The Unlucky Man

by H T G Hedges

  He sat back.

  "You have been a pawn in a game you do not understand," he told me.

  "It was chance that found you, Mr Hesker. That is to say that you were unlucky. An unlucky man. There is a force at work here far older than you or I, a consciousness as old as the world itself, trapped for long ages in a tomb of its own making. And it seeks to be free, always to be free. This force, this shadow, a god to you, I have been its confidant, its right hand on earth for many years and in that time we have searched for the right mind to set it loose of its shackles. That mind was yours." He had a triumphant, unhinged gleam in his eye now.

  "He has been growing stronger in our world, year by year, but he cannot truly be free until our world’s are wedded together once more, until reality of common sense stretches and breaks enough to allow him back through. You’ve seen how the world is changing already, how you are changing things. It is so close .

  "Like I say, it was chance that crossed your path with ours but when Wychelo stumbled across you in that train station, the shadow knew, and it whispered to Wychelo what he should do – he even told me later that he didn’t know why he put the pill in your mouth, but I knew, for Wychelo is touched by the same darkness as you and I, although he understands it only a little." Horst’s eyes were shining brightly in the small room and he smiled a terrible smile as he looked down on my inert form.

  "The shadow, the beast, gave of himself to me that I might make something of him in the real world, these pills, my new army. And that power is what pulled you back from death, rebuilt your shattered body. You became something of the beast created here and he left in you a small, a tiny, part of himself." Horst was clearly enamoured with the sound of his own voice. The giant was tapping his knuckles on the metal table, creating a disjointed repetitive rhythm.

  "He rebuilt you for his own purpose."

  "Here is what you will do," Horst said, business like once more, "When you awake, you will leave this place and travel West into the mountains, you will know the way for the shadow is calling to you, I can feel it."

  "You will find the well and you will return to it, restoring the part of you that is the shadow to the whole and opening the door between us, a door which at present is only slightly ajar, wide open. No, not just opening it, smashing it to pieces, You will force our reality and what we now think of as the fairytale thinking of a less enlightened age to collide and the results will be catastrophically beautiful. You are the key that will unlock the world."

  He leaned in to me, speaking low, "Everyone who touches the beast is affected. Millions will die. The whole world will tip, the whole world will burn." Horst leant in even closer, "And I will be one with the shadow, this he has promised. With him, I will be a god." He leant back, suddenly bored of me, it seemed.

  "Awake," he said, "Go now, and remember before the end, know that you are the key to all this, that you have ended the world as we know it. I don’t imagine you will live through the experience, so be sure to enjoy it while it lasts." He smiled a cruel, cold smile. "Cut him loose," he said to the giant, who obligingly leant forwards and sliced the plastic bindings holding me in the chair before tossing them casually to the floor.

  And then they were gone, leaving me to wake alone.

  Loess and Whimsy were still above me, shouting their life and fear into the empty air. I had been manipulated to this point, by Horst and whatever malign consciousness dwelt in the swirling darkness. But it was too late to change my mind. Cards dealt, I let go of the ladder and let myself fall into the dark.

  This wasn’t the end, I knew. Horst had misjudged that much at least, it was the beginning. The shadow swallowed me and I felt the world changing as it rushed from the pit that had been so long its prison to infect the whole of creation. The shadow in my mind uncurled joyfully. They always take something from you, Wychelo had said but he’d been wrong too: in my case it had given something back.

  All around me the darkness was filled with roaring triumph. The world was about to shift: nothing was going to be the same again. I could feel the change coming. Let’s see what happens.

  I was the Unlucky Man I thought, not for myself but for everyone else.

  The shadow rushed around me, filling my mind with its victorious, jubilant roar, as it spilled from the well that had been its prison for so long to drown the world. I heard within the laughter of the beast.

  I am the Unlucky Man and I have pulled the world into hell.

  But this isn’t the end for me.

  I’m coming back.

  And I’ll set things right.

  I’ll have my revenge.

  Or die trying.