[LUCKY] Ch. 1 - Getting some LUCK

“What happened?”

His eyes flew open and he coughed painfully as he tried to sit up. A wave of pain flowed over him and forced him back against the ground. His tired eyes stared up at the blue sky. The wind swept between the trees, making the leaves rustle. Otherwise, it was silent. No birds singing or sound of another living being.

“Where am I?”

The boy started to gain to consciousness. He looked at his surroundings, trying to locate where he was. He didn’t see that much from the lying position, he must have been in a hole of some sort. He noticed trees, lots of trees; maybe he was in a forest, and cables hanging in the air above him.

The boy moaned and managed to sit up. Another wave of pain hit him in the chest and he turned to vomit on the ground next to him. ‘Yuk’ he said and made a disgusted face. His head felt like it had been hit by a giant sledgehammer. He touched it carefully and a flash of pain ran through his head and down the neck. His once blonde hair felt dirty and sticky, was he bleeding? At least he had been; he could feel dried blood on his face and his clothes were all stained with a dark-red color. Jeans, t-shirt and leatherjacket, they were all dirty and ripped. He felt sad about the jacket; it must be of importance to him.

“Who am I?”

He looked at his hands like they were someone else’s. He couldn’t remember anything, not even his name or how old he was. He tried, but the headache got worse the more he focused. The boy clenched his fist and looked up at the sky. He would never get any answer if he stayed there; he’d better try to figure out where he was. He looked at his surroundings again. Now when he sat up, he could already analyze much more than before. He was indeed in a forest. And the cables were… A chill ran down the teenager’s back. He was sitting in the middle of a railway track. Those cables were an overhead contact line that hangs above the tracks, giving the train power. The boy’s heart clapped wildly inside his chest. His ears started ringing, or was it a train’s whistle? His whole body shook of fear; what if a train came right at that moment and mashed him?  

Crackling sounds from behind made him turn around. He gave up a high-pitched scream and sheltered his head with his arms. When nothing happened for a few minutes, the boy peeked up from his genius hiding place. There was a train there, but it didn’t move. After looking a little bit closer, he saw it wasn’t even turned against him. It had three goods van behind it. The train was smoking and pretty badly damaged; whoever that had been sitting in there and driving that thing must have been crushed. The vans seemed untouched and the sounds must been the cracklings from fire flames from somewhere inside. Could trains explode like cars did?

The teenager moved away from the tracks; who knows when next one arrived. He crawled up to the side of the railway and further, it’s always good to be on the safe side. He sat at the edge of the forest and breathed heavily. His whole body ached and he felt like he could lie down and sleep for an eternity or two, but if he did, would he ever wake up? He was too scared to try.

The boy decided to at least find a road and hopefully find a way to get away from there. Maybe he should find a hospital or someone that could care about his wounds. He himself had no clue how to do it. He didn’t even know how serious his wounds were. What if he had damaged an important organ and was dying? The boy felt how his pulse rose, but forced himself to take a deep breath. ‘Focus’ he thought ‘First things first, find a road!’ It wasn’t hard; he saw it almost as fast he’d succeed to stand up on his legs. He wangled and had to keep a hand on a tree to keep his balance. His head was higher above the ground than he’d imagined. He sure was pretty tall!
He took help from the trees to keep his balance while he staggered towards the road. After much stumbling and falling over, he finally got to the road. It looked like a dump; bits of metal, rubber and glass were scattered all over the place. The smell of smoke and burnt rubber stung in his nose and gave him nausea. What has happened here? The boy thought and looked around. He felt how he started to get dizzy and decided to get away from the place. He randomly chose a way and went to the right. The more he got away from the railway, the fresher the air got and soon the burnt smell disappeared. The teenager took a deep breath and then continued walking.

Soon, he saw something down the road. It was a wagon of an old model. It had several signs with glowing italic red letters, but for him they didn’t make any sense. I can’t read? he thought and inspected the wagon. It was decorated with stars, crystals and hanging purple fabric. One of the signs held a picture of a crystal ball; it was probably a fortune teller. The door of the wagon was open and the boy walked up and peeked inside: ‘Hello?’

The wagon was like a mixture of a lucky charm-kitsch shop and the pantry of a mad man that believed in every suspicion that existed. There were shelves full of cat statues and jewelry shaped as horseshoes and four-leafed cloves along with bloody hare-feet and stuffed cats with black fur and dead magpies hanging from the ceiling and dripping blood. A desk with a purple tablecloth stood in the middle of the wagon with empty chairs on either side. Candles were scattered all over the wagon, burning with a mysterious purple flame. The smell was unbearable, the magpies and hare-feet must have been laying there for a really long time. He had to cover his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his jacket. This was probably not a place where he could find the help he needed. But before he could reach the doorway a chubby woman suddenly appeared in a big purple cloud, making him jump off his shoes by fear and surprise. She sat in the chair on the other side of the table, smiling with an almost completely toothless smile. She had a purple turban with smeary brown hair randomly sticking out and a dark blue dress with purple stars and a purple scarf around her shoulders.

