Leo's world had always been a storm. It was never clear skies or calm seas. It was always clouds, dark and angry, swirling overhead, ready to burst at any moment. And it always did.
From the day he was born, he'd been cursed. Not with a tragic fate, not with some grand destiny that required him to rise above. No, Leo had been cursed with bad luck. If something could go wrong, it would. If a door could slam shut in his face, it would. If an opportunity could slip through his fingers, it did. And no one ever gave him a break. Not his parents. Not the world. Not even the universe itself.
He grew up in the heart of the city's worst neighborhood—where gunshots were as common as the hum of streetlights, and the smell of stale beer and garbage never quite faded from the air. It was a place where dreams went to die, suffocated under the weight of crime, poverty, and despair. But in this hellhole, Leo had learned to survive. He had no choice.
From the age of twelve, when most kids were still playing video games or hanging out at the mall, Leo had been forced to do things no kid should ever have to do. His first job was running messages for the local mafia. His mother had begged him to stay home, but what choice did he have? Without the gang's protection, without their money, they'd be dead in a week. And so, Leo ran errands. Simple things. Deliver a package. Pick up some cash. It wasn't glamorous, but it was enough to keep him alive.
He hated it. Hated them. Hated the life he had been born into. But he had no way out. No one did.
As he grew older, things only got worse. He was no longer just running errands. He was carrying guns. Running drugs. Beating people up. Whatever the gang needed, Leo did it. He was smart—too smart for his own good—but luck was never on his side. No matter how careful he was, things always went wrong.
He could still remember the time he'd been set up. One of the guys in the gang had promised him a small job—just a quick hit on a rival dealer. Simple, he thought. Leo was good with a knife. Fast. Quiet. But the moment he walked into that abandoned warehouse, the door slammed shut behind him, and a dozen men with guns surrounded him. It was a trap.
"Leo, you've got a bad reputation, kid," the leader, a big guy named Vito, said with a sneer. "You're lucky you're still breathing."
Leo had fought his way out, but not without scars. His arm had been broken. He'd lost three fingers on his left hand. And even then, the universe wasn't done with him. He had been caught in a drive-by shooting while sitting on a stoop, just trying to get some air. The bullet grazed his ribs, but he walked away, like he always did, battered but alive.
That was the thing about Leo. No matter how bad it got, no matter how deep in the dirt he was, he always fought. He always survived. There was no other option.
But the scars piled up. His body was a map of his struggles, covered in bruises and cuts that told the story of his life. His soul, though, was a different story. Leo had learned to shut that down. His heart? Just a weight he dragged around, chained to his bad luck, cursed to never feel the warmth of hope.
When he turned eighteen, Leo thought he might finally get out. The mafia had no use for him anymore. They had discarded him like a broken tool, and he had finally freed himself from their grip. It felt like a victory at first, but deep down, he knew it was just the calm before the storm.
He'd taken a job at a mechanic shop. Nothing special. Just enough to keep the lights on and a roof over his head. He was ready to live a normal life, away from the violence, away from the bloodshed. It wasn't much, but it was something. Maybe—just maybe—this would be his shot at happiness.
But, of course, even that wasn't meant to last.
The first day on the job, Leo had barely started working when disaster struck. He had been fixing a busted radiator on a car, his mind on the task at hand, his hands steady, when the damn thing exploded in his face. Steam. Fire. A burst of hot metal. The next thing he knew, he was on the floor, his hands burned, his skin peeling away, and his vision swimming with the smoke and the pain.
It wasn't his fault. He had followed the instructions. But the world didn't care. The car hadn't been properly serviced before he touched it. Bad luck had caught up to him again.
By the time the paramedics arrived, Leo's body was covered in second-degree burns, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness. It was like a cruel joke. He had spent his entire life dodging death, only for it to catch up to him now, when he thought he had finally escaped it.
They told him the injuries were serious, but he'd survive. They gave him painkillers and sent him home. As the days passed, his body healed, but his spirit was crushed. It was as though the universe had decided that Leo wasn't allowed to have a happy ending. That every time he tried to climb out of the gutter, it would pull him right back in.
It was the worst thing that could happen—until something even worse did.
Leo's life ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. He was walking down the street, just trying to get some fresh air after a week of painful recovery, when he was hit by a car. One minute, he was walking, minding his own business. The next, everything went black.
No grand death. No heroic moment. Just a boy, crushed under the wheels of fate.
Leo's head hit the pavement with a sickening crack. Pain shot through his skull, but it didn't last long. His body felt numb, as though his entire existence had been drained out of him in that one cruel moment. The cold asphalt pressed against his cheek, the world spinning in a haze of dimming lights and distant sounds. He couldn't focus on anything—his vision blurred, and the muffled voices around him seemed to belong to another world entirely.
