rest my dear, I’ll put the crib in our bedroom tonight, but first you rest.” He walked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him before walking to Claudia’s crib. Shortly before laying her in the crib she stopped crying, falling asleep almost immediately upon being laid in the crib.

One week ago.

He woke up to a terrified scream, sitting up immediately he looked around but could see almost nothing in the darkness. As he looked to his left he saw his wife, obviously terrified. Seconds later Claudia, laying in her crib at the foot of the bed started crying. “Lucia, what’s wrong?” “I.. I don’t know, I think it was a nightmare. I.. I.. I only remember a crow picking at the eyes of a corpse.. I.. I need to calm Claudia down.”
She stepped outside the bed and lighted a candle, making her long brown hair easily seeable. She walked over to the crib at the foot of the bed and lifted Claudia up from it. Holding her in her arms she slowly started walking around the room. “That’s the second time in less than week that you’ve woken up screaming. Are you sure everything’s fine, Lucia?” “I am, Peter, I am.. Now let me calm Claudia down.” She said. A short silence ensued before Lucia started whispering in Claudia’s ear “Stop crying, please, mommy’s here.. Daddy’s here, just stop crying.” Claudia kept on crying uncontrollably for about ten minutes before she finally calmed down and Lucia put her back in her crib again.

“I’ve had so little sleep lately, Peter, so little.” “I know, I know. Me too, but that’s part of it. Let’s try to get a little bit more sleep.” They whispered to one another. Lucia simply nodded before putting her head on her pillow and falling asleep. Peter looked at Claudia, who had already fallen asleep again, before doing the same.

He woke up again, the sun had just risen and its light just started to really illuminate the room. After he got dressed. Wearing his red shirt he went outside and started chopping wood to provide firewood for the fireplace. His axe split the wood easily, he wasn’t particularly strong but he had a quality axe. It was razor sharp, not extremely heavy but not light either. As he chopped wood he looked up to the sky, he was a tad blinded by the sun. Still, he smiled, he loved the outdoors.
He continued chopping lumber as usual. He paused every now and then and had passed since he first stepped outdoors. “I’ll probably be able to sell some to someone, soon enough.” Having just said that he noticed that it started to snow heavily, the snow landing everywhere around him and on him, sending cold shivers down his spine as he was caught off guard. “I didn’t expect the snow to come this early.. Not at all. Strange.” Peter quickly went inside with some firewood to light the fireplace.

As Peter was busy placing firewood in the fireplace Lucia stepped into the room. “Why are you already doing that? Are you cold?” “Not really, not yet anyway. It just started snowing heavily, I, I thought it best to get busy so I could light the fireplace in a few minutes.” Lucia looked at Peter with a confused look on her face, snow? Hadn’t she just looked outside and seen that the sun was shining? She decided to look again, and again she saw no snow. “Peter, you’re imagining things!” “No, I’m not! I know what I saw! I know what I felt! You’re just joking, yes. Just joking.” She looked at him, in an even more confused manner than before. “No, I’m not. I’m serious. I swear it!” “It doesn’t matter, I have to go into the snow again to grab my axe anyway, I shall see that you’re lying, I’m sure of it.” “I’m not lying, Peter! I’m not!”
She had barely finished her sentence or Peter had stormed outside again.
He looked around, where had he left his axe? Hadn’t he put it next to the door? It wasn’t there though, then it had to be near where he had been chopping wood. As he arrived there he looked around, quickly seeing his axe, a few meters from most of the wood and some lumber he had hoped to sell in a while. Taking up his axe he looked around, the snow had already covered the ground in a white layer and it was falling from the sky ever more intensely. He could still see easily, but decided to go back inside anyway. He had just remembered how the winds could suddenly gain in strength enormously and he didn’t want to be outside when that happened.

Six Days ago.

It was the middle of the night, both Lucia and Peter were vast asleep in their room. Little Claudia laying in her crib at the foot of the bed as usual. The darkness surrounded everything, one could barely make out the shapes inside the room. Suddenly little Claudia started wailing hysterically, but even before either Lucia or Peter had awoken, she had stopped. Complete silence descended upon their little house again. Lucia woke up every now and again though.
When Peter had gone to bed, Lucia had already been asleep and last he saw it was snowing more intensely than he had ever seen. When Peter woke up, all he could see outside was covered in a white layer of snow. Beyond a few meters he could see nothing, it was with such intensity that the snow was still falling.

Four days ago.

Lucia carefully opened the door of the room to check on Claudia. She smiled at the baby, her baby. Even though she wasn’t getting enough sleep, far from enough due to worries about the little one and bad dreams, she loved Claudia even more than she had loved Peter, her parents, or her siblings. Having walked up to Claudia she leaned over so she could kiss her. Only then did she notice something was wrong, at first she couldn’t quite determine what was wrong. Then she noticed the horrific fact. One of her greatest fears had just come true and she immediately started crying. She had noticed Claudia was no longer breathing. She started crying uncontrollably as she fell to the floor, the blow to her psyche had been like a blow to the head with a sledgehammer. She screamed, causing Peter to run in who tried to calm her in vain before he too succumbed to the misery of the situation and lost control of himself.

One day ago.

A few days had passed since Claudia’s death, Lucia had come to blame herself over the past few days, much to Peter’s chagrin. Somewhere he believed her to be right, she had been so tired as of late. He knew Lucia had barely slept in the past two weeks. Her insomnia had let her to not even notice the snow which was still falling, there was a very real chance she had made a mistake, a fatal mistake.
The uncontrollable emotions of Lucia, the constant wailing, the screams which came out of nowhere, they were slowly getting on his nerves, he hadn’t slept a lot either these past two weeks but this was making it all the worse. They were sitting at the fireplace, Lucia’s again crying and blaming herself. “Lucia, please, sweetheart, it’s not your fault. You know this. I know this.” “It is my fault, it is!” “No, it isn’t.” Peter looked at her, obviously becoming frustrated at all this. “It isn’t your fault! Listen to me woman! It isn’t your fault! Now stop your hysteric wailing!”
Lucia snapped and lashed out at Peter in a completely unexpected move. She slapped him, scratched his face open until it bled and kicked him. Peter was caught completely off guard yet again. He became furious and grabbed Lucia with one hand, while his eyes looked for his axe. He found it next to the fireplace. Holding on to Lucia he could barely reach it but he did and in blind anger, struck out with it towards Lucia.

That evening, he grabbed a knife and looked outside at the snow. He walked to the door full of hatred of nobody else but himself. As he stabbed himself he let out a shriek of pain, falling to the ground he managed to grab the doorknob and push the door open, in his last moments he managed to look outside, seeing a land which had not seen snow nor rain in weeks. Seconds before he died he heard nothing bar someone laughing wickedly.

Chilling and creepy!

Great work Anti!

Who was laughing? And the man had insomnia, not the woman?

Awesome read, music box man.

Aha! Yes it does, thanks. =)

Omg ... why did you make me read this? I feel like crying now!!! :[ It was excellent but oh so depressing ... :'(