‘A customer! Welcome, I’m Madame Luck, have a seat!’ she said happily and gave him a smile that could be cute if it wasn’t for the lack of teeth and her white and empty eyes.

‘Uh, no, sorry’ the teenager stuttered nervously ‘I was just about to go…’

‘Oh, no, you can’t come here without even buy a LUCK™ ?’ she said and handed him a basket of, what was it? Oysters? ‘It’s like fortune cookies, but with something better inside’ she explained, like she had read his thoughts.

‘Uh, no thanks, I just wanna know the way to nearest town, or something…’ the boy said and laughed nervously as he slowly backed up towards the door.

‘I think you want more than that, right?’ Madame Luck tilted her head and looked at his direction. Then she shook the basked and smiled again ‘What about a LUCK™? They brings luck with them’

‘Luck?’ the teenager raised an eyebrow. He had no idea what she meant by that. ‘No thanks… I’m fine’

‘Huh? You don’t want luck?’ the Madame said surprised ‘But it can get you anything!’

The teenager gave her a confused look. He didn’t really want anything; he just wanted to know what had happened to him.

Madame Luck smiled ‘It’s your lucky day today’ She said cheerfully ‘We have a special offering! Buy a LUCK™ and I’ll answer you a question for free! Come on, don’t be shy. I know loads of stuff! Not everyone has so much luck to get such an offering’

Why would he buy luck if he already was lucky?

‘Oh, please dear young one, don’t you have any questions?’

Yes he had, he had a lot of questions, like who he was and why he’d woken up on a railway track. But how could an old lady like her know that? He didn’t really believe in supernatural stuff and fortune tellers just felt too silly.

‘The special offer is only today, you better take the chance now when you can’ she continued ‘Not everyone got that much luck as you!’

The teenager thought for a while. It was a really creepy place, but what if the Madame really could tell him who he was? Or what he was doing here, or any of all the other questions that filled his brain to the brim. He could always try; he didn’t know what to do anyway. If she couldn’t give him an answer, he wouldn’t lose anything, because he already had nothing.

‘Fine’ he said and sat down and took a fortune cookie and put it in his pocket ‘A question, then; who am I?’

Madame Lucky went silent a few seconds before she started to laugh. Her laugh sounded like a horrible mixture of a magpie’s cawing and those magic glitter-sound effects in cartoons. ‘No, no. That’s not a real question, dear’ she said and shook her head ‘I answer only one question’

‘That was one question’ he complained

‘That was a question that summarized several question’ Madame Luck scowled and made a serious face ‘Invalid question. Ask a new one!’

The boy snorted and glared at the witch-like lady.

‘Fine, could you just tell me something about me?’ he asked.

The Madame thought for a while, staring at the teenager with her creepy white eyes. ‘Sure’ she whispered and leaned forward ‘You’re fourteen years old’. Then she sat up straight and talked with a cheerful voice; ‘So, that’ll be one drachma’
Madame Luck started to dig around under the desk and fished up a cashbox. The boy rose so hasty his chair fell over.

‘What the heck do you mean with that answer?!’ he yelled

‘You wanted me to tell something about you and I did’ she answered and nodded as if she was agreeing with herself.

‘But…’ He was speechless. Of all the questions he could have gotten an answer to, and she just says how old he is ‘I want a better answer! It was invalid!’

‘Bah, my answers are never invalid!’ the Madame snapped ‘You could have used your mind and asked a better question! Now, my payment’

She was right; he could have asked her a much better question. He wanted to beat himself up, but the Madame drummed on the cashbox and wanted her payment.

‘Another cookie, then!’ the teenager said, the Madame thought for a while.

‘Sure, but payment first, now!’ the Madame said at last. The teenager got a really bad feeling about her, she was probably going to trick him, but what could he do?

The teenager shot her an angry look as he checked his pocket. Not until then, he realized that he didn’t even know if he had any money, but fortunately, he found a black wallet with Pikachu-motive. He turned it inside out on the desk. He had several coins and a few paper-cashes. Madame Luck picked up a dollar cash a looked at it like it was from a foreign land. Then she turned against one of those purple candles and put it in the flame.

‘What are you doing?’ the boy yelled.

‘Invalid payment, one drachma, please!’ Madame Luck made a sour face that made her look like a mean witch from a Disney-movie.