He could hear the distant wail of sirens, the frantic calls of people rushing to help, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
He had been through so much, so much worse than this, but this was different. This felt like it was the end—the real end, the one that nobody could escape. His breath was shallow now, his body refusing to cooperate. He tried to lift a hand, but it fell limp by his side. His body was too heavy. His fingers were cold. His chest rose and fell in shallow gasps, like he was struggling against an invisible weight pressing down on him.
Everything went dark.
For a long time, Leo simply existed in that nothingness. He wasn't sure how long it had been, but there was no feeling of time passing. It was just silence. A deep, suffocating silence that stretched on forever.
Then, suddenly, a noise. A soft, ethereal sound, almost like a voice. No, it wasn't a voice—it was a presence.
"You're not dead yet."
The voice wasn't from a person. It felt like it came from the air around him, vibrating through his bones, filling the space where his body had once been. The words didn't make sense at first. He couldn't comprehend them. He tried to speak, to move, but it was as if his mouth had disappeared, his tongue no longer obeying his commands.
"Get up," the voice said, this time with a tone of authority, sharp and demanding. "You still have a choice."
A choice?
Leo tried to focus, his mind cloudy with confusion. Was this… an angel? Some kind of afterlife? Or was this just the strange fog of death settling in?
"Who… who are you?" Leo whispered, though the words barely left his mouth, lost in the void.
"I am… what you need," the voice replied. It was strange, alien—like it didn't belong to any being he knew. It didn't sound human, but it also didn't sound entirely otherworldly. The voice was distant, as though it came from a different plane, but it held a weight of power.
The darkness around him began to shift, changing from the inky blackness of nothingness to something more tangible. A light appeared, not blinding but soft, as though the world around him was slowly coming into focus. But it wasn't a world Leo recognized. It was cold, barren—like standing in the middle of an infinite void, with no sky, no ground, just a place between realities.
"Where am I?" Leo asked, his voice shaky and weak, but there was a strange determination beneath the tremor. He wasn't ready to give up. Not yet.
"You are nowhere. But you're not dead either," the voice said, each word laced with something that felt almost like amusement. "You have been chosen to play a game. A game that will decide what happens next."
Leo didn't understand. His mind scrambled for answers. Was he dead or not? If he wasn't dead, why did it feel so final?
"A game?" Leo's voice cracked, his mind still foggy. "Why me? What do you mean, decide what happens next?"
"The game is simple, but the stakes are high. You will play to change your fate. To gain what you've always wanted—what you deserve. But…" The voice trailed off for a moment, as though weighing its words carefully. "To play the game, you must first make a sacrifice. A true sacrifice. Your bad luck, everything that has haunted you your entire life, must be given up."
Leo's heart raced, though he wasn't sure why. This felt wrong—too surreal, too impossible to believe. Was this a dream? A hallucination? He had to be dead, right? There was no way this could be real.
"What does that mean? My bad luck?" Leo asked, his throat tight.
"You've carried it with you your entire life, haven't you?" the voice said, its tone cold and indifferent. "That bad luck that's ruined everything. That bad luck that's never let you win. Never let you succeed. But now, you have a chance to change that. All you have to do is give it up. Give up the last shred of luck you have, and you'll have the opportunity to play for a new life."
Leo's mind spun. The bad luck—the thing that had been his constant companion, the thing that had turned every moment of his life into a battle—was that his curse or his destiny? Without it, who would he even be?
"Once you give it up, you will have no luck at all," the voice continued. "Everything you've known as bad luck will become infinitely worse. The universe will treat you as if you never had a chance. But if you win the game, you'll gain more than you can imagine. You will get everything you've ever wanted. Money. Power. A new life. No more suffering. No more pain. No more… bad luck."
Leo's mind raced. He knew what it meant. Giving up his bad luck meant living without it. Without the constant fight against fate. The opportunity for something better than this cursed life. But what would he lose in the process? Was it worth it?
"Why should I trust you?" Leo asked, though his voice wavered with uncertainty.
"I am not your enemy," the voice said, though there was a note of finality in its tone. "I am simply the one who offers you this choice. The game will not be easy. Many have tried and failed. But you… You're different. I can feel it. You were born into bad luck, but you've survived it. You've fought for it. Now, you'll have to fight for more than just survival."
The coldness of the void pressed in around Leo again, but it wasn't suffocating. It felt like something was being offered to him—something beyond his wildest dreams, yet also something that could break him if he wasn't careful.
Leo paused. He thought about his life. About the countless misfortunes, the things he never asked for but had been forced to endure. The pain. The endless struggle. Was it worth holding onto the last bit of luck he had, even if it meant he'd keep fighting for scraps his whole life? Or was this the chance to finally change everything?
"I'll play," Leo said, his voice steady but filled with determination. "I'm done with this. I'll take my chance."
The voice seemed to exhale a sound like a soft chuckle, as if it had been waiting for him to decide. "Very well. The game begins now. Prepare yourself, Leo. You'll need every ounce of strength to survive."
In an instant, the world around Leo shifted again. The dark void dissolved, replaced by something much more… real. A landscape that wasn't familiar but wasn't entirely strange either. The game had begun.