Bab 3: 3
As soon as we arrive, I step out of the car. I finally get fresh, cold air, personal space, and most importantly, peace and quiet.
"I'll take a walk," I tell my parents. "Not feeling like all of your screaming right now."
"Don't you want to enter first? It's ours now, and you have things to unpack," my dad argues.
"Seen it already. I'd rather see our surroundings," I answer. It's around five o'clock, the sun is starting to set, the earth is starting to cool down. Perfect.
"Careful," my mom says quietly as a way of telling me it's alright to go.
I nod to her, then leave, only to explore the area close to our new home. It's not as lively and busy as I expected a city to be. I don't like crowded places too much, so that's good.
Tomorrow's my first day at a new school. If we had waited a few months, I would've graduated, but no. My dad and his stupid luck...
My teachers were pretty normal. They made sure even someone like me could get a passing grade. I hope the ones here can do that, too, or I'll be in trouble... But unlike my dad and sister, I don't think there'll be anyone that wants to be involved with me, nor anyone that I want to be involved with. I'm better off alone. That's what the world has shown me. Does it hurt? No. I have never asked for love or friendship. There's no need for it in my life.
Lucy and my dad always whine about it. "Everybody needs love", they say. But my mom didn't have anyone until she met my dad. And she's doing just fine.
The sun's at the point of shining right in everybody's eyes. Great. I love her, but definitely not like this. Now she just annoys me.
Irritated, I keep walking. There's no one around, so it should be fine to just look at the floor instead of in front of me, as long as I watch where I'm going, right?
But I do enjoy the feeling of the sunlight on my face. And when I close my eyes, I am almost able to forget the world, enter my own, lose my senses, feel free. Time disappears. My mind disappears. Only peace and quiet.
It can't last forever, though. My safe space is ripped apart. Reality pulls me back. I come to my senses as my back hits the hard, cold floor.
"Are you okay?!" A loud, yet silvery voice sounds through the ringing of my ears.
With a glare, I open my eyes. On top of me, I find a small boy, with fluffy, orange hair, and pretty, brown eyes, currently filled with worry, but still having a happy light behind them. My heart starts beating faster. My lungs refuse to take in any more air. My eyes refuse to stop looking at the adorable face in front of me.
And my world gains colour, filled with the brightest hues. And my life gets a meaning. And I feel alive. And for the first time, I believe fate may be real.
The sun has come to me. He enlightens me, he mesmerizes me, he's warm, he's beautiful. I don't know what to say.
"Dammit, Micah!" Someone yells from behind me, shaking me out of my thoughts. "Fuck, I was too late!"
"What happened?" I finally ask the small boy, who still hasn't moved. "Get off, by the way, what the fuck are you doing?"
The frown on his face deepens, though it mostly makes him look adorable, not angry. It almost seems a bit involuntarily, but he gets up. "You almost got run over by a car."
Before I can ask what he means, or even process this information, I get pulled up by my collar.
"Sorry, love, but I'm gonna have to take this boy home." The feminine voice doesn't fit Lucy's, nor my mom's. When I turn around to see who it is, a young, tall, slender woman, someone I have never seen before.
"Who the fuck are you?" I yell at her as she grabs my arm. "Let me go!"
"I'll explain everything once we're home. We can't talk here," the unknown woman says as she drags me alone. Desperately, I throw a last glance at the boy who seems to have saved me. I haven't been able to thank him, nor do I know his name. The warmth in my heart subsides as he gets out of my line of sight.
"I told you to let go of me. Do you want me to smack you?" I warn the stranger.
She doesn't answer, instead pulling me along to my front door, which was closer than I thought. Impatiently, she rings the door bell. How does she know my address? Is she a stalker? A thief? A murderer?
My mom's face appears in the small opening between the door and the doorframe. Never have I seen her face fill with fear so quickly, turning white, eyes opening wide.
She hurries back inside, the tall woman following after her, still holding my arm. I feel very on edge, especially after the strange reaction of my mom.
"What are you doing here?" The unnerved voice of my father sounds from the living room when we enter.
"It's time you introduce me, no?" the stranger smiles, putting her arms around my poor dad's shoulders.
"Lucy, Micah, this is your grandmother, my mother," he sighs. "You wouldn't be here unless something bad's going on."
I stare at the woman for a while before scoffing. She is at least fifteen years younger than my parents. What a bad joke.
"Is it because I lost the bottle?" My mom continues, sounding scared, bringing out the sentence in a very soft voice.
"You didn't lose it, honey, I took it. And you're right about something being wrong." The lady frowns. "Let me explain."
She signs to me and my sister to take a seat before starting her story. "My name is Fortuna. I'm the goddess of luck, of fortune. For the past century, I've been at war with the goddess of fate, Pepromene."
"Oh, shut up. Did you hire some actress to prank me? Fuck off. Am I supposed to believe this bullshit?" I finally tell them my thoughts, annoyed.
