Stones Diary: Built for Pressura' 2

Chapter 41.) More Life

It was 3 in the morning. The world was quiet. The nightlife was faint and the temperature was just right. While the apartment was full of sleeping people, Lucky found himself wide awake deep in his thoughts. He's been trying to shake that robotic part of him all day and it seemed to sneak up the moment he became vulnerable and unaware.

This was supposed to be his special moment. He had beat the odds that so many other men like him never got a chance to accomplish. He fell in love. He stopped putting so much effort and thought into his kill habits and gave life and happiness a chance. He was a father. A husband. All the things that he never thought he'd be, he had become.

He deserved this. He deserved it all. The joy. The laughter. The reassurance. The love. The grace. He deserved it. He deserved to be happy. He deserved to have a family and to be a part of a family. He deserved to be able to be something other than on edge and always serious. He deserved to beat a system that was built for him and others that looked like him to fail. The system had failed him at a young age and didn't care.

He was just another future black man that they were waiting to put into shackles. His life wasn't perfect but his mom did the best she could with what she had. The system failed her. It failed him but he was better than what they could have imagined. Yeah, he may have done things that weren't morally right but he was a product of his environment and wanted better for his sister. He needed to put her on a path to a better life, so he did whatever he could and it worked.

So why was he sitting on the back patio at three in the morning beating himself up about it instead of enjoying married life? There was a part of Lucky that didn't feel the need to release him of his past quite yet. No matter how hard he fought it and tried to ignore it, there was that tiny voice in his head reminding him that the life he was living now was nothing more than a cover-up. Of course, Lucky didn't feel that way but a person of his status viewed life and everything as exceptionally different than the rest of the world.

The was a trigger. Something triggered his inner demon and he had no idea what it was. He was enjoying himself, so where did the shadow come from? Could it have been Kaari's outburst that unknowingly opened the door? That would be irrelevant, wouldn't it? Those two simply did not coincide with the other. Did it? Could it? Or was it something else that he wasn't paying much attention to?

Was it Camille and Beau? Why would it be? There wasn't much there to upset or trigger anything in Lucky, at least none that he was aware of. It couldn't have been those two.

His pondered. Then it hit him.

His body fell numb. Suddenly he was unable to move. The once faint voice was now screaming at him. He was confused. Why now? Of all days, why now?

BANG!

His body jerked.

BANG!

The burning sensation circulated through his body. The pain returned. His heart pounded rapidly in his chest. His pulse raced wildly. Why couldn't he move?

"Yo... Luck?" King's voice pulled Lucky's mind back to earth. "Yo?"

Lucky stared blankly at him.

"Aye?" King snapped his fingers, "Luck?"

The air returned. "Huh?" That was the only thing he could say.

King sat beside him and noticed the grip he had on the cigar. "Wassup?"

Still deciphering between reality and his vivid thoughts, Lucky gazed at the night sky. I'm tweaking.

"Having second thoughts?" King decided to ask.