Zoe felt sick to her stomach, but she refused to look away. The humanity in her, the rage, compelled her to gaze unflinching as the abyss embraced her fellow contestants.

No mother should have to choose which of her daughters should lose their eye. Brassus Jones the brewer knew it was coming, he seethed as the Gambler materialised the knife beside his wife’s hand.

“Take my eye,” he said through ground teeth.

[Noble, but sadly against the rules]

“You make up the rules!”

[And so it is even more important that I follow them]

“Please, my girls don’t deserve this.”

[None of us deserve anything, now stop acting like you’re the main attraction and hurry up. If you don’t, I’ll take both their eyes for the pretty jewels that they are!]

The knife entered quickly, and the young girl, maybe 12 years old, didn’t scream. A high-pitched whimper escaped her lips, but she bit down until blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Zoe’s heart went out to the kids. It took guts to face pain like that. She might even survive the apocalypse, provided she survived this game.

Of course, there were no guarantees of either.

Beside Zoe, watching the unfolding torture, Anton sighed.

“I would have gambled eyes if I got the choice,” he said. “Imagine the Insight of a system’s view?”

Jack turned at the question.

“You think you would win?”

Anton shrugged.

“There’s a chance… technically.”

But from his tone, Zoe knew he was just saying it in a way that wouldn’t offend the Gambler. Even if the mad god could read their thoughts, he seemed to take extra offense at the things said aloud.

[Dialogue is action. Treacherous thoughts may slosh inside that meat you call intelligence, but only the burps truly offend me]

The Gambler’s voice slipped through her mind. It prickled down her spine, but nobody else seemed to have noticed. None of the golden-garbed clones turned to face her, or even acknowledge her discomfort. He spoke to her and her alone. Privately. Discreetly. Because she, of all those present, couldn’t respond.

She shuddered.

Oriz raised a questioning eyebrow, but Zoe shook her head. What was one extra moment of discomfort considering everything else going on? Oriz seemed to understand. The grey-skinned woman clutched Bella’s hand tightly, and the blonde-haired woman returned that grip with white knuckles. Of Zoe’s team, Bella and Jack seemed the most affected, but only Anton seemed like he didn’t want to vomit.

The next contestant was the earth-covered man from Rue’s cohort: Unren.

Zoe had a vague dreamlike memory, from when Rue first summoned her to the table, of some hulking monolith in the shadows, something she might mistake for an actual mountain without paying enough attention.

Unren glanced at Lorilla and Rue.

“I wonder who I should choose?” he said with a rumble of down-to-earth humor. “Might as well get that over with since the only body part I can choose is the heart.”

Rue rubbed his stump against his cheek.

“I brought you here for your wisdom, so, choose wisely.”

“Choose me,” Lorilla said in a voice as soft as silken sheets. “Rue is too important.”

This caught Rue off guard, and the Gambler was swift to capitalize on his discomfort.

[Oh, my lovely audience, my attending lovelies! Have we seen a chink in the armor? A crack in the blade? Does the mighty warrior care about something beyond the sheen of his sword? What a silly question, of course, Rue cares! How could a warrior fight without a heart filling them with desire? Desire to live beyond the day! Desire to conquer! Desire to kill! But what, pray tell, is this desire we see before us?]

His long fingers curled around Rue’s shoulder as he leaned in and gloated. The air around the table was tense, filled with the scent of blood and misery like a surgery room full of failures. This was no battlefield. Zoe didn’t know what Rue would do next, for a moment she thought he might fight the Gambler, but…

Could he?

Could even Rue fight something so monstrous?

Unren spun the wheel. Bearings whirred as the tension ratcheted. The air wavered with the focused attention of all present on the coming results. Zoe’s mouth filled with blood. Full of pain. Even with Vitality closing off the wound, itching away at the damaged flesh, she still felt the act of severance. She still tasted the blade.

Gone now, was the human part of the brain that wanted to plan, or predict, she leaned against the table as an animal, wanting only for the agony to end.

The wheel didn’t spin as long as when Rue whirled it, and when it finally came to a stop, Unren sighed.

“Red…”

[Whose heart shall you choose?]

Lorrilla turned to him. Calm, radiant, her voice entranced all with its lovely cadence.

“Unren, please…”

“I don’t want to choose you,” his voice rumbled.

