[ WP ] You gain the ability to manipulate probability

“ Incoming! Get down!, ” The sergeant screamed. I put my face to the mud. I wasn ’ t worried about the shell. I knew I would be safe. The shell had no chance of hitting me. My squad mates would not be so lucky. They would be killed at any moment. I had nothing to fear. I have a very rare ability. My ability makes me powerful and invincible. One small detail stops me from being a demigod. My ability does not have a very large range. Of course, range depends on perspective. Sometimes I imagined my hands manipulating single atoms. Down there in the miniscule, I could reach out and alter a vast infinity. I do not live in that infinity. I live in Missouri, except I don ’ t live there now. Now I live in a muddy hole in the ground somewhere between France and Germany. 
 I am not a normal man. I have a strange talent. I can alter probability of the world around me. I am still a man. Just like yours, my life is controlled by forces beyond my control. I am helpless against fate. I couldn ’ t keep the draft card notice from randomly showing up at my door. I couldn ’ t save my brother who volunteered 6 months before me. I couldn ’ t stop my girlfriend from careening off course and driving my motor car into the pond beside her house. My pride and joy became her coffin and final resting place. I couldn ’ t stop my mother from catching influenza and die drowning in her own bed. I could have saved her if I was there beside her, but far away from her, here in the French mud, I was just as powerless normal man. Sometimes I think those around me are unlucky to balance out my fortune. Every gift has its price; the death of my loved ones may be the price I pay. 
 I stop daydreaming and stand up, looking down the trench line. I have seen it every day for months, but every day I wake, my first moments are still spent imagining myself in my warm bed in Missouri. 
 I see the shell hit, I see the men disappear into nothingness and then I hear the sound. I could close my eyes and ignore the sights before me, but I could never shut out the sound. I met a young man named Bill in the trenches days ago, or maybe it weeks. Every day is a moment and an eternity here in the trenches. He referred to the shelling as the Sound and the Fury. Light travels faster than sound, so here in France you see your friends die before you hear the doom that erased them. I hope Bill is alright, but he is probably isn ’ t. Maybe he is lucky like me. I cant help him, and I cant help those soldiers down the line. 
 “ CRACK! ” The next shell is closer. This time the sound and the fury are inseparable. I feel a warm splash on my face and I look over at the man next to me. He was struck in the back of the head by shrapnel, and now his brains are all over my face. He didn ’ t even get to fight. He died with his rifle in his hands and his face in the mud. I cant even save the men right next to me. If he hadn ’ t been there, that would have been me. Its never going to be me though, it will always be them. I am going to make it through this... probably. 
 Once more I stand up and look down the trench line. Our defenses are in tatters. Our machine guns are gone. Most of the men are gone. The Germans will be coming soon. They will come through the smoke and craters of no man ’ s land. They will come for me. 
 It doesn ’ t matter. It doesn ’ t matter how many of them come over the crest of the hill. I will stop them all. 
 The shells have most passed me now; the fury falls on my friends further down the line. I walk down the line and put my hands on the dying. Sometimes, I can stop the bleeding and save them; their blood vessels spontaneously realign and heal. Most of the time, all I can offer is mercy. The heart of my sergeant stops in his chest, the sodium ion gradient which powers it has randomly neutralized itself. Today there are no survivors, and once again I am alone. 
 I feel the wind of the bullets whizzing by my head. The Germans are attacking across the wasteland. They are almost in range. I can feel them. They are holed up in a crater 20 yards ahead of me. I wait with focused intent. I wait until they summon the courage to attack. 
 They are all on their feet and ready to go. Almost… Almost… I tell myself to be calm. I can hear their boots and their individual rifle fire over the shelling. “ Now! ”, I tell myself. Seconds before they reach me a single grenade goes off while strapped to the chest of one of the German boys. Lucky me. Premature detonation is a constant problem with those German grenades. I hear a series of small explosions and the German advance is halted. They are not dead though, they are screaming; screams are the universal language of the battle field. The horses scream the loudest. I reach out and give my gift of mercy to them all, and I hear blessed silence. 
 Relief washes over my face as I sit back and revel in the bliss of being alive among so many who are not. My bliss lasts for but a moment when I feel a shell coming right for me. Everyone else in France doesn ’ t know of the shell that kills them. Like Bill said, first comes the fury, then the sound. I feel the shell bearing down upon me. One second from impact, it diverts course and lands on top of the group of dead Germans in front of me. They are vaporized into nothingness. They are gone, their stories go with them, and I am still here. 
 I gather up grenades from the dead soldiers around me. I take as many as I can carry, about 60 or 70. I have no need of my gun. I never fire it unless ordered to. I can ’ t control the bullets, so my ammunition and the rifle stay in the mud. I wait for a few more minutes. I don ’ t know why, I never know why I attack when I do. Suddenly I decide its time and over the top of the trench I go, onward across no man ’ s land toward the German line. Most men run; I walk, dragging my sack full of grenades behind me. 
 Everyone in my trench must be dead. I do not hear the normal voices yelling for me to get down, calling me a fool for attacking, telling me to turn back. 
 The Germans can see me now through the smoke; bullets pass around me in all directions. They go through my clothes and some burn my skin. I am slowly walking forward, I stop from time to time, moving left and then right. Bullets pass harmlessly through the air where I stood only moment before. 
 I am getting closer to the German line. I am close enough now, it ’ s time to stop. I am lucky I played baseball. I can throw these grenades far. I imagine I am home in Missouri in deep right field. I throw with all my might, imagining I am trying to stop a runner from making it home. Every throw brings me closer to home in Missouri. The grenades fly from my hand, one after another. Every time they find their mark. They fly through pill box slits, on top of machine gun nests, and into foxholes. After a few seconds the bullets stop flying by me, and the German guns are silenced. I carefully step down into the German trench, standing amongst the German misery. One of the boys utters familiar words with his dying breathe. He looks like me, and I have heard his words before. The German calls me Lucky Demon. I perform my last rites on all the unlucky I feel around me. 
 I find a panicked horse with his head buried in the mud. He is alive and unharmed. I stop his heart too. I can ’ t stand the screams of the dying horses, and I cant take him with me, I cant protect him. His death is certain and I can not offer him a pardon from fate. All I can offer him is a painless exit. 
 “ Where to next?, ” I ask myself I look around and find a pair of field glasses intact. They were protected from my grenades by the chest of the officer to whom they used to belong. It must be my lucky day. I look down the German trench and see the German boys and the fury raining down upon them. My friends are going to attack soon. I will get there first. Killing Germans is the only way I can save them. I gather the rest of my grenades and begin to walk towards the shells. The war is far from over. The sooner the Germans surrender, the sooner I can go back to Missouri. Some is a big place. I have to be somewhere, but Some is worse than anywhere. I had better get moving. I still have 40 grenades, 5 miles of German trenches, and 14 hours of sunshine. It is all part of a day ’ s work in Some. I would rather be SOMEwherelse. I laugh to myself. I wonder how many more times that joke will still be funny. I wonder how many times I will have to be the fury 

