[spoiler]I got bored during my pulmonologist appointment and wrote this up on my phone. I haven’t proofread it, so please do tell if you spot any errors.[/spoiler] [b]1: Out of Luck[/b] The snarling of dogs would’ve been frightening if it weren’t drowned out by the sound of Max’s labored breathing and his torn boots slapping against thick mud. Far more frightening, now, was the agonizing side stitch and the feeling that his ankle was splintering into pieces. Max somehow managed to keep his pace, due in part to the drying of the mud as he continued through the forest, but there was no way he’d escape his pursuers anyway. Just his luck. Max had always had poor luck. He was an orphan; his parents had abandoned him in some rural town. He was capable enough to scrape by doing favors around the town, until one year an ailment and particularly bad harvest made the townsfolk cut their losses and kick him out. From there, Max was forced to move to the city, where living as a beggar was about as difficult as living as a fish on land—that is, to say, very. Like many others before him, he was forced to steal. Max was, it turned out, a horrible thief. Someone would always turn up at the wrong time, or have been there all along. It wasn’t until he’d been caught dozens of times that he made his break. A big, fancy manor, had just so happened to leave its gate open. And it’s guards off duty. And be completely empty, with an exposed vault left open. But, hey, beggars can’t be choosers. To Max’s chagrin and no one’s surprise, he had been caught, which brought us to where we are now. Max’s vision was dim from exhaustion, his mouth tasted of copper and his lungs felt shredded. He could hear the sounds of his pursuers growing fainter as his consciousness slipped away. As oxygen failed to permeate his lungs, the trees seemed to take on a purple tint. Max knew he was dying. He couldn’t keep running any longer. He had to stop and stand his ground. Max didn’t stop so much as stumble and slam into the rough yet brittle bark of a low-hanging tree. He wavered, bracing himself against the tree, and marveled at how the blue substance crawled up the crevices between the bark, much like the blood crawling up his inner throat from his lungs. How had he gotten here? In a forest? Didn’t he live in the city? Max shook his head. He was being chased… right? He didn’t hear or see any pursuers. Pursuer was such a strange word. Per-soo-err. Why were words so strange? He had a word, didn’t he? A… name? But he couldn’t recall this “name.” As he pondered the enigma, he was hardly even aware of his body slipping to the ground to stare up at the beautiful twilit sky. What was a name? What was a word? Only one concept permeated his mind, layed itself across his blackening vision. Luck. Fortune. Misfortune. These factors that brought him here, to this… state of being. What was a man but a name, when a concept meant so much more? Max died. And Luck was born.