The town of Hollow's Bend was not the sort of place that produced miracles.
It was a small place, one that was quiet, and that lived under a sky that always felt like the color was a little too dark.
People here talked in hushed tones, bearing centuries of superstitions as though they were heirlooms.
But they all agreed on at least one thing Elias Thorne should have died a hundred times.
Elias was a drunk and a reckless driver; he was an infamous figure.
He was the sort of man who fell into trouble and somehow swaggered back out of it, grinning as if the devil had his back.
Every bar brawl, every carriage accident, every knife drawn in anger, it never so much as scratched him.
He'd fall on ice but come up on his feet.
He'd drop from a rooftop and walk away unscathed.
The locals chalked it up to luck, while others were certain there was more to it.
Elias hadn't always been like this.
As a boy, he was reserved and contemplative, forever observing the world with a wary gaze.
He came from humble roots, born to a seamstress and a dockworker, and his early life was one of struggle.
His father, Robert Thorne, was a tough man with rough hands and a temper that snapped like a whip.
His mother, Abigail, had a tender voice but carried sadness in her bones.
She died when Elias was 10, swept away by a fever that stalked the town like a reaper in the night.
His father never bounced back, sinking into a bottle and silence.
Elias was forced to learn how to survive on his own.
He gambled, he brawled, and he stole when necessary.
The streets of the town were his classroom, its taverns his sanctuary.
By the time he was sixteen, he was running with outlaws, his name spoken in the same breath as highwaymen and card sharks.
But even then, he was different no matter how deep in trouble he got, he never had to pay for it.
He first became aware of the amulet on his twentieth birthday.
A strange old woman had approached his table in a smoke-filled tavern there and had placed a small, tarnished pendant down before him.
"A present," she had said, her voice as crispy as fall leaves.
"For the one who strides between fate and fortune."
He had laughed as if it were some trick, but something in her gaze had kept him there.
He slipped the amulet into his pocket, and his life changed forever.
He won every gambling event and exited every brawl.
Blades missed their mark.
Bullets never found him.
He should have been dead a dozen times over, but luck cocooned him like an armor.
Shortly after midnight, Elias staggered out of The Black Rose Tavern smelling of whiskey and sweat, his coat slung over one shoulder.
A storm gathered a few hills away, the air heavy with the aroma of rain and something else something pestiferous.
His hand shook as he lit a cigarette, the match sputtering in the wind.
The muffled hum of drunken laughter faded behind him as the tavern door closed.
"Elias, you son of a bitch," a voice said.
He turned to see old Caleb, the barkeep, standing in the doorway, arms crossed.
"Someday, you're going to push your luck too far."
Elias smirked.
"It hasn't happened yet."
Caleb nodded and spat on the dirt road.
"That didn't happen 'cause somethin' is watchin' over you. "And things that watch, boy… they always want somethin' back."
Elias turned his gaze toward the ground and walked unsteadily down the vacant road.
The town's lights flickered, strobing long, nervous shadows.
He heard the creak of a sign swaying in the wind, the distant yowl of some mangy hound, but something else tugged at the fringes of his perception.
Not fear, not quite, a feeling. Just a whisper of unease.
His neck prickled as he turned a corner.
He wasn't alone.
Three men loomed in the alley up ahead, their faces half-enshrouded in darkness. Strangers.
Not the typical farmhands or tired travelers.
These men had a hunger about them, a sense of purpose.
One came forward, tall and skinny, his coat failing to hide the grip of a blade.
"Elias Thorne," the man drawled, his voice slick as poisoned honey.
"Been lookin' for you."
Elias drew slowly on his cigarette, blowing the smoke through his nose.
"Is that so? Well, I'm not too much into conversation, so if you're selling' something, get the hell out of here."
The man laughed, his companions moving in tighter.
"Oh, we ain't selling nothing. We're collecting'.
You see, the word is, you got something real valuable on you."
