What remains

She blinked at the man sitting across from her, watching him with nothing akin to pity. She recognised that look in his eyes, saw it a million times before on men just like him – something bordering on desperation, but not nearly as visceral. There was anxiety there, of course, and fear, yes, plenty of fear, but it was somehow… sadder than that. Defeat, maybe, she thought to herself, pursing her lips as to suppress yet another untimely smile.

Blackjack was easy, his kind always hit until they bust, but she was, admittedly, rubbish at chess, and so it has come down to this once again – dealer’s choice. That’s what she got for agreeing to best of three.

Thankfully though, the dealer only ever had one choice.

“Oh, I’m simply- I’m sorry, I- I apologise, I-I don’t think I’m quite comfortable with that?” The man stuttered out, more a question than a statement, unsure even in his own convictions, “Isn’t there anything, anything else we could possibly play?”

“Oh, come now, sweetheart,” She now allowed her lips to split into a grin, leaned in on the table and swept the hair away from her forehead, “Not like you have much left to lose, hm?”

The man eyed her carefully then. Quietly. Little gears in his head turning with an almost audible grind, his hands clutching tightly at his knees. There was that look again, that sad, pathetic defeat that lined his features, and she couldn’t help the hoarse chuckle that escaped her throat even if she wanted to.  

And then he blinked – shut his eyes tightly for a moment, as though if he wished it hard enough this all might go away, a bad dream after a bad meal – and then that look was gone, replaced with something harder. Tougher. More determined.

She quirked an eyebrow. Grinned wider.

He agreed, in the end. They always agreed.

Their dealer, a shadowy figure, fully cloaked, face shrouded in darkness – such was the uniform – made it to their table, wordlessly pulled out a .44 Magnum and flipped open the cylinder.

“I’m assuming you both are familiar with the rules.”

Her gaze followed the single bullet that was effortlessly loaded into a chamber, the cylinder clicked back in place and spun for good measure. Her hands trembled at her sides – excitement, she gathered, looking at the revolver that was placed in the exact middle of the table with surgical precision. The dealer would flip a coin then, a little golden thing with intricate design, but she was far too restless for that.

She went over this a million times.

“Heads or-?”

“No need, I’ll go first,” She breathed out, reaching for the gun with twitching fingers, when the little man across grasped the handle with his own shaky hand.

“No- No! Cheater!” He rasped out, glasses fogging over from the hot sweat beading at his forehead, “I’m not an idiot, you know!”

She pulled back.

“Oh?”

“I know the odds. I work with numbers. First one gets one to six, and that’s the best you can get. I’m not about to screw up my chances.”

His chances. Right.

He worked with numbers. She lived numbers.

One to six was the best you could get – at least that much was true.

She smiled.

“Be my guest.”

He hadn’t expected that, clearly. That much was obvious, and that much was fine. She could wait. They had all the time in the world – too bad their dealer was impatient.

“So be it. Ready.”

The man jumped in his seat, dropped the revolver onto his lap. Picked it back up again. His eyes moved frantically between her and the dealer, and she found it amusing.

“Set.”

His gun wielding hand shot up to his temple instinctively, and he looked as though he was about to faint. At this point he would miss simply from how hard his body was swaying. She covered up her snort with a polite cough.

“Go.”

She held her breath as the trigger clicked and the room rang silent. The hollow echo of the empty chamber resonated through her chest as she allowed herself a long exhale, her eyelids falling heavy, if only for a moment. She heard the man’s form slump over the table, heavier yet, exhausted, but unharmed. The gun clattered to the floor and she couldn’t find it in her to stand up and grab it.

The dealer picked it up instead, spinning the cylinder once before gently coaxing it into her hand, and she took it gladly.

“See, how- You see,” The man managed out in between raspy breaths as he regained some semblance of composure, “Odds simply do not lie.”

She shook her head, a dry laugh escaping her parted lips, “Nothing to do with odds, darling.”

She sighed heavily, thinking what a shame it was. Weirdly enough, she was beginning to like this stiff suited accountant or whoever he was – she always made sure not to remember their names. There was no point to it, after all.

“Ready.”

She moved the gun up to her temple, feeling the cold press of the metal against her skin. Oddly familiar, oddly soothing. It was like it belonged – and in that single moment there was nothing but the sound of her quiet breathing and the gentle pressure at the side of her head.

“Set.”

Her finger on the trigger, she felt the familiar rush of adrenaline, electric through her veins, numbing her feet and clutching at her heart. Before her open eyes was a tiny man wearing an atrocious tie with a greenish tint to his flushed skin, but she could only see her life flashing, memories and feelings colliding into a single kaleidoscope of indescribable proportions.

There she was, a little girl, finding out about her hamster’s passing, and after that a young woman getting her first job at a pet store down the street. She was an adult now, reading news from the cracked screen of her newly bought phone, then a teenager learning Texas Holding from her dad and immediately beating him at it. She was older now, and older yet, hooked up to those machines, the whirring noises and the constant beeping, the graphs and charts and scans and diagnoses-

“Go.”

The dealer’s voice tore through her recollections with a potent violence, and she did not hesitate to pull the trigger. Could not hesitate.

It clicked.

And she could only smile.

“Just my luck,” She murmured, seeing the face across from her pale. And damn, was she lucky.

She threw a look at the dealer, who only took the gun back and spun the cylinder once more. It was an inside joke of theirs, or at least she hoped it was – she certainly thought that at this point they might as well be friendly about it.

It hardly mattered, though. She would keep coming back, no doubt.

Her eyes lazily slid to the man across, who kept staring at the revolver with equal parts terror and disgust, a look one might spare a grisly sewer rat, or a giant cockroach.

“Ready.”

