A Wish From The Devil

CHAPTER 9: If Wishes were Horses

{Tides are nothing like they make them out to be in pictures…}

*****

It was just noon in the town of Kanti and the sun was high up in the sky shining as brightly as it wanted to,

Everyone was going about their daily business and the only food market they had was packed full with people wishing to buy and sell their goods which made it all rowdier as they bargained back and forth,

In the midst of everyone was Ray, who wearing his multi-coloured outfit stood out a little from the crowd,

He carried a single nylon in his hand walking out of the food section at a slow pace with his face down, not looking up to meet eyes with or look at the people passing by him,

He felt sad about the fact that he not only lost all the money he thought he would gain but in the process he also lost all his gang members whom although he didn't consider to be his friends but he knew them long enough to call them close acquaintances,

He was walking out of the market area fully having spent all the money he had on food, opting to fill his belly instead of spending it on transportation when he suddenly heard someone call out to him,

Ray didn't consider the day to be a good day for him and even on a normal day he wouldn't have paid attention to the shop owners or sellers trying to grab buyers attention with all the weapons in their arsenal,

However, the shout had been different in a way that he couldn't even explain to himself, he heard it and immediately his head whipped to his left side until it came to land on a very old and scrawny beggar,

"Hey! Yeah you," said the beggar by the street as Ray pointed at himself wondering why such a person was asking him to go to him,

At first, Ray had no plans to and was even about to turn his face forward and continue on his way when his curiosity won in the end and he decided to figure out what such a person could want from him apart from money,

"What is it, Old man?" Asked Ray with an annoyed tone in his voice, a little self-conscious about talking to a beggar, as he stepped closer to the man to speak to him in a way that only he would be able to hear,

"Well you seem down, young man," the beggar replied with a snaky smile on his lips, which didn't go well with the rags he wore and how badly he smelt,

"Well you look and smell worse," replied Ray in an almost exasperated manner as he scrutinised the beggar in front of him while wondering why it was taking him so long to ask for money from him that way he could quickly turn him down, and be on his way,

"Fine. Here you go," Ray said pulling the single coin left in his pocket, which was barely enough to get water with, tossing it at the beggar in front of him watching him catch it without hesitation,

"That's all I have and the funny thing is I feel like you definitely need it more," he said, spotting the empty bowl in front of him while wondering why not a single person had given him anything since morning,

"My name is Lucy, but I like to think of myself as a morning star, despite my obvious unfortunate circumstances," said the beggar with a smile and this made Ray chuckle surprised to find that the man in front of him actually had a sense of humour,

"okay. My name is Ray and as of now, I'm an ex-robber," he said whispering the last part while looking around a little in fear,

Since there wasn't a worse place to confess to being a robber like the middle of a rowdy market, where sellers were always on the lookout for people like that,

"Really?" Asked Lucy, raising his eyebrows in amusement lifting his filthy hands and placing them on his chin,

"Yeah," nodding his head to confirm what he had just said, feeling a little relieved to talk to someone especially when the person he was talking to didn't seem to believe the words he said,

"Okay. Since you gave me something then it's only right for me to give you something in return," Said Lucy with his hair now hanging halfway across his face, allowing only one of his eyes to be seen as he looked up at Ray, before tossing a coin at him, the moment he brought it out of his pocket,

Catching it on instinct, Ray immediately raised it up to his face to inspect it,

"It's just a black coin," Ray said unable to hide the disappointed tone in his voice,

"Nope. Its a wishing coin and you only get one wish that's permanent unless you find another coin which is almost impossible, since only I and a handful of people give them out," Lucy began to explain only to notice early that Ray wasn't paying attention and had zoned out at one point while he was talking,

Lucy was about to draw Ray's attention back to him when he suddenly watched him burst out in laughter before speaking,

"A wishing coin? Really?" He asked finding it hard to believe anything that he just heard from the beggar,

"If it's really a wishing coin then why the hell haven't you used it, ehn?" Ray went ahead to ask, as he stared intently at the black coin in his hand which had two crossed swords as the only insignia on one side, while the other was blank as dark as the night,

It was a strange and slightly alluring coin, however, Ray did not for a second believe that it was able to grant any wishes,

"Like I said my name is Lucy. And I give out the coins, I don't use them. Moreover, it's a shortcut and like all shortcut's there are usually unfortunate encounters to be found. It's up to you to use it if you want to," said Lucy with a shrug of his shoulders conveying the feeling that he didn't really care whether Ray believed him and used the coin or not,

Shaking his head with a slight smile on his face, Ray wondered why he was even having a full-blown conversation about wishes with a beggar that was so badly dressed he could be mistaken for a madman,

