Pretty Unlucky Boy

By Tamanna Mohanty

A young mother was walking down the street. She would have looked pretty if she was clean enough and would have looked prettier if she wasn’t wearing tattered clothes. In one hand, she carried a bag; in the other, she held a baby. The woman walked up to the front door of the orphanage and mustered all her courage, patted her cheeks dry of tears, rang the bell, and left. She left the baby at the doorstep, hoping he would get lucky and get a nice home to live in, or at least have a roof over his head, something she couldn’t have ever provided. The baby boy was the prettiest baby one could ever lay their eyes on. But beauty and fate were completely opposite. Our pretty boy was one of the unluckiest babies. Such a pretty baby boy being abandoned was the first event that would lead you to believe his untowardness. The dean of the orphanage was in awe to see such a pretty baby boy. Yet, the dean felt there was something wrong with him, not anything physically, but just something. Our pretty unlucky boy grew up to be quiet and kept to himself. Because of this, other children in the orphanage didn’t talk to him, thinking he was doomed for real. How unfortunate was our pretty unlucky boy to grow up without friends? After a very long time, he made a friend, a boy in a wheelchair. The boy in the wheelchair talked to our pretty unlucky boy out of pity. The other children told him not to talk to the pretty boy because he was ill-omened. The boy in the wheelchair said it was wrong to think like that, and the pretty boy was normal, just like the others and loved to play with blocks, and the only thing wrong with him was his fate! The other children didn’t listen to him.

On the thirteenth birthday of our pretty boy, oh no, should Fate conspire against our birthday boy as a gift! What a shame. So, on that day, the guy in the wheelchair and our pretty boy were playing on the slope of the hill, and it was lined with beautiful bright red roses. Quite a sight, wasn’t it? But there had to be an incident because of our pretty boy’s inauspicious luck. Both our friends were playing happily when suddenly the boy in the wheelchair slipped and went down the hill, falling right into the rose garden. A rose might be pretty, but it has more thorns than it has petals. The boy in the wheelchair was badly bruised and badly cut due to the thorns. Other children thought our pretty boy pushed him down because they always thought there was seriously something wrong with him. But the boy in the wheelchair told everyone that it was an accident and our pretty boy had no hand in it. And it was true! But you know how rumours are meant to be, and they all thought our pretty boy was spooked and kept a distance from him.

A few months later, a couple walked into the orphanage, and they met the dean. The dean showed them his brightest and best orphans, but the couple eyed our pretty boy. The dean told them that he wasn’t good enough and lied to them, saying that he was violent and threw tantrums. The couple felt sad and left, saying they would think about adopting later.

Days passed by, and the pretty boy was walking on the hillside, overlooking the road. He always felt like running away from there. But he was afraid of whether he could survive this world with his wretched life. His reverie was broken by the shout of a man from the road who got out of his car. "Will you want to come with me, and stay with me and my lovely wife away from this town?" Our pretty boy realised that it was the man who had come to the orphanage to adopt. "Why don’t you talk to my dean and adopt me legally?" "I wish I could do that, but your dean wasn’t ready to give you up, young man," he said. Our pretty boy thought for a second or so and said, "I am ready to come with you." And they drove away.

Our pretty boy wasn’t so unlucky after all. He loved the couple, the man was like a father to him, and the woman was the ideal mother he always wanted. They fed him good food, put him in a good school, made new friends in the neighbourhood, and he was loved. For the first time in his life, he felt loved. The house he lived in was a nice row house with three rooms, a big dining room, and a big backyard. He loved the house. He felt as if he had finally found a home.

Treacherous woods lined the back of the neighbourhood, where no man would dare to enter. Some said it housed wild dogs and bears; a few said it was full of thieves, and others said there was nothing but trees.

Children, being children, were curious to know what exactly was in there, and to stop them, parents asked the local police to guard the woods. Only daring woodcutters would enter to get wood supplies.

There was news spreading like wildfire that a body was found deep in the woods by some woodcutters. And the body belonged to a small girl whose parents couldn’t be traced. All the people kept their children at home as soon as it was dusk because this was the sixth body the police found in the woods. Chilling, right? The police weren’t able to solve this abnormal case. The body was decomposed; the chest contained no heart and was drained of blood. Everyone wondered who could do this, especially to children who were yet to see the world.

Our pretty boy heard the news too and decided not to go to the woods. He was afraid not only for himself but also for his friends because all the six bodies were small children like him.

One day, our pretty boy was playing with his radio-controlled car in the house and, by mistake, turned the car towards his parents’ room, where it hit the bed’s leg and tumbled under the bed. He tried to take it out. Instead, he touched something leather-like—a suitcase. Being the curious boy that he was, he pulled the neat suitcase out and tried opening it. There were no locks on the suitcase, and it opened with a click and found many files. Our pretty boy thought it might belong to his father since he had seen him carrying heaps of it, but he saw his photo on one of those files and reached for it. He saw the file filled with papers that said "MISSING" in bold and a newspaper clip from the town where his orphanage was, which said that our pretty boy was missing and search parties had been deployed. He was confused and opened another file. In that, he saw the picture of the girl who was found dead in the woods, and before he could even make sense of what was going on, bam! Came down the shovel on his head, and he fell to the floor, with blood trickling out from his head. The father picked up the body and went into the shed in the backyard. (A few days later) Report:

Boy missing from town orphanage found dead in the woods, chest ripped open, no heart, no blood. Seventh murder.

The couple were serial killers who killed pretty children for their hearts and blood because they believed they would remain young by consuming them.

Our pretty boy had terrible luck, didn’t I tell you, dear reader? There was nothing wrong with him; it was just that his life was unfortunate and when he thought hope glimmered, he wasn’t lucky for long.

By Tamanna Mohanty