Alain's world expanded slowly, the way a river finds its path between stones. Days blurred into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years. Misfortune followed him still, patient and watchful, but he learned to move around it. Not to outrun it—he knew that was impossible—but to anticipate it, to dance just outside its reach.
By the time Alain was eight, he could thread his way through the schoolyard without tripping over careless stones or colliding with other children. He knew which benches were sturdy and which shelves trembled when leaned against. He learned to speak only when necessary, and even then, carefully, so that his words did not provoke accidents.
It was at nine that the first curse revealed itself fully.
It was a quiet autumn afternoon. Leaves scraped across the cobblestones outside the school, a soft, restless wind teasing the corners of the room. Alain sat near the back, his notebook open, pencil poised. A classmate's laughter rang out, sharp and careless, and a stack of books wobbled on the teacher's desk.
Alain noticed.
He leaned forward, hand outstretched, intending to steady the pile before it fell.
It did not topple.
Not yet.
But when he exhaled in relief, a single book slipped. A chain reaction followed—another fell, striking the floor with a hollow crash, then another. Pages scattered like frightened birds.
The teacher cursed softly, kneeling to pick them up. Alain froze, heart hammering, hands shaking. He wanted to speak, to explain—but the words always fled before reaching his lips.
He realized then what the villagers had long suspected in whispers: misfortune did not wait. It tested him. It measured him. And it would claim what it chose, whether he acted or not.
From that day forward, Alain began to refine himself as one might sharpen a blade. He rose early, walked slowly, observed everything before touching anything. He learned which planks were weak in the floor, which windows would squeak when opened, which shelves groaned with the weight of books.
Childhood passed quietly. Ten, eleven, twelve—years stitched together by careful steps and measured breaths. He avoided games that ended in collisions, festivals where crowds pressed in too tightly, and roads where tiles shifted underfoot. He became a ghost among the living, unseen but always present.
By thirteen, Alain's senses were tuned in ways no child should be. He could hear the faintest crack in timber, feel the tremor of a misplaced stone beneath his shoe. He could sense when another child's laughter carried the potential for disaster. And yet, despite the mastery he gained, the world remained dangerous.
The curse did not sleep. It waited, as patient as a predator.
At fourteen, a minor accident changed something. A simple game in the village square—a ball tossed carelessly, a wooden cart rolled slightly off-course—ended with a near-tragedy. A child stumbled, falling just short of a sharp, jagged stone. Alain's heart froze. He had predicted the misfortune, tried to intervene, but the curse had moved faster than his hands, testing his limits.
Afterward, villagers whispered a little louder. Eyes lingered on Alain when children tripped or objects broke in his presence. And Alain learned a truth harsher than the accidents themselves: he could not save everyone.
By fifteen, the boy had grown taller, leaner, more deliberate. His hair refused to lie flat, as if it too carried the mark of misfortune. His eyes—dark, watchful, endlessly calculating—scanned every room he entered, every path he walked. He had learned patience, timing, the quiet power of observation. But he had also learned solitude, and the isolation that accompanied vigilance.
School ended when he was sixteen. He walked the halls one last time, careful not to brush shelves, careful not to startle anyone, careful not to be noticed more than necessary. Graduation day was quiet, almost painfully so. No one applauded him loudly; no one whispered of his mastery. He simply left, carrying the weight of years spent training against invisible forces, the burden of knowing that life itself could twist and snap at a whim.
Yet even at sixteen, Alain remained unaware of the full extent of what stalked him. The world beyond the village waited, and somewhere in the shadows, something older, something larger, waited as well.
The curse was patient. Alain had learned much, but the lessons had only just begun.