There’s a sound. It wakes me.

“Hey, buddy!”

I open my eyes. There’s a bus. The driver is leaning towards his open doors.

“You getting on?” says the driver. He’s smiling at me like he knows what’s going on.

Probably thinks I’m drunk. I’m at one of those covered bus stop thingies. I don’t remember how I got here. I was so tired after my apartment building. My guess is I just plopped down the first place I could. I don’t think I’ve ever been as exhausted in my life. Even now I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. I know I’m not drunk because I don’t drink. There’s a history of alcoholism in my family and I’ve never been tempted to try and dodge that particular bullet.

“Buddy?” says the driver again and I realize I haven’t answered him.

I shake my head and wave my hand. “Nope, sorry. Just got tired. Sat down and nodded off.”

The guy grins and nods. He closes the doors and the bus whines and grumbles away.

I check my watch. It’s dead. No way to charge it. I go to reach for my phone and remember that it’s gone. Along with the bar and Nick and a prospective date.

It’s still dark. I try to remember if the bus service runs all night in this town but I have no idea. My guess would be no, but that’s all it would be, a guess. At any rate, I don’t know if that was the last run on a late night or the first one of the early morning. It feels like the latter but I don’t trust it.

Dammit, I need a bed and rest.

I check my wallet knowing there’s only twenty dollars in cash in there I keep for emergencies. I use my bank card for everything else.

Right. Will it work?

Gotta be an ATM around here somewhere. I can check without embarrassing myself at the front counter. If it works, I'll get some money out and rent a hotel room.

I’m about four blocks from home. There should be a bank on the next block. I try not to use it since it’s not mine and the fees do add up, don’t they? But it’s close so I do sometimes anyway. Only they don’t have a machine for pedestrians so I feel a little weird walking through the drive-thru lane to put my card in the machine and type in my code.

I’m not even surprised when the thing eats it. It doesn’t say anything. There’s no alarm or warning. It just goes back to its home screen like nothing ever happened.

Great.

Huh. This time there wasn’t any sign of the darkness in my vision growing. Just like there wasn’t in front of my apartment door before I opened it. So, sometimes I get a clue good or bad things happen and sometimes I don’t?

It feels like there should be more to it than that. I'm missing something. Probably a lot of things.

A couple of times now it felt like I, I don't know, moved things the way I wanted them to go. When I was falling down the stairwell I… pushed. Okay, it wasn’t pushing. There was nothing physical to it at all. That’s the closest I can come to explaining how it felt. I shoved and the light flared and I was saved when the chains caught me.

The chains, by the way, are gone now. They were dragging on the ground behind me as I ran. I remember that. I must’ve thrown them away but I don’t remember for sure.

And now I’m standing here at the ATM like an idiot. If I don’t keep moving I think I’ll just slump to the ground and curl up to sleep.

I need a place to sleep. I can’t get that for twenty bucks. I can’t call anybody. I don’t have my phone and don’t know anybody’s number anyway. I guess I could go in to work and see who’s there. I’m friendly with most of the people there and the newspaper has someone on staff all night, just in case, but I’ve only been there a few months and I’m not thrilled imposing on anybody there. Most of my money still comes from the freelance stuff I do and the gig economy doesn’t encourage close friendships. Maybe there's a shelter or something but I have no idea where one might be.

No, if I want to sleep the best way to do that is to find a way to turn twenty dollars into, well, more than that.

There’s a convenience store two blocks over.

There’s a clock over the clerk’s head. It’s a little after five in the morning. I figure I must’ve passed out for a few hours at the bus stop then. It didn't seem to do much to rest me.

I’ve never bought a scratch-off lottery ticket in my life. They’re behind the guy. He’s a little taller than I am and skinnier. His hair is long and needs a good wash. He looks as tired as I am.

I ask him for one of the ten-dollar scratch-offs and he indicates a row of them.

I concentrate for a moment. I really need this to work. I try to remember how it felt in the stairwell when I was falling and then I push. Hard.

There’s a flash of light but it’s different. There’s an afterimage, almost like a photo negative maybe? I blink, knowing even as I do so that none of this has anything to do with my eyes.

I point. “The green one there, please,” I tell the guy.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He tears it off and rings it up. I pay him.

I pat my pockets, looking for a coin. You’re supposed to use a coin, right? I don’t find one.

I check the pockets of my coat.

The guy clears his throat. He’s holding out the ticket, fake smile in place.

“Thanks,” I say.

“You fucked up your coat,” says the guy. That's putting it mildly. There are great big holes around the hips where the chains were torn out and there's a split in the middle.

“Yeah. One of those nights.”

I pull out a tiny square of paper. It’s part of a movie ticket. The Return of the King. How long was this coat in the lost and found? Hey, this coat's been abandoned for years. I feel better about taking it.

“You can use your keys,” says the clerk.

“Sorry?”

“Your keys?” He pantomimes scratching off the ticket. I don’t get the sense that he’s trying to be rude. He’s personable enough how he's saying stuff, I guess. I figure we’re both just tired.

I move down the counter out of the way, even though there’s no one else in the store right now. I take up my apartment key and, after reading through the directions a few times, start scraping away the silvery gray crap.

There’s a thrill when I realize I’ve won!

Holy shit! I can win the lottery whenever I want?

“What? Did you win?” asks the clerk.

“Yeah!” I say. I show him the card. “Does it say what I think it does?”

He leans over and squints. “Dude,” he says. “That’s twenty thousand dollars!”

I look again, double-check the directions, and, yep, I’ve won twenty thousand dollars!

“Hand it over.”

I look up and the clerk has a shotgun leveled at me.

