NSOCT: Spectator Entry - Gach

Gach: Card Tricks

The glass on the floor is stained with a blood trail leading out of the room up ahead. Well, I was going to start seeing a lot of it sometime. The room seemed to be all white; I prepared my retinas for a visual assault.

Aside from being white and featureless, the floor spattered with blood which came together at one large puddle of it. Three small bodies littered the floor; two of them face up, as if gasping for their last breath, one face down, drowning in plasma. Based on their shirts, the two boys face up were Acquaintance #5, who was at the center of the puddle, and #2, who was a little down to the right, still twitching. Out of respect for the dead, I decided not turn the girl over. That just left #'s 1, 4 and 6...

Behind them, however, was something even more astonishing. A massive chandelier had smashed smack dab into the middle of the room. Around it stood five people, three men, two women. One of the men was shuffling a deck of playing cards to pass the time. The woman with one arm, who stood opposite of him, took a drag from her cigarette, causing the guy with the five o clock shadow and the short haired girl next to him to cough uncontrollably. "You don't have to stand over here, you know." She uttered. Those two must've been the two in the firefight I saw earlier. Looks like they won. But I couldn't help but think I'd seem them somewhere. Same with that family, the husband especially gave me the creeps.

Couldn't be who I'm thinking of, though…No, couldn't be.

The last guy, a tall, well-built guy in t-shirt, was kneeling over to the back of the wrecked lighting fixture, attending to something. It was then I noticed a limp hand sticking out from behind it. "You didn't have to be so rough with the kid." He looked to man shuffling cards.

"Hey, the kid bet all his chips, and lost." He didn't seem to have any remorse in his voice.  "So, he had to pay his dues."

Behind the chandelier was an unconscious kid, probably no older than his mid-teens. His wardrobe seemed to be from another world. Unfortunately, his eccentricities seemed to have been his downfall, as his cape looked caught under the fallen lighting fixture. Looked just the type who could use some rescuing. Anything to help my guilty conscience. Time to make my introduction.

"All right! This'll make the front page for sure!" I snagged my camera from my bag and started taking pictures furiously. "I'll finally have my own corner office, away from that asshole Kevin!" Involve them. Get their sympathy. "He's always taking my donuts in the morning and kisses up to the editor every chance he gets!" Fake crying is easy once you've done it awhile. "But once I get my story for this place to Mr. Daily, he'll get his, don't yo-"

Someone grabbed my shoulder. It was the man with the playing cards. "Uh, pardon my french, but who the hell are you?"

The letter from last time made clear that these people knew my real name, possibly more, so I might as well drop the aliases. "My name's Lori Blackett, Photographer for the Arizona Daily Star! Pleased to meetcha!" It was good I picked up being such a sugar fairy from Lisa. "Anyway, who's this guy? What's his story? What happened here? Gimme the juicy details."

"...name's Jack. And you seem to be a few cards short of a full deck."

As attempted to strain what little I knew about the personality of a photographer, the young man awoke, rubbing is head. I rushed over, feigning concern. "Oh, you poor little boy are you alright how did this happen what did this to you. Just give me the whole story and we'll make sure you become a house-hold name!" The kid was hardly hearing what I was saying. As soon as he fully came to, he spotted Jack and jolted, as if suddenly remembering something. Then he turned to look at #2's body. Then back to Jack.

At that point, there was an intense stare between the two. I couldn't get the context, but I could tell the emotions. Fear, responded with denial, followed by skepticism, and then finally, trust and relief. I moved in to make my true intentions known to him.

"Listen, kid. I don't know what happened here, but you don't seem like the kind of person who'd come here alone without a good reason." He still didn't seem to be listening.

"He left him alive...he didn't kill him."

"Hey. HEY. Kid, what are you doing here."

"...I...I thought this was a sure thing. I just wanted my time back." He stood up, jerked back by the cape caught under the chandelier. "Aaaaand my cape is stuck. Darnit." I decided to help him get free, but he was still crying over the cape as helped him up I explained my offer.

"What's your name?"

"I'm...Gach. I'm a magician."

"I'm guessing you were alone for a long time, huh?" He didn't respond. It sure looked like I hit a cord, though. Not right on the money, but something. "Listen, I know a place just for kids like you. The world doesn't understand what you are just yet. But they will. Until then, there's a safe place waiting for you." It was this part of the job that almost made feel I could make up for everything I did. If I could just save at least one soul and protect them, then maybe I could redeem myself. All the lying, all the manipulation, killing, ignorance, would all be for this purpose.

"How about it?" His eyes were avoiding me, as if looking at the doorway behind me. Then he looked me straight in the face. A smile usually never fails with these kids.

Usually.

"Sorry." He backed away. I was so surprised, I almost stumbled towards him. "I've already got a home that understands me waiting." He looked down, embarrassed. "But I guess that's something I never truely realized till now." He started walking towards the door waving goodbye. "Thanks for the offer, though. This is definitely the last time I go out of my way to let my occupation get the better of me, but I think it was worth it."

I didn't notice until later, but #2's body was missing from the dead count after that.

