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Throughout Carlos’ life, he never considered himself lucky. On occasion, perhaps, but not in an overall sense.
Many people had told Carlos that he was lucky; given his good looks, scholarships into the schools he wanted, and the ease of which he’d gotten into the field of work he’d wanted.
But, no. Carlos had never considered himself a lucky man.
Between his wreck of a childhood; where his father was an abusive drunkard and his mother ignored him as much as she humanly could, his frustrating academic career; where as a child he was bullied non-stop in school and as a college student often found his papers and theories being questioned repeatedly by his professors, and his complete and utter lack of a love life he really couldn’t see the luck. True enough that the professors that bothered him often changed classes or schools partway through his courses, and the kids that bullied him often left him alone after realizing he was not going to fight back, but that did not really make up for the rest of it.
Not to mention the strange dreams and nightmares that often plagued him, even as an adult, that never seemed to go away. Even venturing to the psychologist did nothing to alleviate them.
He’d tried sleeping pills and herbal teas, meditating before bed, and working himself to exhaustion. But nothing helped. If he wasn’t waking up from nightmares of being a child still cowering beneath a bed that had long since been dumped in a landfill somewhere, then he was left tossing and turning the night away with visions of glowing purple eyes and flashing canines before his eyes.
His psychologist had told him that he thought his nightmares were due to his childhood traumas. The eyes and teeth, apparently, were a manifestation of his fear of his father, or the embodiment of his mother’s neglect. When Carlos had said his visions of the shadow creature had seemed more like memories than a dream, his psychologist had scoffed quietly and scribbled something down in his notebook, before handing Carlos a prescription and shooing him out the door.
Carlos never did get that particular prescription filled.
Instead, he shoved his problems behind him and focused, instead, on his academic and scientific career. There were too many things to be studied and discovered for him to worry about his inability to get a good nights sleep.
He’d tried, once or twice, to engage in a romantic relationship in between his studies. Something to distract him from stress and worry, and get him away from his books. Needless to say, none had ended well.
His first girlfriend had been sweet and soft, a fellow geology student he’d taken to sitting next to in his classes. They’d talked a lot, and began spending more time together outside of classes, until ultimately they’d started dating. In the end it came crashing down around Carlos’ ears when he’d realized he had no sexual interest in her when they’d tried to be intimate and, simply put, he couldn’t get it up. She’d left in a rather large huff shortly thereafter.
After that, Carlos turned his sights to men, of which he’d had slightly better luck, at least being able to progress past getting them into bed. Sadly, though, once they’d properly stayed for the night at least once, most left Carlos alone. His night terrors were responsible for more than one man leaving him tousled and upset in the morning.
In the end, after having his heart well and truly broken by the one man he’d thought, for certain, would be it, he gave up entirely. He finally decided that if no one could handle his troubles, then he shouldn’t try to make them. He wasn’t entirely pleased being on his own, but it was better then having people come and go and turn his world upside down every few months.
Eventually, though, even his studies became tiresome and dull. As it is said, all work and no play. So, in between his papers and essays, Carlos began to dip into the rather interesting world of the paranormal. Parapsychology and parascience, to be exact. Something anything, that he could even try and pinpoint why he felt like he knew that there was more to the world than what science could explain. Perhaps, even, information on those purple eyes that would not leave him alone.
But time passed, and Carlos graduated, earning himself a position at the university, and he was no closer to figuring anything out. Years drifted by, and Carlos slowly began to lose hope that he would ever get a good nights sleep again.
That is, until he was offered a very intriguing position as the lead researcher to a scientifically interesting town called ‘Night Vale’.