“Don’t then,” Rue snapped. “Choose me, I want to die.”

“Nobody who wants to die talks about it as much as you do,” Unren responded.

“I…”

“I choose Lorilla’s heart,” Unren said before he hung his head. “May the system forgive me.”

Lorilla let out a sharp breath.

Rue’s eyes widened as the knife materialized with its deadly shimmer beside Unren’s hands.

[No forgiveness required for obeying the rules]

Rue stood.

“No, take mine instead. Gambler… don’t do this.”

The Gambler blinked his spinning eyes and smiled.

[Was that a threat?]

The Gambler smiled. His toothy grin pressed itself upon space and time, it molded the stage and stands into a curve of overwhelming malice. Every being staggered, even Lorilla and Unren shook under that smile.

Rue alone stood firm.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Though Zoe noticed the beads of sweat on his brow.

He might be strong, but he faced something beyond strength.

[No?]

“No.”

Lorilla clasped at Rue’s hand.

“Please, Rue, I… I love you, but please don’t fight this.”

The Gambler stepped closer.

[The thing about games, Rue, is that all are equal when they play. Is the plea of an immortal lover more valid than that of a mortal parent? I think not. Unren lost the game. So, Lorilla loses her heart!]

Rue’s fist slammed into the table, and the whole arena shuddered.

“You can’t do this! If you do, I will —”

A sickening sound interrupted him.

A crackling.

Crunching.

Wet sound.

The sound of a blade punching through a ribcage.

Zoe gasped at the sight, a harsh, choking sound without a tongue. Rue whirled and stared behind him, as Unren plunged his hand into Lorilla’s chest. She gagged with the pain. A sound a godling shouldn’t make, but these weren’t injuries Vitality — even absurd numbers of it — could solve. Blood spilled from her flawless, love-colored skin, and even that blood smelled lovely. It flowed onto the air like rose petals and drifted on a wind that was not there. The crowds in the stands were silent. Still as statues.

They flickered, those watchers, and vanished. Darkness surrounded the stage, and Zoe blinked. Did the Gambler dismiss the crowds, or were they never there?

Unren held the heart aloft. It pulsed in his grip, long arteries connecting it to the godling beneath him. She could have fought — she could have resisted — but she merely sat there and reached for Rue. Her delicate fingers reaching...

Rue stared at the hand.

“Don’t do this, Unren. She deserves better.”

“I’m sorry,” Unren rumbled. “But I’m more afraid of him than I am of you.”

[Wisdom befitting a planetary engineer. Now, Unren the Subterranean King, complete your turn]

“No!” Rue shouted.

But it was too late.

Unren swept the shimmering blade through Lorrilla’s arteries and severed the heart. She gasped out like a falling dove and went slack. Her eyelids flickered. Light poured from her skin, as though her beauty burned itself out brighter and brighter before it collapsed, snuffing itself, and she was only so much opalescent flesh. Someone of her power would forever be a treasure, even ground into dust, but losing life was the loss of that most ephemeral beauty.

A dried petal cannot be a rose.

With blood running down his thick corded arms, Unren offered the heart up to the suspended Earth System. The withered lips peeled back and its teeth elongated into fangs. A fat tongue curled out toward the still-beating heart of a god.

But Rue slapped it away with wrathful disdain. He stood between Unren and the System.

“No,” and Mountains laced his voice with power.

The stage trembled and cracked. Blood oozed from the floor. The hogtied Earth system spun in place and mumbled its cryptic messages as its growing tongue hung toward the floor.

[No?]

The Gambler strode toward Rue with an expression of false bemusement. The clones slowly surrounded them like a gang of thugs eager for a fight.

“I refuse your game, Gambler,” Rue said as his fingers twitched. “Unren, give me her heart.”

Unren’s glance flickered between Rue and the mad god.

The Gambler raised a hand. Spindly as he was, dandy as he appeared, he towered above Rue and the back of his hand shone with golden rings.

[You of all people know the worth of pain, Rue. Know the value of discipline]

He brought his hand down in a backhanded slap.

The crack was like thunder in the tiny room, and it knocked the human contestants to the ground.

But Rue smiled, unbowed, though his knees shook under the Gambler’s massive aura. Blood leaked through his clenched teeth. His eyes twitched as blood vessels burst.

None of the power spilled onto Zoe or the other players. This display was for Rue alone. Such power… such control… no words came — only fear chilling her very core.

