LUCKY

The teenager rolled over to his left side. He gasped and sighed sleepily. He had been dreaming a really weird dream. A dream where he’d woken up after getting hit by a train, and he met a crazy Madame, and a fat nerd called Chuck, telling him he was a mutant and a vampire that tried to eat him alive. Even if the dream had been really weird, it felt so real that the teenager at first thought it was true. But that was silly, nothing like that happen in this world.

The teenager suddenly realized that his whole body wobbled, like he was lying in a rocking cradle. Then he heard the wind howling and a chugging sound, beating in a steady rhythm. The teenager scowled. Where was he? He opened his eyes and saw that he was in a wooden room full of packages and sacks of letters. A slid door was half open and the teenager saw trees and landscapes swoosh by. He was on a train. The teenager sat up. He saw two ginger boys sitting on the floor opening packages. They played with the stuff inside and eventually put it in their mouths. Were they eating it?

‘Oh, you are awake!’ one of them said and gave the teenager a big smile.

‘Yay!’ the other burst out and put his hand up in the air ‘Finally, our hero is awake!’

Both crawled to the teenager and sat on either side of him. The teenager looked at them, confused. They looked exactly like the two boys in his dream. Or had it really been a dream?

‘W-who are you guys?’ the teenager said, still confused

‘Uuhm…’ the boys looked at each other ‘You saved us last night’ one of them said

‘Don’t you remember?’ the other said

‘Yes, of course!’ the teenager answered ‘I mean… what are your names and where do you come from and why was that woman messing with you?’

‘Ooh’ they said, and then they went silent, while looking at each other again. Finally, one of them spoke: ‘Her name is Mormo, she wanted to eat us’

‘Moron?’ the teenager raised an eyebrow

‘No, you moron!’ the other said and chuckled ‘Mormo, she’s a monster’

‘She can only feed on kids by biting them, like a vampire!’ the first one said and made two fangs with his fingers and hissed ‘I know that, ‘cause I’m smart!’

‘Yeah, right!’ the other one pursed his lips and crossed his arms ‘She told us that’

‘Shut up!’ the first one snapped and pushed the other so he fell over

‘Hey!’ the other one yelled and flew at him. They started wrestling and head-butted each other. The teenager looked at them, confused. His brain was still on sleep-mode and didn’t work at all.

‘Hey, HEY!’ the teenager shout down the boys, who stopped and looked at him ‘Stop fighting, it doesn’t matter’

The boys let each other go and crossed their arms while glaring at the other one. The teenager sighed and massaged his temples.

‘Geez, all this messed up shit makes me crazy!’ he whined ‘Why me?’

‘Who are you, then?’ a boy asked ‘And what has happened to you, you look like a pile of dirt!’

The teenager glared at him, a pile of dirt? He snorted; they didn’t have anything to do with it, why would he tell them?He shook his head and pulled his hand through his hair.

‘Well, I think I got hit by a train and lost my memory’ he answered shortly. The boys looked with big eyes at him. ‘Reeeeeaaally?!’ they said and leaned forward. ‘Tell us everything, please!’

The teenager hesitated, the boys gave him the sad puppy-face and he couldn’t resist laughing. They were like little kids that asked for a good story from grandpa. Not that the teenager liked to look like a grandpa, but it was nice to finally meet some that really seemed to believe him. Not a crazy nerd that couldn’t believe anyone else but his own theories like Chuck. Yeah, he’d been really nice to the teenager, he was really grateful for his help, but he felt another connection to these boys, like they also were a part of the same craziness the teenager was in.

‘Okay, okay’ he said and held up his hands ‘I’ll tell you then’

He told them his story from the very beginning; where he’d woken up on the railway track in the middle of nowhere. The boys were good listeners and “Ooh”-ed and “Aah”-ed every once in a while. They got scared when he described Madame Luck’s wagon and laughed at Chuck’s mutant-theory, even when they didn’t seem to know what X-men was.

The teenager rounded up the story with the last battle with Mormo the Moron, he only changed some details so it sounded more… heroic. He just couldn’t dare tell them he was about to leave them.