‘But that’s all I’ve got! And what the heck is a drachma?’ he complained

‘You don’t have any drachma?’ the woman widened her eyes and looked surprised, then the anger started to bubble inside her and she rose from her chair ‘You tricked me! I don’t like being tricked!’

The Madame seemed to grow bigger, or was it the teenager that shrank? Madame Luck’s eyes glowed purple and she started to mess in a weird language. Mirrors popped up from nowhere and fell down to the floor and broke into millions shards, the hare-feet came to life and jumped around inside the wagon, the stuffed black cats started to meow and the magpies cawed and flapped with their wings. Statues and jewelry fell to the floor as the whole wagon shook.

The teenager lost balance landed on his butt down on the floor and crawled backwards toward the exit, but the door wasn’t there anymore. Panic bubbled inside him again and he wanted to scream, but all he could get out was a little squeak. But then suddenly, it all stopped. The Madame stopped talking and the animals froze, like they were listening to a silent voice. The purple glow in Madame Luck’s eyes fainted and she smiled at him like it never happened ‘It’s your lucky day today’ she said with the same sweet and happy voice as before ‘seems like the Fortunes only was a pre-taste of a coming product, so they’re free’

The teenager stared at her, was she kidding?
‘Now, off with you!’ the lady said and waved. Hands of purple dust pushed him and send him flying out of the wagon, along with his money and Pikachu-wallet. He landed on his nose on the solid asphalt, scratching it really bad. The teenager turned around to throw an insult at the Madame, but there were no sign of her and the wagon, it was completely gone. He scowled and stared at the spot where the wagon had been standing, had it just been a hallucination? Had he gone mad? He put his hand against his jacket. He felt the fortune cookie inside his pocket. It hadn’t been a hallucination at last…

A loud honk dragged the teenager out from his thought. A rusty white car came at full speed towards him. As a reflex, the teenager rolled aside and got away with hairsbreadth. The car broke with a whining sound and stopped. A guy with messy brown hair, a red Turkish hat and round Harry Potter-glasses jumped out and ran towards him. ‘Oh, holy lord of the ring, are you alright?’ he said with a breaking voice, like he was in the middle of puberty, thought he looked much older than that. As he came closer, the teenager saw more details on the Harry Potter-guy; He had really bad acne and wore a blue bathrobe over a dirty shirt and jeans. He had narrowing eyes, like he had some Asian in his blood and he was extremely overweight. ‘You look terrible, did I hit you? I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you. It was like you just came flying from the empty air and I don’t have that very good reflexes’

The guy babbled with a surprising speed and the teenager found it hard to register everything of what he said. Their eyes met, and suddenly the guy went silent. His face got a shocked and surprised look at first, then he widened his small eyes and there was nothing but fear in them.

‘No! Don’t hurt me!’ the guy shrieked and stumbled backwards

The teenager looked surprised as Harry Potter started to cry out of fear, what had happened? ‘I’m not gonna hurt you…’ he tried to calm the guy down, but he only got more hysterical when he came closer. ‘Go away! Go away!’ he cried.

What in heavens is happening? The teenager thought desperately and turned around. Memories or not, this is beyond normal! He thought and tore his hair out of frustration.
The Harry Potter-guy’s crying calmed down to violent sobbing. ‘Man that was scary’ he said ‘Suddenly, I just saw darkness and…’

The teenager turned against him and raised an eyebrow ‘What?’

The guy stared at him for a few seconds before he started crying and screaming again.
‘Okay, okay. Seriously stop crying!’ the teenager tried to over voice the guy’s screaming. He didn’t like the way the guy looked at him, like he was the one who scared him.

‘Don’t look at me! Stop it, please! Stop it!’ the guy pleaded. ‘No more!’

‘I… I don’t do anything’ the teenage responded confused.

‘Cover your face, please!’ the guy pleaded
Am I really that ugly, the teenager thought. ‘Okay, fine!’ he covered his eyes with his hands. Why would that help?

Suddenly, the guy stopped crying, the teenager was about to look up, but the guys screamed:
‘No! Don’t look at me! Keep your face in your hands just like that!’

The teenager didn’t understand why, but he did as he was told. He heard the guy get up on his feet, was he about to run away from him? He heard a car door open and slam shut and the guy coming back. ‘Here, put this on’

The teenager was handed a pair of sunglasses. It was a pair of pretty nice Ray-Ban’s Aviator with golden bows and glass with a green oily tone. He put them on and looked at the guy, who gave him a superstitious and nervous look before he nodded.
‘That’s better’ he said as he wiped his face with the sleeves of his bathrobe ‘Never take them off when I’m around, ok?’

‘What happened?’ the teenager asked

‘I think you happened, man’ the guy said ‘Come on, let’s talk in the car’ He pushed the teenager towards the car ‘By the way, I’m Chuck’