Lucky Blue

The twenty-year-old Lucky Blue was exactly what his name suggested: lucky... and blue. He wore blue clothes and dyed his hair the same shade. The only things that weren’t blue were his skin and... his eyes. His eyes were pitch black—so black that anyone who dared to look into them would feel a chill.

As for his luck, it had been unyielding from the moment he was born.

Twenty Years Ago...

His father had never wanted him. For reasons unknown, he was convinced the child would bring nothing but trouble. So, he plotted to stage the baby’s death and, without his wife knowing, abandon him at an orphanage—or worse, on the street. But fate had other plans.

The moment they were in the delivery room, as the baby’s first cry filled the air, the man felt a sharp pain in his chest. That was the last thing he ever felt.

"Heart attack," the doctors concluded.

"From the excitement of the birth of his son," his wife assumed.

To honor his memory, she named their child Lucky, just like his father.

Lucky remained lucky.

He was lucky when, as a child, he led the neighbor’s small dog onto a busy road. He threw a ball into the middle of it and urged the animal to fetch. It never returned. No one knew what had happened or who was to blame. People simply assumed the poor thing had gotten lost.

His luck didn’t end there. It followed him to school, where he stole the asthma inhaler of a classmate. The boy suffered an attack and had to be rushed to the hospital, barely escaping suffocation. Everyone believed he had simply misplaced it.

Even in his final year of high school, his luck never faltered. He trapped a younger student in the bathroom. Desperate to escape, she slipped, hit her head, and died. Everyone believed she had simply stumbled.

Now, at nearly twenty, his luck still hadn’t abandoned him. A few months earlier, he had stolen a woman’s wallet. Inside, he found a lottery ticket. When the numbers were drawn, he realized he had won first prize. He would never have to work a day in his life. Not that he had planned to. Until then, he had lived off his mother and grandparents, but now he was secure—no matter what happened to them, he had his own fortune.

He stood before the mirror, examining his chubby face and running a hand over his large belly. Then, he picked up the box of blue hair dye. He was a millionaire now. He could be as eccentric as he wanted, and no one would dare judge him.

A little while later, he admired his newly dyed hair.

He was no longer just Lucky, as his name suggested.

Now, he was also... Blue.

Today...

He stood beside his mother at his father’s grave. It was the twentieth anniversary of his death—and also his birthday.

Since he could remember, he had always found it strange that his birth and his father’s passing shared the same date. But after hours of contemplation, he had decided it was just another stroke of luck—one more thing that made him different from everyone else.

He stared down at the gravestone, his eyes locking onto the photograph of the smiling man. It might have been his imagination, but this time, the smile seemed... wider. Yet the photo hadn’t changed. How could that be?

A blue petal brushed against his nose, pulling him from his thoughts. He watched as his mother carefully placed a bouquet of blue roses on the grave. She turned to him, her eyes damp with tears.

"Shall we go?" she asked softly.

But Lucky, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong with the picture on the headstone, told her he wanted to stay a little longer. She embraced him, whispering how touched she was that he cared so much about the father he had never met.

Once she left, Lucky sat heavily on the grave, pulled out his phone, and began scrolling through old photos. He was certain he had taken some the previous year that showed his father’s image on the headstone. Absentmindedly, he dug a small hole in the dirt beside the neighboring grave. His fingers brushed against wildflowers, and an odd urge overtook him—he wanted to rip them out.

But for some reason, they wouldn’t budge.

He frowned and turned toward them. There were twenty daisies—one for each year that had passed—standing stubbornly before him. Irritated, he yanked harder. Finally, the stems snapped, and the flowers tumbled a few feet away. With a smug smile, he moved to collect them.

But what he saw next made his blood run cold.

A man dressed as a clown stood before him. He wore purple-patched trousers, an oversized orange coat with bulging pockets, a polka-dot bow tie, a matching hat, and floral slippers. But what truly made Lucky shudder—what sent a chill down his spine—were the man’s completely white eyes.

"Very convincing contact lenses," he thought.

Or... not?

The clown bent down, gathered the daisies, and held them out to Lucky. But as Lucky reached for them, the clown suddenly pulled his hand back and began retreating.

Irritated, Lucky lunged forward.

The clown took off, disappearing behind a large gravestone. Lucky followed, his breath heavy with frustration. The headstone bore the image of a young girl, and for some reason, she looked eerily familiar. But he didn’t dwell on it. He only cared about catching the clown.

And then, for the first time in his life... his luck failed him.

A faint barking sound echoed in the air, growing louder and louder.

Lucky froze.

The sound was coming from behind the gravestone. His heart pounded. Before he could investigate, a small dog emerged, carrying the bouquet of daisies in its mouth.

It wore a sweater the same shade as the clown’s coat, a collar with a polka-dot bow tie, and floral slippers. But what made Lucky tremble—what truly filled him with terror—were its completely white eyes.

And what terrified him even more was that he recognized this dog.

It was the same one he had sent into the street as a child.

The dog padded toward him. Lucky stumbled backward, his breathing uneven. He turned to flee, only to find himself standing directly behind the girl’s gravestone—the girl whose face he almost recognized.

His back pressed against the cold stone. His thick clothes did nothing to shield him from the chill. The barking stopped.

Silence.

His breath came in short gasps. His chest ached. Slowly, cautiously, he peeked out—

And saw something he should not have seen.

No dog. No clown.

Only a girl, crawling toward him on her hands and knees. Her eyes were white, just like the dog’s. A large patch of hair was missing from the right side of her head, replaced by a gaping wound, still bleeding.

And then, in an instant, he knew.

The gravestone he had been hiding behind?

It belonged to her.

The girl he had trapped in the school bathroom.

The girl who had died because of him.

She lunged. Lucky froze—just as the dog had, in the middle of the road. His breath hitched—just like his classmate’s, when he took his inhaler. And then—

A sharp pain pierced his chest.

Just like his father had felt... on the day he was born.

The last thought that passed through his mind before everything went dark was that he would never enjoy his winnings—just as the woman whose wallet he had stolen would never enjoy the money she had lost.

"Heart attack," the doctors concluded.

"From the grief of his father’s death," his mother assumed.

A clown with white eyes stood off to the side, watching as they carried away Lucky’s lifeless body. No one seemed to notice him—no one except the translucent figures of his father, the girl, and the dog who had died because of him.

They stood beside the grave of his final victim: the woman whose wallet he had stolen. She had been gravely ill, and the money he had taken would have paid for her treatment. When she discovered that the winning ticket had been hers, the shock shattered what little strength she had left. Soon after, she was gone.

The clown bent down and gently laid the bouquet of daisies on her grave.

"In memory of Daisy Matthews," he said in a steady voice.

And one by one, the figures began to fade.

That was the day Lucky Blue ceased to be lucky.

He was only blue.

And dead.