Evilness doesn't just live in casinos

Written in response to: Set your story in a casino.... view prompt

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Fiction Speculative Fantasy

She looks out at all the bleary-eyed, devil-snatched people and thinks:what brought them to this unique subpart of hell? They all have messed up backstories. And they all lost themselves in the never-ending game that multiplies in evil forces: gambling. 

The woman scribbles all of her judgemental thoughts down in the journal she's kept for 42 years now. The pages hold memories that a human mind would forget. It doesn't gossip to other literature so it quickly became the most trustworthy friend the woman has known. She is a psychiatrist and she for sure doesn't study psychology. But just observing the places that feel interesting, and most certainly grounded, is what makes her an intelligent writer.

These slots and card tables are not unlike technology. Instant dopamine rushes to your brain once you put that first coin in or see those first couple of posts. You win a couple dollars at a machine that you put in 200 dollars in, and you see a model wearing an outfit you have but instead they have perfect pores. But unlike casinos, technology has strapped on a coat and a hat, pretending to slip into your life as a dear friend. Casinos haven't changed in decades, never losing the musty feel of smoke on the gambling handle. And yet, they are both villains. Neither villain is misunderstood or processes a traumatic past. Both brothers are down right evil. And yet, people are obsessed with them both. 

She puts her pen and notebook down, shaking out her crapped hand. She throws the rest of her devil-poisoned shot into her mouth and pushes down the slot machine handle. 

Oh yes, the women plays. But she plays well. 

Around 5 in the evening, after having won 3 games of her favorite slot machine in the galaxy,(the machine being called: Poisoned Points), the woman makes her way to the hatch door to see if anyone is out and about. Most venture outside of the air tight cabin earlier in the day, when darkness is less likely to lurk. But the majority here are too afraid to even step boot outside of the cabin until they reach their destination. Myths have been readapted every decade, squished into the hands of everyone, and reformed all by themselves. About what awakes beyond these flimsy walls. Out there. 

The woman has been proud of herself for having not fueled the myths in any way. Not telling a single human around here of the truth. No one would listen to her anyway, she keeps her mouth shut so that her mind can only be opened by the pen. And of course, also by them.

After checking to see if anyone is out in the darkness at this time of the day, the woman bundles up. Freshly washed white coat, and white boots and she never leaves without her gear. Her special notebook and tools usually get the job done. Now she's ready to go out and see them. 

The guard that's never moved up in rank opens the hatch for the woman each night, oblivious to what she does. 

I have a blood-curling feeling that he does but doesn't want to force it. We are alike in that sense. 

She lets the guard attach her safety belt and then he opens the hatch, letting the steam settle before she jumps out of the cabin and into scattered ink. The ink around the women is interrupted by little floating rocks that are too small to do any harm to anything. But are just the right size for them to make their appearance on. 

The woman swims out far enough away from the cabins where the others onboard cant see her but she's still attached to it. She looks down at her watch: 6:02

She grins as a flaming rock soars out for the planet below her, and they jump onto the next asteroid before them before the flaming rock does any real harm to them. 

Their cheekbones are sticking out 3 inches more than yesterday when I saw them. I have to stop giving them so much. 

Just before their asteroid soars past her, they jump off and somersault before floating in front of the women. 

As per her usual greeting, she takes out one of her tools, a moon-touched dagger and pushes up the coat sleeve of her left arm.The woman moves her watch aside and slices deep into the back of her wrist. Quickly, the drops float away, she digs into her coat for her special notebook. She flips to the middle, where the next blank page is and soaks the parchment paper with her silver blood. She groans as she feels her body weaken with every second, but it will be worth it. She has made it worth wild. 

Once the first page has been fully soaked, she pushes up her sleeve on her right arm and slices the same size cut so that both pages are equal in her blood. She doesn't want them to kill her now, after everything she has given to them. As she waits for the other paper to soak, she starts to pick up their whispers. They don't float far away from her, maybe 4 feet but they touch her ears with otherearthly voices. 

“Hungry…Hungry…Hungry…I dont care what she…has us do…this time…”

“Me neither…I got beaten today…and now…half of my life…has left me…”

“Now Graham, Adam-” Their nicknames stick to her lips like she's never said them before.

“Don't make mommy feel worse than she already does. You are my children and you will be patient when I’m feeding you.”

We grow stronger…while your decades…seep out of you…”

“Yeah…we dont look like kids…anymore…”

“You will not speak to the one who has created you that way!!!” The woman raises her voice at her monsters at the same time that she pulls the moon-soaked pages out of her notebook. 

“Now, you can get the job I have for you done in the next 5 hours or I could just write another pair of you but with different…personalities?” At the last part of the women's words, the monster shakes their heads furiously and snatch their meal out of the women’s waiting fists.

“Good boy, Greed. That's a good boy, Addiction.” 

The woman waits for her creations to finish licking the last of her silver blood from their fingertips before she asks for her part of the deal. 

“Tonight, I want you boys to track and find your least favorite brother, Pain, for me. I have something to offer him for another shot and redemption.” 

January 07, 2023 23:25

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