Elias didn't flinch. "Is that right? "
The stranger nodded.
"A charm. An amulet.
And the kind that gets a man through hell and keeps him smiling'."
Elias stiffened.
The amulet.
He could sense it on him now, a cold weight on his chest concealed under his shirt.
He'd had it as far back as he could remember. He never questioned it, never asked why fortune curled around him like a happy dog. Until now.
"I don't know what you're talking' about," Elias lied.
The man beamed, and in the dim light, Elias saw the sharp gleam of his teeth. "Oh, I think you do."
Then suddenly, the man sprang forward.
Elias acted on instinct, backing away, but the stranger was quick too quick.
A knife gleamed in the darkness, heading for his throat.
And then…
Nothing.
The knife was supposed to cut through his skin.
Should have opened him up and poured him on the cold earth.
But instead it halted an inch from his flesh, the air around it quaking as though it could not bear the weight of its own force. The man staggered back, his face momentarily vacant.
Elias grinned. "Bad luck, friend."
He swung a fist, hitting the man across the jaw.
One lunged from the other side, but Elias ducked, the motion seamless as if an invisible hand steered him. A gun went off a loud, jarring crack and then the bullet misaligned, burying itself into a wooden post rather than his skull.
The men hesitated now.
They had come expecting a sot, an easy mark.
But Elias was something else. Something protected.
The leader growled, rubbing at his jaw.
"That amulet isn't just luck, eh?"
Elias cleaned the blood from his knuckles.
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
A shadow fell across the alley, the storm moving in quickly.
The men exchanged glances. "I don't like this," one said, stepping back.
Then the leader took an unexpected turn.
He smiled.
"Do you think fortune favors your side, Thorne? That's sweet. Real sweet." Read the original story.
He stepped slowly back into the darkness.
"But luck, my friend… luck will always run out."
And with that, they disappeared into the night.
Elias breathed, hearing his own pulse throbbing in his ears.
He felt the amulet under his shirt, cold metal against his fingertips.
It was pulsing.
Alive.
For the first time in his life, Elias thought he should be scared.
Thunder pealed overhead, and the rain fell in sheets.
Somewhere in the dark, something watched. And waiting.
The rain hadn't let up.
It hammered on the rooftops, drummed on the cobbled streets, filling the air with the smell of damp earth and something else something metallic, something like blood in the water.
He held out the amulet, dropped it in the pocket of his robe, and waited.
The men were gone, but the warning lingered in him like a disease.
Luck always runs out.
He breathed shakily for a long time and went home.
The rickety boarding house where he sought shelter wasn't much, but it had a roof over his head, and right now, that was all he needed.
As he walked in, dripping all over the wooden floors, the old landlady, Mrs. Hargrove, took one look at him, which would have turned milk sour.
"You smell like trouble."
Elias smiled, flexing out his coat.
"That's just whiskey and regret, ma'am."
She scoffed as she returned to her knitting, muttering about "damn fool men" and "early graves." He trudged up the narrow staircase to his bedroom, locking his door and collapsing onto the rickety bed.
His fingers played along the edge of the amulet tucked under his shirt.
For years he had considered it little more than some oddity, a bizarre piece of good luck. But now … now he didn't know.
A gust of wind rattled the window, and for a brief moment, he could have sworn he saw something outside.
A shadow.
A silhouette in the alley below. Watching.
His blood turned cold.
Elias stayed awake that night.
He lay there in the dark, listening to the storm and the steady pounding of his own pulse.
When morning broke, he discovered the rain had scrubbed the streets but the sensation of being hunted remained.
He needed answers.
The thing was, there was only one person who might have had them, and Elias had spent the last five years trying to forget he ever knew her.
Madame Vasquez operated a business that was not a business at all. No signs, no windows; just a heavy wooden door sandwiched between a pair of buildings that had seen better days.
The sort of place people came only when the desperation outweighed their better instincts.
