Prologue

Prologue
The screams could be heard throughout the large sleeping carnival. In the barred carriges, the male lion roared and marched across the bars of his prison. Monkeys dressed in red vests lined with gold designs jumped and flipped in their own smaller cages. The white horses in their stables threw up their heads and grunted, because the screams were terrifying, almost unearthly.

A man, wearing nothing but his dirty white wife beater and torn slacks, crawled out of his tent with a half drunk bottle of whiskey. His face held the white, red and blue clown make up smears. He stumbled to stand up straight. The few strands of brown hair on his balding head swayed from the heavy storm wind that started to appear. He glanced to the sky and saw the heavy thick clouds rolling in and gulped down another swig of his whiskey. "The ring master." He said in his Italian native tongue.

In a tent, two yards away from the clown's, sitting next to a red painted trailer marked with the crude hand painted picture of a trapees act. There, in the thick tarp man made tent came the ungodly screams.

Inside the tent, a young woman, no older than sixteen, was laying on her back. Sweat poured out of her forehead as she gnashed her teeth and held her legs spread open. She was dressed in an already blood stained white night gown. Beside her, holding her hand, was an older woman with a long brown beard. The bearded woman glanced down at the young woman with a look of remorse as the woman screamed in agony.

In between her legs was a woman with skin filled with tattoos of snakes and other reptile creatures; her long green painted hair was pulled back into a pony tail and held together by a piece of twisted rope.

"Come on." The snake woman said with a fearful voice. "Push."

The young woman gnashed her teeth and closed her eyes tightly before she screamed again. Her hand tightened a grip on the bearded woman's hand. "Where is he?!" The pregnant woman demanded.

The bearded woman looked at the pregnant woman for a moment and then darted her attention to the snake woman. "The ring master should be here." She said in a kind voice.

The snake woman shook her head. "He wasn't at any of my birth's, why would he be here for her?"

The woman began to sob. "But ... He said he loved me."

The snake woman snickered. "He tells everyone that, dear. Now, push one more time. I can see its head."

The woman gave one last heavy push, gnashing her teeth and gripping hard on the bearded woman's hand.

The snake woman pulled out the baby from the woman and sat it down in a pile of bloody blankets. She looked down at the baby with kind eyes for a moment, but as the baby began to cry with a hissing sound followed by a chirping almost similar to crickets, her eyes widened with fear and her mouth dropped in shock.

"Oh my god." The snake woman exclaimed.

The young woman lay flat on her back with a look of relief on her face. "Is it a boy or girl?"

The bearded woman looked at the new born with confused eyes. "Maybe it just needs a good cleaning." She suggested to the snake woman.

The woman, sitting in front of the baby, shook her head. "I don't think so, its skin is naturally that color. And ... What about the horns?"

The new born coughed and then continued to cry with a hissing sound followed by the sound of chirping coming from within its throat.