‘So I thought:’ the teenager said and held up a finger in the air ‘“Man, that girl is hurting smaller ones, I must do something!” So I make sure she turns her attention to me and attack me, so she thinks I’m an easy victim, then I say “Merry Christmas” and you guys knock her over, just like I planned!’

The boys hoorayed and clapped their hands.

‘That really was awesome’ one of them said ‘I think that was the best part!’

‘I like the Madame Luck-part. She seemed so scary’ the other one said and shuddered ‘May I see the keychain?’

‘Uh, sure’ the teenager said and brought out the keychain from his pocket. It was shining with green color and said ‘you’re LUCKY’ with big golden letters. The boys ah-ed and came closer.

‘What does it say?’ one asked

‘You’re lucky’ the teenager answered. He looked at the boys; he’d actually never looked closely at them. Their faces were full of freckles and they had forest-green eyes. They didn’t wear any shirt and had scratches in their surprisingly pale skin. Something that didn’t want to make sense in the teenager’s head was their pants. They looked like they were made of animal skin, and the legs inside seemed misshaped. And where were their feet? They had had stomps at the end of their legs, like hoofs, but that couldn’t be right! No one could get such an abnormality, right?

‘What’s up with your feet?’ the teenager asked. The boys gave him a confused look. The teenager took off one of his dirty and ripped converses. The boys put their own feet next to the teenager’s and compared the difference. Their eyes widened, like they never noticed that their feet were different.

‘Uuhm...’ The boys were speechless

‘Serieously, that can’t be real!’ The teenager gripped one of the boy’s legs too look closer. It really was fur from an animal and it was stuck on his leg, had he glued it? No, there was no sign for any sort of opening and the hoof-feet also seemed real.

‘W-what the hell?’ the teenager stuttered ‘What are you?’

The boys gave him a sad look. This was probably not the first time someone had freaked out because of their legs, but the teenager couldn’t resist finding it scary.

‘Who are you guys?’ he asked and swallowed ‘Like, what are you?’

The boys looked at each other, waiting for the other one to tell him.

‘We…’ one of them started ‘We don’t know’

‘Don’t you guys have any parents or anything like that?’

The boys shrugged and the other one added: ‘We’ve lived alone as long as we can remember’

‘Oh…’ the teenager felt speechless. So they didn’t have any idea of who they were, either?

‘Do you have any name, then?’ The boys shook their heads and looked down at the floor. The teenager could feel their sadness. He’d walked around for a day without knowing who he was and almost gone crazy; he couldn’t imagine how hard it would be going around his whole life without knowing.

‘So, you guys need names, then’ the teenager burst out and looked around in the goods van. He scratched the side of his head, accidently knocking off his sunglasses. He put them on before any of the boys could look him in the eyes. Then it came to him!

‘What about Ray and Ban?’ he said

The boys looked at him, almost shocked. Then they smiled widely.

‘That sounds awesome!’ one of them said

‘I want to be Ray!’ the other one said

‘Sure, Ray and Ban’ the teenager said and poked at them while saying their name. The boys started laughing and attacked the teenager with hugs and kisses.

‘Aah, please! Stop it!’ the teenager yelled, but soon he also started laughing. It felt good in his heart too see how happy they got. That must make up for that I almost abandoned them, he thought and smiled widely.

‘But you didn’t have name, right?’ the one now called Ban, suddenly said.

‘Yeah, we need to give you a name too!’ Ray said and flew up on his stump-feet.

‘Haha, what?’

The two boys put their heads together, literally, and started rabbling up what they called names.

‘Cool-dude!’

‘Awesome-man’

‘Dirt Pile!’
The teenager laughed nervously, he’d rather remain nameless than have any of those names.

‘Hey, guys, it’s ok’ he said and tried to get their attention ‘I don’t need any name…’

‘Of course you need!’ Ray said ‘We must call you something’

‘But those names are… Horrible’ the teenager was scared to hurt them, but they just looked confused.

‘Why?’ Ban said ‘I think they seemed pretty good, except Dirt Pile’

‘Hey, that was a good name!’