“What?” I say. This was not how I thought this would go.

“I’m sorry, man, but I need that money more’n you.” He racks a shell into the chamber. A sound I’ve only ever heard in video games. “Hand it over.”

“Why do you have a shotgun?”

“Convenience stores get robbed a lot,” says the guy.

“Is this going to work out for you?” I ask. I can’t help it.

“Probably work out better if there were no complaining witnesses and I’m the hero that stopped a robbery.”

"Aren't there cameras?"

"I'll delete the files. What do you care? You'll be dead." The clerk shrugs. "Armed robbery." He hefts the shotgun. "Self-defense."

“I’m not even armed!”

“I’ve got another gun in my car, man. I’ll drop it on you and be in Ecuador before the cops figure it out.”

I doubt it’ll work out that way for him but it doesn’t seem like it’s the time to say so. I wonder why I’m not more scared.

“Look,” I say. “I’ll make you a deal. I’m pretty sure that I can win again.” I nod toward the wall of scratch-offs. “Let me try. I’ll even pay for another ten-dollar one, right? I bet I can do it. You can have whichever one wins the most, okay? I just really need to get some sleep.”

The guy snorts. “I can’t think of a single reason not to,” he says. He keeps the gun on me as he rings up another sale.

I point to the black and gold ones and push.

“Do it right here,” says the clerk.

I oblige. I take my time to read the directions carefully once more. I don’t want to screw things up now. When I’m done, I show him.

He takes it and his eyes go big. “Ten thousand? Again? I’ve never seen anybody win twice like that and I’ve worked here ten years!”

“So, you keep the twenty and I’ll take the ten,” I say. “Um, do you do that here? Cash 'em?”

The clerk’s eyes have glazed over and he replies in a distant voice. “No, man. There’s an app run by the state.”

Shit. I need a phone. I look around but there’s no display near the register for any cheap cells. When I turn to the guy to ask, the barrel of the shotgun is an inch from my eye.

“I’ll be taking that one too,” says the clerk.

“We had a deal.”

“Deal. No deal. I’m the guy with the gun,” says the clerk. He shrugs one shoulder so the gun doesn't move.

“Good movie,” I say.

“What?”

I knock the gun up with my hand.

It goes off with a horrific bang.

I duck and run for the door and I hear another shell racked into the shotgun. I start to push. I stumble and nearly fall.

The bottom half of the glass door explodes into tiny squares right in front of me. The way it's fallen onto the sidewalk makes it look like a galaxy.

I dive through and roll off the curb into the parking lot. I get to my feet and hurl myself toward the corner of the building. If he’s coming after me, he’ll either have to hurtle the counter or come around it. Either way, he’ll have another shell jacked in by now.

The window to my left is blown out with a crash and I’m pelted with glass. Nothing worse hits me and I’m past the rest of the windows and to the corner of the store, nice solid brick between me and Billy the Clerk.

There’s a thin strip of woods here between the store’s lot and the strip mall next door. I bound my way through it, branches and weeds whipping at me, stinging my hands and face, pulling at my legs and coat.

I’ve got the ten-thousand-dollar winning ticket in my hand though. With no way to cash it.

I keep moving though I slow down a bit. I’m a block away from the store and I keep looking behind me to see if he’s followed.

He hasn’t and my guess is he’s making up a story for his boss and the police. I’ll be hearing sirens, again, any moment now.

Jesus Christ. All I want is some sleep. I’ve got ten thousand dollars but no way to use it and I’ll be lucky if I’m not in a jail cell within the next ten minutes.

Luck.

Is that what this is?

Out here on the street by the strip mall, the light and dark patches and swirls in my vision don’t move much and seem to be equally balanced. In the restaurant’s bar, there was more dark while the eating area was more light. So there's that. And I’m sure that with the car crash, the fall down the stairwell, and the convenience store the light won over the dark each time, but what is it I'm 'seeing?'

If not luck, maybe probability?

I have no idea.

I’m well past the strip mall now. It’s probably best if I avoid any direct routes to the convenience store, so I take the right at the next intersection into a residential neighborhood. I hear sirens now and if I see the lights getting close I should be able to get into some bushes or something. The best thing for me to do now, I think, is walk like I belong here. Wave at anybody driving by. That kind of thing.

The adrenaline, again, is leaving my system, again, and I’m having trouble putting one foot in front of another.

Up ahead, I hear a door close. I see a man in a suit hurry down his driveway five houses away like he's late to work or something. He gets in his car, starts it up, and backs it up. When he’s completed the turn and is about to head off, the car stalls.

I see him have a bit of a tantrum, pounding on the wheel and shaking his head before he gets out and slams his car door closed. He’s got his phone to his ear. Whoever he’s trying to call doesn’t answer, and he stabs fingers on the screen, texting someone.

He looks up and sees me when I’m still one house away.

I wave and smile.

He rolls his eyes. “I’m having a morning,” he tells me.

I can relate. “Car won’t start?” I say.

“Know anything about them?”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Uber it is then.”

I nod. “Your wife can’t take you?”

“I live alone.”

“Want me to help you move it out of the way?” I ask. I mean, why not? This guy isn’t quite having the day I’m having but still, I can help.

The guy smiles and says, “Yeah, would you?”

He opens the driver’s side door and steers while I push the sedan from behind and for once nothing explodes, no guns are pulled, no bodies pop out of the trunk. The swirls leave me the hell alone.

We push the man’s car so it’s parked along the curb and he thanks me.

We’re still shaking hands when his ride shows up. He waves and leaves.

I try the rear door. It’s unlocked so I slide in, cover myself with the coat, turn over, and I’m asleep in moments.