The cards ignited as if the table itself were a forge, molten edges burning through the void-black surface. Gideon stood rigid, his hand clenched around the glowing chip of eternity, its heat eating into his skin, yet he refused to let go.
Across from him, the Dealer of Shadows spread the obsidian deck with a flick of his claw-like fingers. The cards shimmered, each bearing not numbers, but souls. Countless faces flickered on their surfaces—men, women, children—frozen mid-cry, mid-laugh, mid-prayer. They were the lives the casino had consumed.
"This table is no place for the weak," the dealer rasped, his voice echoing through bone and blood. "Each round, you wager a fragment of yourself against me. If you lose, the chip remains mine. If you win… the House bleeds."
The shadow-gamblers leaned forward, hollow eyes glowing like dying embers. They wanted Gideon to lose, to join their ranks as one more whisper on the walls.
Gideon's voice was low but unyielding. "Deal."
The first hand fell.
Two cards before him—one showed his father's face, a man Gideon barely remembered, smiling faintly. The other showed a dark alley, the night he had been beaten within an inch of death. His breath caught. The dealer wasn't just playing with souls—he was playing with Gideon's truth.
"Choose," the dealer said.
Gideon's jaw tightened. He touched the card with his father's face and pushed it forward. The dealer flipped his own—an image of a nameless child, drowning in shadow.
The table screamed. Fire exploded upward, and for a heartbeat, Gideon saw the boy's soul tear free from the card, gasping for air before vanishing into the ether.
Gideon had won the first round.
The gamblers hissed, shrinking back. A crack appeared in the obsidian surface, spreading like lightning.
But the dealer only smiled wider. "Interesting. You fight not for survival, but for others. That makes you dangerous. Shall we continue?"
The second hand came, faster, harsher. Gideon was forced to choose between his first kiss—the warmth of innocence—and the night he first tasted victory at a gambling table, the rush of triumph that had shaped his hunger.
The dealer's card turned: a soldier's death on a battlefield, nameless yet eternal.
The flames consumed the memories. Gideon felt the kiss dissolve on his lips, the rush of victory evaporate from his veins. He staggered, clutching the table. Part of him was gone, erased.
The dealer leaned forward. "You see? Every win is also a loss. You cannot fight eternity without becoming hollow."
But Gideon's eyes hardened. "Then I'll hollow myself out if I have to. Because I'm not leaving anyone else here."
The third round.
The chip of eternity pulsed in Gideon's hand, brighter now, almost alive. For the first time, he noticed it was absorbing the light of the room, drawing strength from the cracks in the table, from the whispers of the souls around him.
The dealer noticed too. His grin faltered. "You don't even know what you hold."
Gideon slammed the chip down. "Then let's find out."
The cards burst upward, scattering like shards of glass, filling the air with screaming faces and fractured memories. The chandeliers shattered, plunging the casino into darkness, save for the glow of the chip.
The shadows writhed. The gamblers screamed. And for the first time, the House trembled.
The eternal game had begun in truth.