🕯️ The Nightly Storyteller Presents: “The Price of Luck”(A Tale from The Gold Coin Chronicles)

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🎙️ Intro — The Weight of a Debt

“Fortune’s currency is paid in shadow,” they whisper.
Elias didn’t know he’d signed.
The fine print is written in whispers only the debtor hears—an invisible ledger of repayment inked in the parts of ourselves we forget we gave up.
The Collector came anyway.

🌙 The Coin and the Cold

Elm and Willow, late afternoon.
The air clung to skin like damp silk, heavy with the scent of wet asphalt and fresh-cut grass.
Elias sat on the curb, elbows on his knees, watching cars drift by in lazy procession.
The sun was setting, casting long shadows that stretched like skeletal fingers.
Not waiting. Just existing.

That’s when she walked by.
A woman in a long gray coat, despite the sweltering heat, her steps quiet, deliberate.
She didn’t look at him, but the air shifted when she passed—colder, carrying the faint scent of lavender and rain before it had fallen.
Something slipped from her hand as she went.

A coin.
It landed in the gutter with a soft metallic chime, like a single bell trapped underwater.

“Hey! Ma’am!” Elias shouted, standing and scooping it up.
The gold shimmered in the dying sunlight, yet felt unnaturally cold—heavier than gold should be.
He flipped it over. The figure etched into its surface was too complex—its edges subtly shifting when he looked away.

He jogged to the corner, waving the coin.
The crossing guard, a wiry man in an orange vest, frowned.
“Slow down, kid! You’ll get hit!” he barked.

“She dropped this!” Elias pointed. The woman was halfway down the block.
“Ma’am! You dropped—”

But she turned the corner.
Gone.

Elias looked to the crossing guard, who narrowed his eyes.
“Didn’t see no one, son. Who are you talking to?”

The coin felt like ice in his palm, seeping into his bones.
A faint scent of lavender lingered, then vanished on the breeze.

🌙 The Golden Fever

At home, Elias’s parents exchanged a skeptical glance.
“We don’t take what ain’t ours,” his father muttered, though the words lacked conviction.

His mother’s eyes lingered on the coin, her voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s too quiet. Since you found it, your voice sounds… clearer. Like you’re managing me.”

As the days passed, Elias noticed small changes.
The way his parents smiled more.
The way the sunlight seemed to follow him.
The coin sat on his nightstand, its presence a constant hum in the background.

With each stroke of good fortune, Elias felt a growing unease.
It started with small things—a phone call from a long-lost friend, an unexpected windfall.
But soon, the coincidences piled up, and Elias couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being pulled into a game he didn’t understand.

Sometimes, late at night, Elias thought he heard coins rolling somewhere in the walls.
When he checked, the sound stopped—leaving behind only silence and the faint smell of metal.

The job offer came out of nowhere.
His parents’ workplaces announced raises.
The bills caught up. The fridge was full.
Everything aligned like dominoes set just right.

Elias’s senses sharpened.
He could smell the metallic tang of the coin, feel its cold weight in his pocket.
He began to notice the way shadows moved of their own accord.
The way the air vibrated with an otherworldly energy.

🌙 The Tally

By late September, the cracks began to show.

The family photo on the shelf fell—its frame split, the glass shattered in a dozen places.
His father’s watch went missing. Then his mother’s favorite brooch.
The air turned arctic in the corners of the apartment, like drafts from invisible doors.

The coin, once bright and golden, had become a bruised and drained husk—radiating a sick persistence.
The hooded figure on its face was sharper now. More defined.

One night, their landlord stormed in, shouting about payment.
The ceiling light flickered violently, casting his shadow tall and monstrous across the wall.

“You owe me more,” he sneered. “Taxes, late fees—call it whatever you want—”

Elias snapped. The cold in his pocket was unbearable.
He hurled the coin at the man.
“That should be enough!”

The landlord caught it, scoffing. “What’s this, a bribe?”

He turned toward the switch and flicked the light off, then on.
Off.
On.
Off.
On.

Each time, the room changed. Shadows deepened. Colors drained. The air thickened.

The final flick—
and the room didn’t return to light.
It went wrong.

A void of deeper darkness solidified behind the landlord—a figure, hooded and impossibly tall, its edges shivering like heat haze underwater.
The cold wasn’t just cold—it was despair made physical, a pressure that filled the room like water.
It didn’t move. It simply existed in the space that should have been air.

The landlord’s shout cut off—not with a struggle, but a sudden, wet silence.
As if the sound itself had been drawn back into the shadow.

The lights came on.
The landlord was gone.
So was the figure.
And the coin.

🌙 The Morning After

They found his body beside his car the next day, eyes open, mouth frozen mid-scream.
The coroner called it a heart attack.
No signs of struggle. No coin in sight.

Elias was left with the horrible certainty that he had been an audience to a payment he could never prove.
The memory of the coin’s cold weight lingered—a phantom ache in his palm.
And sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he swore he could still smell lavender.

🕯️ Outro — The Storyteller’s Reflection

The Nightly Storyteller leans closer to the candle.
Its flame dances, stretching tall as if trying to listen.

“The most dangerous debt is the one you accept without reading the contract.”

He flips through his worn journal, where a rubbing of a gold coin is pressed between pages—faint outlines of a hooded figure etched on its surface.

“The coin giveth,” he says softly. “And then… it collects.”

He glances at the window, where his reflection flickers faintly behind the glass.
The room holds its breath.

The candle flickers out.
A soft metallic chime echoes in the dark.
Somewhere, another coin turns.

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And if you dare… drop a comment and tell me your favorite scary movie, urban legend, or horror memory.

We’re just getting started—
and luck?
Luck always comes with a price.

thenightlystoryteller.blogspot.com

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