As Rue resisted, trapped within the force of the Gambler’s grip, Unren stepped past and fed the heart to the Earth system. It swallowed it whole, lips stretching wide around the pulsing organ, throat bulging until it sank into its guts.

Veins burst along its skin as it shuddered and shrieked like a tin kettle. Whatever limit was required for it to break the bonds, had been reached. The belly contracted. Muscles pulsed. The food in its stomach dissolved and diluted into power.

Rue roared and forced himself upright. The invisible force upon him disintegrated with a sound like coins falling down a staircase.

“How?” Bella whispered beside Zoe’s ear.

And Zoe shook her head in ignorance.

How could Rue face such a being with defiance? She had said things, and Bella had said things, but that had been in ignorance. They had spoken as children defying their parents, thinking that they knew the terms and the ways of the world.

But Rue faced the Gambler with full knowledge. What could he be thinking?

And then Zoe realized… he wasn’t. Rue wanted to die in a worthy battle, and now he had found one.

The Gambler’s eyes widened ever so slightly as the thought passed through Zoe’s mind.

As the Earth System bucked and trembled, Rue thrust his hand at its chest. His fingertips became spears and punched through the skin and bone as though they were paper.

He wrenched free a pounding heart curling with golden veins.

[Give that to me!]

The Gambler reached reached for the heart. Golden-ringed fingers glinted in the light. He snatched.

But he grasped only air.

Rue’s grip clenched around the Gambler’s skinny wrist. With a roar, he tossed the Gambler back, but the buxom clones rushed forward to catch their original.

[Of all the mistakes you have made… to think you would try to take my prize out from underneath me]

But Rue ignored him. He cradled the heart as though it were still her’s, as though she were still alive, as though all these moments might be undone.

Unren backed away, blood dripping from his hands. Rue glanced at the earth covered betrayer.

“You will pay for this.”

With a rumble, Unren vanished.

Rue ignored the fleeing godling and stared at the heart. Tears filled his eyes, each one glinting like a sword in the moonlight.

“Forgive me, Lorrilla.”

And he bit down on the beating heart.

The Earth System’s heart broke under Rue’s teeth. Golden blood spilled down his chin like the juice of a fruit. The world trembled as Rue wholeheartedly broke the rules of the game.

[No!]

The Gambler snapped his fingers, and time froze. Zoe’s thoughts stopped, and then, in the silence of her mind… chains rattled.

ding!

Let me show you, Zoe, what one friend does for another.

Zoe saw. She could not move, but she witnessed the Gambler move through the frozen time. Every step left a silhouette of darkness as light failed to fall into the void behind.

She saw how Rue stood frozen, about to swallow, about to gain the power to wreak vengeance for his ancient comrade condemned for no reason other than the madness of the system. A thought crystalized within her.

I want to help.

I am not of this system, and so I can resist.

If Zoe could move her head, she would have nodded, but all she could move was her chains.

A finger shot out from her hand. The silver chains stretched and shattered under the compress of time, but the black chain persisted as it stretched out to wrap around Rue.

[Sympathetic Resonance]

Zoe focused on the part of her mind that could resist and connected it to his. Rue trembled like a flower under a dew drop, and Zoe’s chain fell slack as psychic feedback stabbed her like an icicle through the brain.

But she had done enough.

Witness now the hubris of a system grown too large, and spread too thin.

Zoe was not the only one resisting the stickiness of time. Rue trembled. His hand still clenched the Earth System’s heart. Golden veins writhed across its skin. Golden blood leaked from his lips as the chunk sat inside his mouth. Time had frozen just before he swallowed.

But he was not frozen.

He trembled and shook, veins bulging along his skin as he fought the Gambler’s ability. Blood flowed from his nostrils, his ears, his fingernails. His eyes burst.

And he swallowed the heart of the Earth system.

Golden light flashed out as Rue opened his mouth. Teeth stained with two hues of blood he smiled at the Gambler.

“By my 100 levels, by my five mountains, by the heart of a defeated system —”

[No! You cannot!]

The Gambler charged Rue like a drug addict denied a fix, but the syrupy time slowed even him.

Rue glared at the mad god with disdain.

“By all the power I have stolen, I claim my right and —”

[No!]

“I ascend!”

And the universe split as a new god, a true God, was born.