The casino felt quieter than before, though the chandeliers still burned with their eternal flame and the roulette wheels still spun with merciless rhythm. Gideon staggered from the last table, his skin pale as ash. His veins carried not blood, but the weight of stolen destinies. Each step echoed as if the marble floor were a judge counting his sins.
Whispers followed him. Not from gamblers—many had already vanished, their seats empty as if they never existed—but from the walls themselves. Murmurs of names he had never known, cries of those whose lives he had claimed with every glowing chip.
At the center of the casino, a new table revealed itself. It hadn't been there before. Its surface was obsidian, reflecting no light, and cards of black glass were neatly stacked in the dealer's hands. The dealer was no ordinary man. His eyes were hollow sockets filled with burning cinders, and his smile stretched like a cut across his face.
"Welcome, Gideon Locke," the dealer intoned, his voice the scrape of knives against stone. "You have climbed far. Few ever reach this table. Fewer leave."
Gideon clenched his fists. His hands trembled, not from fear but from the knowledge of how close he had come to dissolving. "What's the wager?" he asked.
The dealer spread the cards across the table. Instead of numbers or suits, each card bore an image: fragments of Gideon's life. His childhood. His first kiss. The night he lost everything. The night he walked into the casino.
"The wager," the dealer said softly, "is you."
The room tilted. Gideon felt the weight of unseen eyes pressing down on him. The gamblers who remained—ghostlike figures who had lost their own essence long ago—watched with greedy anticipation. They wanted to see him break.
"I won't play your game," Gideon spat.
"You already are," the dealer replied, sliding a chip across the obsidian surface. It glowed brighter than all the others Gideon had ever seen, pulsing like a heart. This chip was different. It carried not just memory or talent, but the totality of existence. The chip of eternity.
Gideon's chest tightened. Every instinct told him to flee, but his feet rooted to the floor. If he left, if he refused, he would dissolve like the whispers on the walls. The casino allowed no retreat.
"Very well," he said, his voice low, ragged. "Deal the cards."
The dealer's grin widened. The first card flipped—Gideon as a boy, holding his mother's hand, sunlight in his eyes. The second card—Gideon on the streets, fists bruised, hunger gnawing. The third—Gideon at the tables tonight, fire in his gaze.
Each card pulled at him, stripping away layers of his being. By the third card, his breath came ragged, his memories bleeding into the air like mist.
The dealer's skeletal fingers hovered above the fourth card. "Shall we?"
"Wait," Gideon said, forcing himself upright. His hand shot out, seizing the glowing chip of eternity. Its heat burned through his flesh, searing bone, but he did not let go. He slammed it onto the table.
"I'll wager this against you."
The dealer stilled. For the first time, the cinders in his eyes flickered. The crowd of shadow-gamblers hissed, recoiling.
"You wager eternity against me?" the dealer asked, his tone edged with both mockery and reverence.
"Yes," Gideon growled. "Because if I win, I take back everything. Every soul, every memory, every life stolen by this house."
Silence fell. The chandeliers dimmed. The roulette wheels ceased their spinning. The casino itself seemed to lean closer, as if eager to witness the impossible.
The dealer leaned forward, his smile razor-sharp. "Then let us play for eternity."
The cards ignited. The table roared with power. Gideon's vision blurred as flames of memory licked at his skin, yet his resolve did not break. He was no longer gambling for himself. He was gambling for everyone who had ever been trapped here.
For the first time since entering the casino, Gideon felt something stir within him—not desperation, but defiance.
The final game had begun.