"Thanks for the coin," he finally said keeping the coin he had been given in his leg pocket, turning around and was about to leave when he heard Lucy unexpectedly speak again,

"If you use the coin, then I'll be seeing you around, Ray," he said with a smile seeming happy all of a sudden for a reason that Ray could understand,

However, instead of replying, Ray just kept on walking, raising his left hand up as a way of saying bye,

Leaving the market entirely, Ray immediately headed home with the small amount of foodstuffs he had gotten, wanting nothing more than to be in the safety of his own home,

*************

However, gunshot sounds were the first thing that he heard the moment he passed the alley leading to his building,

It was still too early in the afternoon and he hadn't been expecting anything bad to happen, so the moment he heard the sound of a gun being fired,

Ray ignored the direction or the source of was coming from and began to walk as fast as he could towards his building with his sole aim being to enter his room,

"If today is an unlucky day, then it's better to be unlucky inside my room than outside where a f*****g aeroplane might as well crash on my head," he thought, entering his building and instantly heading to the second floor where he lived,

Mentally and physically tired, he began murmuring the amount of footsteps he took underneath his breath, as he walked up the stairs and in the direction of his room making sure to avoid every single person he passed by a long gap, since it was usually at the point of victory that something unimaginable usually pops up,

"I'll be fine once I get inside. Once I'm inside, nothing else can go wrong," Ray muttered underneath his breath, only for his mood to lighten the second he discovers how only a few steps were needed for him to get to his single room,

On getting to the front of his door, almost as his and off switch, clicked on in his brain, Ray immediately remembered the usually battered state of his apartment and especially the missing handle on his obviously open door,

Pushing it wider to the side to be able to get in, Ray almost dropped the only nylon he held in his hand out of shock the moment he was able to clearly see the state of his apartment,

"well...there goes everything," he thought as he looked around at the empty state of the apartment,

His bed was gone and even all the wet clothes that he had left behind in the morning were gone too. His room was practically empty and the only thing that seemed to remain was the fancy curtains that hung on the window that didn't even belong to him,

Ray stepped into his apartment and immediately sank to the ground as tears filled the edges of his eyes as he tried his best to ensure that they didn't fall,

Suddenly he began to chuckle lightly while speaking aloud to himself,

"It's like being homeless but with a roof on my head," scoffed Ray as he sat down on the bare floor, speaking to no one else but himself, only for him to begin to stare into space as he wondered what the hell he was going to do since he was penniless and how he currently wore everything he owned,

Understanding the foolishness of thinking about the things he couldn't change, Ray opened the nylon containing the foodstuffs he had just gotten as he began to take them out, slowly throwing and munching on them one after another,

"The least I can do is to suffer on a full stomach," thought Ray as he continued to munch on his food…

Night fell in no time, with Ray deeply asleep on the floor with no signs of stirring awake when a big rat ran across him, stopping for a second right beside him to nibble at his ears, which immediately jerked him awake, his eyes doing their best to adjust to the darkness around him,

The room he was in was pitch black even with the door wide open as no outer lights were lighting up the building and the only shadows of lights that could be seen were those sliding out from underneath the doors or windows of the apartments of owners with enough extra cash to pay the light bill,

"I might as well wish for light," thought Ray as he remembered the incident he had with the beggar, sliding his hands into his leg pocket to pull out the strange black coin that he had given out,

Unable to make out its shape, Ray merely traced his fingers along the edges of it, before suddenly chuckling aloud as he thought of all the things he wished he could have and all the things he didn't,

Ray sat in an empty apartment, listening to the scuttling of rats all around him, as he slowly got depressed remembering how horrifying it had been to watch his gang mates get shot,

" Furrrrrrrrrrrck!," he suddenly yelled out loud with all his strength feeling the tears he had been bottling up all day well up at the edge of his eyes as they prepared to fall,

Gripping the coin in his hands as tightly as he could and with all the energy he could muster, almost like a joke to himself, he spoke,

"I wishh this world didn't exist," he growled from the bottom of his heart feeling his heart thumping in his chest almost as if it was about to explode,

Seconds went by, as he listened for anything, only for him to feel the darkness and the feeling of the cold air of the night on his skin along with the mosquitoes that came with it,

With a scoff, as a whiff of air passed sharply through his nostrils,

"Well, I guess if wishes were horses then even mergers would ride them," said Ray, taking a sad deep breath as he laid his back down against the wall, closing his eyes since he didn't see the need to keep them open with the already pitch black environment of his apartment,

" What the hell am I going to do?" Ray thought, thinking about faraway things and a way for him to get through the coming week or even the next day,

However, unknown to him, Ray was unaware that the black coin he had been gripping tightly in his hand was gone, and nowhere to be found.