Adrian clutched the small, folded subway map, his eyes repeatedly scanning the flickering icon that represented the zombie's movement. It was weaving its way along the Tube lines, line by line, stop by stop.
"If there are no surprises," Adrian muttered to himself, "then if I just wait here, it'll eventually come to me."
Determined, he settled onto a hard metal bench at Baker Street Station, appearing to be simply lost in thought. In truth, he was watching the map in his mind via the Xueba System, tracking the zombie's position in real time. Trains came and went, passengers bustled on and off. The din of the Muggle world flowed steadily around him—heels clicking on tile, muffled announcements echoing overhead, the deep grumble of arriving trains.
Suddenly, the icon stopped moving.
"Here it comes." Adrian rose to his feet with quiet conviction, his expression calm but sharp. He moved toward the platform with a crowd boarding the newly arrived train. The warning chime sounded, the doors slid shut—and then the world changed.
Adrian froze. Everything around him was still—but not in a natural way. The talking man's lips hung in mid-motion; a young woman's half-formed laugh was frozen into a smile that no longer moved; a man with earbuds remained rigid, as if petrified. Even the materials around him had transformed.
The plastic subway handrails had morphed into something organic—thin, pink, fibrous tendrils like stretched sinew. The seatbacks no longer resembled standard upholstery, but now gleamed with an unnatural pallor—like enormous flat fish scales. Worse, the entire seats had transformed into grotesque creatures.
At first, the creatures seemed vaguely reptilian, perhaps tying into the idea of "lizards" from the name ZigZag. But as Adrian observed them closer, he realized they were far more disturbing. They looked more like pale, eyeless worms with wide, gaping mouths and clawed appendages. The pinkish orb on their "faces" resembled a bulbous snout lined with twitching short tentacles—some of which extended overhead and had turned into the handrails passengers now gripped.
(Author's Note: The appearance of these creatures is inspired by the Moon-beasts of Lovecraftian mythology. The Moon itself may be a subtle foreshadowing element.)
The worst part was their integration into the environment. Their lower halves had melded into the subway seating—forming soft, cushiony thrones. Their claws stretched sideways, becoming armrests. Muggle passengers, unaware and frozen in time, were sitting atop these creatures, while those standing clasped the fleshy, tentacle-like handrails.
Strange wisps of colored gas—green, blue, yellow—were seeping from the passengers' facial features. From nostrils, ears, and mouths, the vapors drifted toward the creatures' snouts, where the tentacles eagerly sucked them in like feeding tubes.
"So… these are the 'lizards'?" Adrian whispered, face pale. "What the hell are they absorbing from people?"
It was beyond anything he'd encountered in Hogwarts textbooks or heard in stories. A grotesque distortion of the Muggle world and magical intrusion—something ancient, parasitic, and wrong.
Suddenly, the Magic Orb of the Goddess of Fortune pulsed faintly in his pocket. The enchanted artifact shimmered with a dim golden light, and Adrian felt a wave of calm wash over him. The magical orb dispelled the creeping mental fog—the fear, confusion, and vertigo caused by the surreal scene—and restored clarity to his mind.
Clap! A sharp, echoing slap broke the stillness.
In that instant, every one of the monstrous "seats" turned their featureless heads toward him. Dozens of eyeless faces aligned at once, the motion unnatural, mechanical. Adrian's skin prickled, his hair stood on end, and a chill traced down his spine.
Steadying his breath, Adrian took a step forward and spoke carefully. "Uh… hello. I'm a wizard. Can you understand me?"
No response—only silent, staring creatures. The pink tentacles wriggled slightly, as if sniffing him.
"Can't understand English?" Adrian repeated, lowering his voice, hoping to avoid provocation. Slowly, he drew out the orb again—gleaming gently in his palm. For a moment, he thought he was imagining it, but it seemed the creatures' gaping mouths quivered, and a strange brightness sparked in their posture—eagerness? Hunger?
Then, without any creature visibly moving its mouth, a deep, echoing voice echoed within Adrian's skull.
"Esteemed wizard," said the voice, old and rasping. "Forgive our discourtesy. It has been… long since we last spoke with your kind."
The voice wasn't sound in the traditional sense—it was more like a feeling, sent directly into his consciousness. It carried a strange cadence, not quite human. Each syllable had an odd clicking undertone, like scales scraping or a rattlesnake's warning rattle.
Although Adrian did not literally "hear" the voice, he instinctively turned toward its source. Before him stood a figure crowned with a golden circlet inset with a deep red gem. The scales around the creature's mouth, now a pale blue, flaked and fell away like ancient skin. The zombie—distinct from the pale, chair-like monsters—was clutching a smaller, similarly malformed creature in a battered shopping cart behind Adrian. Unlike the other seat-monsters, these two still retained leg-like limbs beneath their lower bodies.
"Greetings. We are the devotees of the Goddess of Fortune—the Lucky Elves," the taller figure said, though its mouth remained motionless. Adrian understood the words as if they were sent directly into his mind by some mental projection. "I am Fornis, chief of our tribe. This is my grandson, and heir, Fordell."
Adrian opened his mouth to respond, "Chief Fornis, chief of the Lucky Elves…" but was cut off.
"'Scorpion'—is that what humans call us now?" Fornis's tone was heavy, tinged with bitter sadness. "Who remembers the blessings the Lucky Elves brought? The happiness we once gave?"
"Chief Fornis, forgive my ignorance," Adrian quickly said, realizing he had unintentionally offended the creatures. Yet he couldn't reconcile the grotesque sight before him with the idea of help and happiness.
Fornis sighed deeply. "Long ago, the Goddess of Fortune and the Goddess of Doom, Eris, made a wager. Fortune believed human nature was fundamentally good; Doom believed it was evil. They chose the 'good house' favored by Fortune as the subject of their bet. But Eris triumphed. As a result, we Lucky Elves were cursed for eternity, and the wicked minions of Eris gained license to roam the world freely."
Fornis's voice grew more urgent. "Yet the Goddess of Fortune left us a prophecy. When one bearing her Magic Orb appears, the time will come for our liberation. Please, help us fulfill this prophecy and restore our salvation."
Fornis's eyeless head tilted toward the glowing orb Adrian carried. Though the creatures had no eyes, Adrian realized they could perceive far beyond mortal sight—through mental projection or magic—things invisible to most humans.
Beyond the mission itself, Adrian felt compelled to help these cursed souls caught in the divine struggle. "What must I do?" he asked.
"As long as you hold true to rescuing us, sincerely, simply recite the incantation on this scroll to activate the Magic Orb," Fornis said. In an instant, he moved before Adrian and slowly extended a parchment scroll.
Adrian accepted it, studying the strange symbols—arcane runes intertwined with English letters that formed a spell of unknown origin.
"Chief Fornis," Adrian said cautiously before reading the spell, "may I ask why you are called 'Lucky Elves'?"
Fornis straightened his chest with quiet pride before exhaling a sigh of frustration. "It's simple, Mr. Wizard. We are servants of the Goddess of Fortune. We feed on the negative emotions humans emit, but in return, we give back happiness and joy." He paused, gaze heavy. "But now… we are forced to do the opposite, merely to satisfy our hunger."