There's always something feared by an individual more than they fear anything else. For her it was luck. Bad luck. For most people what they fear doesn't happen, or if it does, it is not nearly as bad as they thought it would be.
Her world didn't work like that.
One minute she was happy as she could be. The next she was falling.
***
He had no true thoughts anymore, not really. All he could see and hear and think and feel was rage. He hadn't been this cross, or perhaps upset - in his current state he couldn't separate one emotion from another - in a very long time. He had come close certainly, when his sister - her face swam in front of him, fuelling his anger and in an attempt to get her away he picked up something and threw it at her, screaming.
In front of him was a face. His face, he realised a second later, with tiny silver cracks through it and a couple of pieces missing near his eye. Realisation dawned when he stepped forward onto a piece of broken glass. The mirror.
Pain and confusion replaced his rage as the glistening shards of glass danced in front of him. Bending down to get rid of the glass he wondered what he had thrown. In the mess of his house it was difficult to tell what should be on the floor and what shouldn't. His first ordered thought was that the last thing he needed was bad luck. Laughing he imagined the next seven years of his life and considered that if they were worse than the previous seven years he didn't want to live them. It was just as well he didn't believe in luck.
Waking up every morning after, the cracked mirror reminded him of the price of his anger, cautioning him against reckless actions.
Everyday started the same and remained the same right through 'til he went to bed. Days that didn't follow the routine went badly. Change was NOT good.
Having slept through the alarm, scrambled into passably clean clothes and abandoned breakfast he left his house only two minutes later than he normally did with a feeling of dread growing inside him. Going to the bus stop he felt like people were watching him, waiting for him, following him. He kept beginning to run then remembering that running only made things worse and slowing to an l unusually fast walk then starting to run again, slowing and walking in an unbreakable cycle until somebody appeared in front of him.
It took him several seconds to decide if he should speak to the person he had nearly tripped over. By the time he made up his mind the person had stood up, swaying slightly and began talking.
"Where am I? What happened? Who are you? Why am I he-" they paused and looked around, apparently noticing their surroundings properly for the first time. "When am I?"
The question confused everyone else as much as it confused him, he could see, although none of them looked nearly as disorientated as the person did. Finally a voice issued from the back of the gathering crowd, laughter evident in their tone "What do you mean 'when am I?'? When do you think you are, the Victorian times?" then, in a mock baby voice "ah, did you forget to change your calendar from the last century?"
Knowing that it was a bad idea, that his day was different enough already, he spoke up, trying to hide his anger, not from the crowd but from himself.
"Leave them alone! Can't you tell they've- she's had a fright?" he wasn't sure how he knew the person was a girl but she didn't seem like a man. He moved closer to her to address her rather than the still-growing crowd.
"You're in Cardiff, in the 21st Century - 2013 actually. Are you ok?"
When no answer came he decided to continue answering her questions, thankful of the crowd's growing disinterest. "I'm not sure what happened, sorry, I was just on my way well, no-where actually. As to why you're here I've absolutely no idea. I'm-"
