Throughout the Milky Way, the idea of the Universal Law of Pronoia was well known. It was something very different from what people understood as luck or fortune.
For the citizens of the Way, luck was not always seen as a good omen. Besides being uncertain, it rarely appeared at the moment when it was most needed. Its unpredictability made it unreliable and, over time, culturally impractical.
The fact that it was nearly impossible to demand its presence or provoke its manifestation gradually pushed the concept of luck into irrelevance across much of the Milky Way. But it had not always been this way.
Long ago, the idea of luck began spreading through the galactic collective unconscious, quickly becoming popular among different peoples and civilizations. At first it seemed positive. Soon, however, it revealed itself as a catalyst for chaos.
Fear, insecurity, dependency, and paralysis began appearing in entire societies. Societies far apart from one another whose only common variable was an obsession with the idea of luck. These were the symptoms detected by the Solar Phoenixes, the ancient creatures responsible for the founding of the humanoid races of the galaxy — including humanity itself.
The sages used to say that luck only manifested in environments ruled by chaos. And when chaos dominates, not even luck or fortune are capable of saving anyone.
Thus, the concept of luck became obsolete in the Milky Way. Defending its validity began to sound as absurd as trying to convince someone that the Earth was flat.
Pronoia, on the other hand, signaled something beyond chance. It represented the existence of a path completely opposed to darkness and the self-destruction of the being. A path of guidance, not of guarantees.
This path came to be called Pronoia.
The Universal Law of Pronoia states:
The universe, people, and circumstances conspire in my favor when I conspire in favor of the universe. Everything conspires for my growth when I use this truth as my compass.
The Aquaphoenixes, therefore, were not creatures of luck, but of pronoia. Their power of resolution and elevation promoted the release and renewal of everything that had remained stagnant and without a way forward, creating enormous waves of positive transformation. This unlocking that the Aquaphoenixes represented was responsible for the pleasant sensation of luck that many associated with their birth.
Every Aquaphoenix that had once been a Solar Phoenix possessed something known as a mirror-soul — a parallel manifestation in the world of humanoids, responsible for guiding resolutions and understandings that previously seemed impossible for humanoid civilizations.
And somewhere on the surface of Earth — far beyond Oblivion, the societies of the Milky Way, and any awareness of pronoia — there was Equador.
The boy who believed he was the most unlucky person in the world.
Much is said about luck in our world. Some people seem to be born full of it, as if they carried an invisible charm in their pocket from the moment of their first cry. Others are born with so little that they seem to have been forgotten during the distribution of fortune.
But even the most fortunate have felt unlucky at some point. It is impossible to go through life without stumbling into that feeling.
For Equador, however, the idea of bad luck was never small.
He did not feel unlucky once in a while.
He felt like the most unlucky boy in the world.
Everything had begun in childhood, when an ordinary day dawned differently. Equador woke up with a fever — and never fully recovered. He became a frail child. While his classmates expanded their horizons, he struggled just to get through the day.
Equador was born in the city of Atlas, a massive metropolis built upon Marajó Island, in northern Brazil. A city born from the Amazon forest, the mountains, the beaches, and the river. The second largest metropolis in the Southern Hemisphere, surpassed only by São Paulo.
The son of Graça and Josefino, Equador was the second child and the only boy in the family. He had one sister — very different from him, incidentally. He also lived with his grandfather, with whom he grew up closer than with anyone else in the house.
Equador's misfortune seemed to begin with his father.
Unlike many men, Josefino was not drawn to stability or consistency, but to the thrill of sudden success and the fascination of a lucky strike. He was obsessed with gambling and did everything he could to win a great prize.
Because of this, the house lived in cycles. There were days of noisy excitement, hurried plans written down on paper, long phone calls, and promises thrown into the air as if they had already come true. And there were days of silence, overdue bills, and the constant sound of the television filling the emptiness until the next hope appeared.
Josefino believed in the lucky break. He woke up thinking about it. He went to sleep thinking about it. He said stability was for people without imagination, that the world belonged to those brave enough to bet big.
From a distance, Equador learned that luck was never constant. And when it did appear, it rarely came at the right moment — even though sometimes it brought fortune and was desperately needed.
When Equador was eight years old, his father came home later than usual, breathless and smiling too much.
"I did it!" he shouted. "Finally! This time it's real."
Josefino had won a million-dollar lottery prize.
That night the house slept differently. There was expectation in the hallways, as if everything were about to organize itself. Equador went to bed believing he would wake up somewhere better.
Equador woke up in an empty house.
His father's shoes were no longer by the door. The closet felt strangely light. On his bed there was a folded piece of paper with only a few hurried words:
Daddy loves you. I'll be back soon.
But Josefino never returned.
Graça did not speak much about it. The next morning she woke up early, opened the boarding house, and made coffee for the guests. The world continued demanding practical solutions that were too immediate for long explanations.
After her husband left, Graça turned the old house into a boarding house: Pensão Sol e Mar.
Day by day, year by year, it grew. What started small expanded floor by floor until it became a complex: Sol e Mar Convenience Store, Sol e Mar Bakery, Sol e Mar Beauty Salon, Sol e Mar Mini Spa, Sol e Mar Clothing.
The house no longer felt like a house.
Equador moved into the basement with his mother and grandfather. His older sister studied in the city center and rarely appeared.
Despite his bad luck, the world always seems big enough for people to exist in far worse situations.
Still, it was impossible to deny: Equador was, in many ways, a remarkable boy.
Unlike his classmates and even relatives of the same age, he seemed to move at a different rhythm, in another ocean entirely, heading toward a destiny he had not yet learned to name.
And despite everything, he still had a devoted mother. Despite his father's absence, he still had his grandfather.
Perhaps it was not luck or bad luck.
Perhaps it was pronoia.