* * *

Well, I wasn't able to find out anything about my past, which was the whole reason I dropped everything and came here. Not even an inkling. I feel like a total imbecile. And all of those children…gone. For greedy and selfish gains. But at least I didn't have to take a life.

And I guess my opponent didn't either.

On my way out, I noticed the boy behind the outside door. "So, he was listening after all."

"...yeah, he said not to leave your side until you woke up. I didn't want to, but everyone else looked like they were going to kill me, so had to play dead...I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I'm just glad you didn't get hurt. Sorry I had to pull you through all of those tricks." I laughed thinking about it. Using such bravado really wasn't my style, but it was such a rush I couldn't control myself. AND IT COST ME MY FAVORITE CAPE IN THE PROCESS AAAAAAAH. "I guess something came over me. I don't usually go all out like that in my performances."

"It-it's alright. I'm just glad I'm alive." He started shaking, but not from fear or from the cold. "I honestly never thought I would see the sun again. I guess I'm just happy to be out of there."

"I'm happy I got you out of there too, #2." I wished I could've saved that poor girl as well. Then it occurred to me. "Hey, what's your name? I mean, I don't mind calling you #2, but you'll probably get made fun of by this friend of mine when we get home."

"Heh. I'm Dustin."

"Dustin. I think you'll like it at my house. I think Char will like you there too."

As we walked along the path back to town we noticed tall scruffy man in fatigues, leaning on a tree. He noticed us and immediately ran up to us. "Hey! You guys came from the mansion, right?"

"Yeah. I guess I lost."

He chuckled. "Same here. I really just couldn't do it. I came here to get help for my fiance and I'm sure she'd never talk to me again if I took a child's life to get that for her." He glanced at Dustin's shirt and smiled. "I see you got to keep yours, though. That's good."

Dustin shied away, so I responded for him. "I guess we were just lucky we got a good guy for our match up." I thought about that man for a second. "I hope he does okay. He looked like he was looking to get help too."

"You should know right now blondy, just because he spared the kid's life doesn't mean he hasn't killed a few before. I've killed plenty." That statement suddenly made me overcome with fear. The man saw this, it seems, and attempted to salvage my image of him. "…Now though, all I want to do is protect my fiance. I just don't see why anyone else has to die for that to happen." That helped. He seemed rough, but he was a good guy too, I thought. "The name's Cain, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Cain." A thought occurred to me. "You wouldn't happen to have a ride out of here, would you?"

"...unfortunately, I kind of took a number of different methods of transportation to get here. And I have no idea if that taxi is coming back..."

"...I see." And so, we kept walking. Soon, we reached a parked car that was by the mansion. A man was holding another one of the children, this time it was #1.

"Lydia!" As soon as he saw her, Dustin rushed over to the man. "PUT HER DOWN, NOW! Let go of her!" He began to pound his fists into the man repeatedly. Looks like that was one of his friends he was holding. The man, however, didn't quite know how to deal with this sudden assault on his midsection.

"Hey!...what the heck...cut it out, kid!"

"Sorry, I guess you've got someone he knows in your arms there. I'm Gach and this here is Dustin."

"I'm Murray...did you guys just come from that mansion?" He said as he lay down the child, who was soon after squeezed in the arms of Dustin.

"Yes, we all just managed to get out." I said, gesturing to Mr. Cain, who walked right behind us. "This is Mr. Cain. He also lost his match."

"Just call me Cain."

"Match? Look, a buddy of mine is in there. If you can tell me anything about what's going on..."

I didn't really understand much of it myself, but I explained as best as I could. "It seems this whole affair has been set up by someone as a form of competition for a wish of some sort. In order to obtain this wish we were supposed to fill out some tasks. Our first was to kill these children with numbers on their shirts. As you can see, neither I nor my opponent were able to kill this child here, Dustin. I believe the life of #1..." Dustin glared at me. "...or Lydia, was the goal of another gentleman with a scar on his left arm."

Mr. Murray's ears seemed to perk up on this. "Tall guy? Muscular with red eyes? White Tee and jeans?"

"...I believe so. I wasn't paying much attention to his fight."

"Okay..." He rubbed his chin for a moment. "So what happened with him? Did he win?"

All this questioning was making me a bit nervous. "Well, when I came to, he seemed to be unhurt, except for a few cuts. Looks like he was able to avoid killing the girl." Murray sighed in relief.

"Good...good. I don't think she would've been able to forgive him if he'd done that."

Mr. Cain, kneeling on the ground, glanced up. "She?"

"...nothing, just thinking out loud."

"Ah. Anyway, now that we've lost, it seems the only thing left for us two is catch the next plane out of here. And seeing as Mr. Cain doesn't have a mode of transportation, and I'm sure these ones won't be very comfortable in my usual means, I wondered if you would be so kind as to..."

Mr. Murray smiled. "Sure, I'll give you guys a ride. I was just about to take this little one back to the hotel."

As we drove out onto the road I could see the last of the security cameras seeing us out. As the mansion slowly vanished from sight, we heard an echo come from its direction. It sounded like a woman's voice.

"Everyone on the grounds, please make your way to the mansion. Everyone. The fun is about to start."