‘These aren’t really names’ the teenager explained ‘It’s just… made up words’

The boys scratched their chins and thought for a long while.

‘How did you come up with our names?’ Ban asked

‘Oh, from these glasses’ the teenager said and touched his Ray-Ban’s ‘The brand are called Ray-Ban’s so…’

‘So then we can also pick a name from something’ Ban said cheerfully and smiled

‘Yeah, exactly what I thought!’ Ray said and smiled, but the smile faded after only a few seconds ‘From where should we pick a name?’

‘There must be anything cool here’ Ban smiled and looked at all the packages in the goods van.

‘Exactly what I thought!’ Ray called.

Ban glared at Ray before he turned to the pile of packages. He sat down at started opening them, one by one. ‘Come on, help me searching!’



They sat for a long time and opened letters and packages. The boys turned to the teenager way to often and asked about the stuff they found. What it was called and if he could read what they said. They didn’t get much out of the things; it was pretty much just clothes, pottery and electronic stuff that the teenager had no idea of what it was.

Then, Ray picked up a little plushy from a small box and laughed. The teenager and Ban went over to him, curious over what he’d found.

‘What’s this stupid thing?’ Ray laughed and held up the plushy.

It looked like a cartoon character with orange hair, glasses, purple gloves and a white laboratory coat. The teenager recognized the character, but couldn’t put his finger on who he was.

Ban laughed ‘He looks so weird!’ he said and pointed at it and laughed so hard he started crying ‘So big head and little body and what’s wrong with his arms?’

Ray and Ban look and each other and laughed. They’d probably never watched cartoons before.

The teenager looked in the box where Ray had found the plush. He found a little note in the bottom hand-written with squiggly letters which made it hard for him to read.

‘To my lit-tle…De-Dexter’s la-lab lou- no, loving Max! Love, Gr and ma’ he read aloud. That’s right, Dexter’s lab sounded familiar. The teenager looked and the plush.

‘So, what is it?’ Ray and Ban asked while wiping their eyes from tears.

‘It’s a guy from a cartoon’ the teenager answered

‘Cartoon?’ Ray and Ban raised an eyebrow.

‘Like, TV, screens you can watch different things on. For kids’ the teenager tried to explain, but Ray and Ban didn’t seem to understand. ‘Anyway, he’s called Dexter. I think I used to watch it when I was little, he seems familiar.’

That’s right; he had surely watched it before. When he saw the plush, he just wanted to smile. It felt nostalgic, except that he actually didn’t remember watching it.

‘Hmm, Dexter’ Ray said ‘Sounds cool!’

‘Yeah, I like it!’ Ban agreed. They looked at each other and nodded.

‘Then we’re done!’ Ray said

‘Your name will be Dexter!’ Ban said

The teenager looked at them. Dexter. It felt… alright. It didn’t feel like him, but it was acceptable. Much better than Dirt Pile, anyway.

‘Okay, then’ the teenager said and smiled ‘From now on, we’ll be Dexter, Ray and Ban’

Ray and Ban hoorayed and, once again, attacked him with hugs and kisses. All of them laughed and smiled, none of them were alone nor nameless.

A train’s whistle interrupted in their celebrations. They felt how the train slowly started to slow down.

‘Come on!’ Ban said and walked to the slid door. ‘Let’s jump off before it stops completely’

‘Uuhm,’ Ray said and looked at the plush ‘May I take this one with me?’

‘Haha, sure!’ Dexter answered and grinned ‘Let’s go!’

The three of them waited until they found a good spot to land on; a small grass spot. Ray and Ban made it out pretty well; they jumped and rolled to soften down the fall. Dexter wasn’t a good jumper as them, and also, he misjudged and almost completely missed the grass spot. He groaned as Ray and Ban ran up to him

‘Are you okay?!’ they asked worriedly and helped him up.

‘Uuh, yeah’ he groaned ‘I just… slipped…’

He sat up to throw up next to him.

‘You were lucky, then!’ Ban gave him a faint smile ‘You could have died!’

‘Yeah, so lucky’ Dexter muttered.

Notes

If you missed it, I'd just like to say that I moved account due to log in via google seems not to be available anymore.