The last thing he remembered was walking through the rain with his brothers heading for school, followed by a flash of bright light. Everything after that was foggy and distorted, as if the memories had been tampered with or erased.

Shaking his head, he looked around, clearly confused as to where he was. He was standing on a vast plain, surrounded on all sides by a sea of pure green gra.s.s. The wind rushed by him, scattering his rather wild fluffy brown hair into random directions. Far off into the distance to the east there appeared to be what seemed like a small town. To the north and south, farms could be seen along with a scattering of various houses and barns. To the west, a large glistening blue lake could be seen, the purest blue lake that Max had ever seen.

Scratching his head, Max smiled a little. "Guess I'm pretty far from home....wonder which way I gotta go to get back to New York." He laughed a little and decided to head east, figuring he could get some directions at the town.

He wasn't too surprised by the turn of events as, thanks to his rather bad luck, he had long since learned to be accepting of things and just smile through it all. He was a guy who wanted to just live his life, not afraid to tell others what he thought. His bad luck got him into all sorts of trouble anyways so he figured telling others what he thought and showing his true feelings wouldn't really make anything worse.

However just as he was about to set out, Max heard a small groan from behind him. Turning around, he noticed a rather short blacked haired girl with shorts and a red blouse sitting up. She rubbed her eyes a little before blinking her eyes rapidly.

"Ummm excuse me, you okay?" Max asked politely, stepping forward and offering her a hand.

The girl took one look at him, and then immediately backed away from him, scooting away as fast as she could. It was clear that she had no idea where she was or who Max was so she had immediately switched to panic mode.

"Huh, I didnt think I was that ugly." Max replied jokingly as he lowered his hand. "I was told that I have quite a handsome face actually...my bad luck is generally the mood killer though."

The last thing he said seemed to catch the girls attention as she pushed herself onto her feet. She now had her full attention on the boy in front of her, refusing to look away except for peering at the scenery through the corners of her eyes.

"Bad luck?" The female asked as she gave the male a quick once over. It was pretty clear that he was above average in the looks department, but that didn't matter to her in the least. It was always the cute ones that were the most untrustworthy.

"Yeah, I've been cursed with bad luck for quite some time now," Max said with a small smile. "About my whole life actually.....but enough about me.....do you happen to know where we are? Or how we got here?"

"I thought you knew," The girl replied as she relaxed her defensive stance. "Also, did something happen to your clothes?" She gestured to his rather tattered grey s.h.i.+rt and his ripped black jeans.

Max shook his head. "I was raised in an orphanage my whole life and got switched around a lot, these pair of clothes have been with me for about 5 years now." He looked at her pale lavender eyes and tilted his head to the side. "Whats your name?"

"Jackey Felps," Jackey answered as she stared back into Max's bright green eyes. "Whats yours? Its actually polite to give your own name before asking others."

"My apologies," Max said with a small laugh. "My name is Max Dwayne but you can call me whatever you want." He turned around and gestured with his hand. "Anyways, I'm going towards that town in the distance, need directions on how to get back home. The boys will be worried if I'm gone too long."

"Your not scared?" Jackey asked as she ran up behind him, falling in step near Max. "You showed up here just like me, have no clue as to where you are and your not even a bit scared?"

"Its not that I'm not scared," Max answered as he walked down the gra.s.sy hill that they had been on. "Its just that I've been MUCH worse situations then this one right here, so I'm just able handle it better then most."

"Well, I'm sure things will work out as long as I'm here," Jackey said as she followed behind him. "Since the moment I was born, I've been blessed with good luck. Everything I do always comes up as a reward for me in some way."

"Thats sounds boring," Max answered honestly without hesitation. "Thats basically saying that destiny has already granted you success in your life and you don't have to work towards anything."

Jackey stopped and actually stared at the young man in front of her. Not one person has ever said that, said the words she thought to herself whenever she cursed herself for this never ending good luck. Everyone always envied her for it, said that they wished they had her amazing luck, not realizing how immensely boring it all was.

"You get it," Jackey finally said, rus.h.i.+ng to catch up with Max who had actually gotten rather far ahead. "You get the curse that I'm born with."

"Yeah, it is a curse, depending on how you look at it," Max said, turning his head back with a small smile. "Anything can be overcome if you have the right perspective on life. My life pretty much sucks, but with the help of my brothers from the orphanage, I can pretty much say that I'm happy with my life."

"How one looks at it?" Jackey muttered softly as she gripped her backpack tightly. "I never really thought of that before." A thought then occured to her, something that was nagging at back of her mind. "Then what about love, how does a guy with bad luck put a positive spin on that?"

Max gave a short laugh. "Thats easy...just find the right girl who accepts me for me, all of me including my bad luck. She doesn't need to be a great beauty or anything, just someone who can accept me and my curse...on a sidenote we're almost there."

They had travelled about halfway to the city and even from that distance it was obvious there was something wrong. The houses looked too different from how the houses in New York looked, clearly painting a picture of just how faw away from home both of them were.

The houses looked ancient and were closer to houses of medieval times then that of a sprawling city filled with millions of people. It was a far cry from any kind of building that either of them were used to and Jackey even began to question if they had electricity in this town.

"Doesn't look very hospitable," Jackey said as they got closer. "I find it hard to believe that people even have plumbing over here."

"It'll get better the farther we head in," Max said matter-of-factly as they cleared two thirds of the way there.

"Oh, and how do you know that?" Jackey asked with a bit of condescension in her tone. "You been here before?"

"No but I visited New Jersey once and they kinda had the same layout." Max said with a shrug of his shoulders.

Jackey was going to respond to that but decided to keep her mouth shut as he wasn't exactly wrong. New Jersey was basically the b.u.t.t of all jokes back in school.

"We have arrived miss Jackey," Max said with a small smile, stepping on a dirt pathway that lead farther into the city. "Lets go inside and ask for directions.