He blinked wearily at the weapon in his lap, and for the first time since coming here she had the thought that he was just exhausted. He looked it, too – the heavy bags under his eyes, the hollow cheekbones, the slumped shoulders. He was here for a reason after all, so young and already so lifeless. She did not start pitying him, didn’t think she would know how to, but she did feel as though life had been unfair. And maybe, in a different world, she would’ve lent a hand and a sympathetic ear.

“Set.”

As it stood though, the only thing she could tell him was, “Come on. It’s not going to bite you, sugar.”

The man looked up at her with a bitter smile – and raised the gun up to his temple.

“Yeah, I- At this point, I think I’d much prefer it if it did.”

“Go.”

Another shot – another blank. She laughed, at that or at the lack of hesitation, or maybe at the man’s response, or perhaps at all three combined. Today’s a good day, she thought, easily taking the revolver and spinning the cylinder herself. The dealer would allow it – there was no reason not to, after all.

She couldn’t cheat, not here – and anyway, she liked to believe she was smarter than to try and cheat death at its own game.

“Ready.”

The man looked like he wanted to say something, but he just sat there and stared at her. She wondered what he thought. She wondered if she cared.

There was a time she cared. She remembered hiking as a young woman once – about his age actually – with her then-boyfriend, over at the Half Dome, unafraid and ready to conquer the whole damned world. It was that day that she discovered this place, her own little slice of paradise as she would come to call it, and it was her very first game of Russian Roulette – but she was always lucky. She couldn’t remember his name, not anymore, though it still hurt when she thought about him.

He simply was not as lucky.

“Set.”

She pulled the trigger.

Viciously, something animal in her trying to set free, and her fingernails dug into the grip to the point of breaking. The man lurched back, and the dealer huffed at her in exasperation, and all she could do was laugh a breathless laughter as the memory escaped her grasp and vanished into the abyss once more.

“Celia,” The dealer said, and that was enough to have her passing on the gun, raising her hands up in false surrender.

“Sorry, sorry. I know I’m supposed to wait for the signal,” She smiled her brightest smile, and clenched her hands into painful fists, “I get carried away sometimes.” She shot a wink at the man across, and she was certain he would have been smitten if not for the weight of the revolver in his hand.

He clenched his jaw, and his nostrils flared, and his knuckles rapped a cacophony on the solid wooden table. She could hear those gears turn again, probably calculating the odds and probabilities, but numbers hardly mattered here, for what possibly could be the value of human life?

They gave her odds of six month at best. And look at her now, still going strong.

No, numbers didn’t mean a thing – but luck? She was lucky.

“Ready.”

He moved the nozzle to his head and stared her down with cruel determination. I will beat you, it told her, and she felt a cold shiver run up and down her spine.

She wanted to believe him, maybe. She wanted him to win, and she wanted him to live.

“Set.”

His finger on the trigger, he stopped his breathing, and she held her own in turn. This could be the day, she thought, a calm conviction, when I die.

And the thought brought her nothing but excitement, and she desperately wanted him to live.

“Go.”

The sound boomed clear through, reverberating and resounding, the room shaking with the echoing thunder of a gunshot. It was always the noise that came first – the flash, the blood, the shock would all register much later. Splatter covered the table and the greater part of the dealer’s cloak, not to mention the suit that was now completely ruined.

What a shame, she thought, looking over the sad tacky tie pattern which was now seeping through with deep crimson. She wasn’t surprised, of course not. She was lucky.

The man, on the other hand, wore an expression of profound and relentless shock upon the half his face which deigned to remain. His hand was still raised up, bloodied revolver gripped tightly in his fingers.

Now, she thought, now she really should find it in her to pity him.

“It appears we have reached a conclusion,”- The dealer stated calmly, though she could swear she heard a tinge of irritation in that statement.  

“Wait, hold on- Stop, we have to- No, please, there, there has to be some kind of a mistake!”- The man jolted from his seat, his chair cluttering to the ground together with the discarded gun. Blood spattered from his gaping wound, covering the tiled floors with viscous droplets.

“Impossible. You lost-“

“She cheated!”

“Impossible.”

She stood up to her feet, patting down the creases in her dress. Not a single drop of red. She really thought that today… No, no matter. She extended her hand to the man she was going to see for the very last time in her life.

“Good game, dear, but I’m afraid Lady Luck was on my side tonight.”

It was then that he broke down.

Falling to his knees, sobbing hysterically like a toddler, blood relentlessly pooling at his side. She really hoped he wouldn’t, not him… though it was natural, she supposed. She had no idea what she would do in his shoes – wouldn’t have an idea for a long time, really.

“Celia,” The dealer called out to her, and she turned to see two hollow eye sockets watching her intently from underneath the dark hood. Intense. Disapproving.

“I know the pain you’re under.”

She tensed at that. At least now she knew that even Death played favourites.

“This man is young. The cuts are not too deep. The ambulance is already on its way. You can forfeit, Celia, and I can free you from the machines and the pills and the endless hurt. You can go quietly, and let him live.”

She bit her lip. Tossed her long dark hair to one side, enjoying the weight of it on her shoulders while she still had the chance. Moved a hand to her hip and shifted from one foot to the other, cherishing the feeling in her limbs and body that was sure to be gone once she went back.

The man whimpered at her feet, all but catatonic. There was no fight left in that lithe little body of his.

She could not pity him.

“I will not make such an offer again, Celia,” Death told her, bony fingers grasping at its scythe and raising it high up in the air, “You have the opportunity to give this soul a second life.”

She smiled – sincerely smiled, as one would smile at an old friend, as one would smile at a loved one – and turned her back towards the exit.

“And miss my 250^th birthday?”- Celia laughed, throwing one last look behind her shoulder as her fingers grasped the handle of the exit door, -“Not a chance.”