"Micah, your life is in danger. She's trying to kill you. You were never meant to be born," the woman, who identifies herself as Fortuna, goes on. "You were supposed to be a girl."
"What the fuck. This trick is going a bit far." With a sigh, I get back up. "Don't give me all this bullshit."
"If you were a girl, Pepromene would've won. She made so many different fates where you were not a boy, yet you're here. She's so afraid of you, it's almost ridiculous," she laughs, ignoring my words.
"Go ahead and prove it, then. Bet you can't. So stop it," I glare at her. She pulled me away without letting me thank that boy. It makes the situation even more shitty than it would've been.
"Have you never felt that luck was on your side? Everything was going exactly as you needed it to go? Yet something was always trying to keep you from being happy. Did you not notice such things?"
"You're just describing life with fancy words now. Everybody has their good and bad moments. Doesn't mean shit."
"Let me show you. 100 years ago, Pepromene and I exchanged a little bit of our abilities with each other. It's how our fight started," Fortuna sighs.
She pulls out a very small, red bottle. "I don't know what will happen, but I'm sorry in advance," she says. Her smile doesn't show any remorse at all, though, as she presses it against my arm.
The world is coloured red. Everything. Everywhere. Strings fill my view, thousands, maybe even millions of them.
"What the fuck? How much money did you spend on this?" I move my glare to my parents.
"You're stubborn. That's good, I guess, but I'm gonna need you to cooperate before the wrath of the gods becomes your end, understand?" A glare is directed at me, too. "Tell me what you feel, what you see."
"A lot of red. It's giving me a headache," I groan. "Stop it, please."
"Do you believe me yet?" Fortuna asks.
"If you control luck, why don't you just control your own in a way where I believe you?" I respond.
"Can't do that. Jupiter will kill me if I use my abilities on humans for my own purpose," she frowns slightly.
"Right, Jupiter. Of course." I try to take the ice cold bottle off my skin, but she persistently keeps it there.
"There's strings, right? You can grab the shiny parts. They're important pieces of the fate that is stored in it. Try one," Fortuna ignores my sarcastic answer.
Hesitantly, I do as she says. Doesn't seem like they're willing to stop with this stupid joke after all.
I grab one of the glittering pieces, and immediately get hit by a headache worse than the first one. "Fuck, what the fuck?"
"Hold on, don't let go now. What do you see?" she continues.
The scene that enters my head isn't a pleasant one. It's that of some nasty looking guy, looking at me intensely. It sends shivers of discomfort down my spine.
"There's a man. He looks like a creep. Staring at me from afar. No, wait, he's walking up to me now..." I tell her honestly.
A frown shows on Fortuna's face. "Alright... Can you grab that string and find the next shiny bit?"
I let the thread go through my hands until I reach the end, where another glimmering bit appears. "This is the last of it," I say.
"That'll be how you die if you follow this line. I'm not sure if you should look at that." The bottle is taken off my arm, and the room returns to its calm, not so red state.
"I'm here to warn you." Thin hands grab mine. "It is my fault that your life is in danger. Please believe me."
Another piece of information just being thrown in like it's nothing. Die? Gods? I wasn't supposed to exist? It makes no sense, nor do I find it very funny to hear. "Fine. Explain." Tell me what the base of these lies is.
"I have been in love with Pepromene for as long as I can remember. A century ago, I finally gathered the courage to confess to her. A big mistake. She wanted us to be childhood friends forever, but I kept trying to make her mine. She started hating me," she starts. "She swore that she would never love me or any of my descendants again. I kept going, trying to make her jealous by getting a child of my own. So Pepromene cursed my descendants, saying she would make sure all of them would be female, so she could never love them."
"Yet I am here. With a dick. As a man."
My response, although it was meant to be very serious, makes her laugh. "Yeah. When Jupiter gave us our abilities, he also gave us rules. For her, it was 'nothing can be impossible'. Meaning there must be a fate where you are a boy."
"And now she's trying to kill me because her plan failed?" It all sounds insane. There's no way this is real.
"The car earlier was meant to hit you. But, well... Your luck, as my grandson, isn't something she can just go against. That's why the boy was there. I was supposed to be there first, though." With a sigh, she lets go of my hands. "You have to promise me something, Micah. You must've felt it, right? The connection to that boy? Whatever happens, you can't fall in love with him, and you can't accept his love until I say so. Got it?"
"Not loving people is what he's best at," my sister, who has been silent this whole time, remarks. It is a very light thing to say in a room with air so heavy that it becomes hard to breathe.
"Shut up. I don't need love, so don't worry about me. Instead, tell me how I survive," I command the goddess. Love? That one random boy from the street? I can't come up with any better phrase than 'what the fuck'.
"Are you willing to risk the life and happiness of the one you'll end up loving the most, in order to save your own?"
Hadiah
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