Elias rapped his knuckles against the door, then moved back, tobacco in his hands. The chill in the air pierced through his coat, and the unease twisting in his gut was far worse.
After a pause, the door creaked open.
A woman silhouetted in the soft light, dark curls spilling over her shoulders, eyes like polished onyx.
She looked at him for a long moment before smiling.
"Well, well," she purred.
"If it isn't Elias Thorne."
He sighed. "Vasquez. You are…" Arrives… unsettling as ever."
She smiled and moved aside so he could enter.
It smelled of incense and old paper, shelves filled with strange things and relics alive with invisible energy. Elias had never liked the place.
Vasquez sat on a stool, looking at him with that same knowing look that she always had.
So what brings you crawling back so many years later?
Another lost bet? A curse you need lifted?"
Elias took the amulet from under his shirt and laid it on the counter.
"Tell me what the hell this is really."
The smirk faded.
Vasquez reached, her fingers grazing the metal.
For a flash, something passed across her face something near terror.
"Where did you get this?"
"You don't know?"
"I didn't say that."
Elias clenched his jaw.
"It was given to me by an old woman when I was twenty.
Said it was a gift.
And I haven't lost a fight or gotten seriously injured since then.
It started to leak out; people began talking about it.
Some men came looking for it last night."
Vasquez did not speak, her eyes surveying his face as though looking for something buried.
Finally, she exhaled.
"You idiot."
He arched a brow.
"Well, that's new."
She lifted off the glove, ignoring him as she stood up suddenly and went to a locked cupboard.
he dug out a leather-bound book, flipping through yellowing pages until she landed on one.
She turned it toward him.
The drawing was crude but clear enough.
The same amulet.
This time, though, it was shown dangling from the neck of a man who lay bleeding on an altar, a dagger lodged in his chest.
Elias frowned. "That's… comforting."
Vasquez shot him an angry glance.
"This isn't some good luck charm, Thorne.
This is old magic.
The kind that refuses to give it only takes."
A fear ran cold through his bones.
"What does it take?"
She hesitated.
This kind of protection… it comes with a debt.
The longer you wear it, the more it gathers.
It keeps you safe, yes, but it'll come knocking one day, and expect to collect. And when it comes, you can't negotiate your way out of it."
Elias swallowed hard.
"So what do I do once my luck runs out?"
Vasquez returned his gaze, her expression grim.
You don't just die, Elias.
You vanish.
Like you never existed.
His chest tightened. He thought of every time he should have died.
All those times that fate had curtsied in his favor.
Had all of those moments contributed to the debt? How long did he have before the amulet came to collect?
He stood abruptly.
"So then I have to get rid of it."
It made Vasquez laugh, a noise like a knife breaking wind.
"If it was that simple, don't you think someone would have done it? It's not the kind of thing that just releases.
It chooses its wearer.
The only way to be freed of it…" She paused, suddenly reluctant.
Elias narrowed his eyes.
"What?"
She sighed.
You have to pass it on.
It has to be willingly taken by someone else."
A dense silence lay between them.
Elias clenched his fists.
"So I either have to live with a ticking curse or ruin someone else's life? "
Vasquez was unblinking.
"That's the choice."
His stomach turned.
His entire life, he had survived; he had beaten the odds, but this … this was different.
This wasn't just luck. It was a contract he had never signed, a game he had never consented to play.
A sharp knock at the door startled them both.
Vasquez's eyes darkened. "Did you bring company?"
Elias shook his head, muscles coiling. Whoever it was, they were not friendly.
The knocking returned this time, louder.
Then a voice, rich and recognizable, oozed through the wood.
"Elias Thorne… I hope you aren't considering running."
His blood ran cold. It was the guy from last night.
Vasquez's face was inscrutable.
"You should leave. Now."
Elias gripped the amulet tightly.
For the first time in his life, he wasn't certain whether his good fortune was a blessing or the noose tightening around his neck.
And with the turn of the door handle, he knew the moment was upon him.