Gambling.
Gambling.
An endless gambling.
The dice rolls away at 6 and 1. Whenever I put my bets. I always lost.
I slammed the board in frustration.
'Damn it! Just one more. That's right! If I gamble enough. I can take everything what's rightfully mine!'
That was the last of my sense of self.
After endlessly gambling my parents death insurance. I found myself lying in the gutters.
Eyes looking like dead fish. An expression that craves for victory.
'One more.... I haven't lost yet....'
A cleaner passes by, emptying a heap load of trash.
Whistling in the alley, the cleaner saw. Commenting with such repugnant expression.
"Tsk. Another one of those garbage crawlers."
Dismissing the fact that someone needed help. The cleaner walked away with a disgusted expression on his face.
"Better keep my distance, else. I might catch a bad flu."
After that. None other than the cleaner was present. Except for myself.
Staring at the sky. I sung words expressing my pain and devastation.
The silhouette passes through every corners of the alley.
Another day has passed.
Nothing changes of my deep grimace.
A deadbeat trash. Walking around finding dumpster food.
As I was looking. I saw a deep hole buried by the heaps of trash.
"... Huh? Am I seeing things?"
Gazing into the pit. The trash swallowed me whole.
"Wha-"
Eerie silence plagued my mind.
'It's frighteningly dark.'
There, a meter of distance. A torch lit aflame.
As a single torch lit. Dozens upon hundreds shone throughout the deep darkness.
"Hahahaha... I must've ate a bad meal and fainted. Yeah, that's the only explanation."
Weak as I am. I walked with the pace of a snail.
Hours, a day or even a month. I can't tell for how long was I walking under the brilliance of light.
"Huff.... Huff...."
I stumbled numerous times and rose.
"At the very least... Let me see the end of this path...."
However, despite that. I collapsed. No end was sighted. Only endless pain and a false sense of hope.
"I'm guessing... I should be waking up any moment now..."
Soon as I closed my eyes. I woke up in an unknown time.
What I first saw upon waking was the same mixture of yin and Yang. Alongside it's endless road.
My eyes sunk. Falling into deep despair.
"Huh? What's the meaning of this...?"
A reality that I couldn't run away from. Different than the life I had under a thriving society.
Feeling defeated. I raised my trembling hands.
"Maybe... If I die here... Maybe. Everything will soon end. This nightmare. I might finally find peace."
Stretching out my hands to my neck.
"Anything. Even if it's hell.... Anything is better than living."
My hands entangled. Like a vicious antidote. I tried to end everything by choking myself to death.
"Guhk.... Guk...."
Eyes rolled over. A deeper paler white. A lavenders color blooming over my forehead.
'Goodbye.'
A dead body laid bare on the cold floor of black and white.
An eerie wind came forth. Bringing a mysterious present.
A black smog. Which then engulfed the entirety of the corpse.
Cold whispers echoed with two repeating words.
"Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich.
Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich.
Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich. Unster. Blich."
A tall figure condensed itself in front of the cold corpse.
Lifting the dead with no underlying support.
It was as if the body was being carried by an unknown power.
The corpse compresses. Until it was turned into a round object.
Underneath it. A portal opened.
The tall figure watched in silence as it brings it down towards the portal.
"##£_@_#_####£_#"
Once it had sunk. Both the corpse and the tall figure disappeared without a trace.
With no-one present. The entire room was carved in a blank slate.
Once again. As if everything was just but a bad dream.
I woke up finding myself as a child.
Surprised. Baffled. I can't explain it with words.
A woman embraces me with warmth.
A man then picked me up with a celebratory smile.
"From now on. Your name is. Stern. Stern Mitternacht!"
That was how my life started once more in a world of Knights and Magic.