“Nobody knows how Card King got his powers, some say the spirit of the game took him over. I, well I think differently, I think Card King was just one of those kinds of people who nothing could stop him from gaining power. It would fall into his lap one way or another.”

* Eleanor Elsson, superhero historian, superhero named Knowledge Queen.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Jules said rummaging through his drawers. It had to be there. It just had to.

    His room was a mess. Decks of cards lay strewn across every corner. A queen on his chair, jack’s all over his bed, cards of different suits, different sizes, a queen of arrows, a king of thorns.

    All sorts of different cards. In the distance Jules heard the sound of steps coming up the stairs. Jules hand’s reached what he was looking for. The door thrust open, wood splinters going everywhere and kicking up a storm of different cards (in particular a pile of aces laid in front of it), there in the doorway was a mangled, rotting man.

    Huge porous skin, which turned to one side and dripped off of his face. Huge bubbles of a yellow pus dripped out from craters in his arm. In his hands was a large black circular object with a timer on it. The timer read thirty seconds. The rotting man yawned.

    “Oh, oh, oh, oh. Always wait for more time. Time, time, time, time. Always going down, right down… To you.” The monstrous man said. His voice, a combination of gravel and pouring terrible sludge.

    Jules stood there, back against the wall, his hands behind his back. 

    “Time is coming to a close. It’s coming, coming, coming.” The clock read twenty seconds now. Jules laughed. A barking laugh, the monstrous man looked at him.

    “Well fuck. I guess debt in this city really is hard to pay, I gave you the money, I gave you my time, I fucking gave you that girl that Boss is probably fucking the shit out of right now. Might as well kill me now and I’ll fucking give you my life.” Jules eyes stared at the man, the monster stared back. Ten seconds on the ball.

    “Almost there. Give me my time, Boss said everything got, got, got, got to be perfect now neh. The moon needs to see.” Their eyes met in the middle of the room. Something lurked behind Jules’s eyes, something deeper than a man awaiting his death. The monster sensed it.

    They didn’t say anything, just watched the timer on the ball let up. Five, four, three… Jules tensed his body, all his muscles bunched up, he thrust a card through his throat out the other end at the man. The card whistled in the air as it slammed into the monstrous man.

    It caught him right on his wrinkled chin and curved all the way up and across his whole face cutting into his fat nose and his lips. The card flew in the air for a second before somehow drifting back to Jules hand.

    The ball hit zero. Nothing happened. The monstrous man fell to the floor with a thud, blood spurting out of each and every orifice of his body. Jules grasped at his neck, in surprise at the hole having even formed, even though he threw it.

    His surprise turned into a smile. Jules opened his mouth as if to laugh but no words and only blood came out. Blood dripped out of his throat and onto his face. Death approached him, his thoughts turned to blackness to darkness as he curled up into a ball on the floor.

    His last look in his eyes being his cards twisting and forming into something.

    The cards.

    The cards.

    The cards.

    Everything goes back to the cards. Now Jules’s dead. His corpse laid bleeding on the ground. Large farting sounds started to come from the monstrous man, his death’s last orchestra. One singular ace lied on the ground in front of Jules, the card he threw, it stood up, bending it’s crisp maintained corners to do so.

    Cards from every corner of the room started to fly in. Queens and kings, 1’s and 2’s, jacks and aces. Coalesced and formed into the rippling picture of a man. A man made out of cards.

    The man got up, brushed himself off, throwing little jacks off into the distance. He looked around, his eyes trailing unknown lines in the clouds or in the energy of the room, he looked down at Jules. His eyes walked over the lines of Jules’s face. 

    Two seconds passed. The man reached into his chest, rummaged in there for a second, pulling out with a flourish a singular emerald green card. He twirled the card in the air with practiced ease, it’s edges creating a rustling sound against his skin. Then and with tremendous strength and speed, he thrust the card into the chest of Jules. Yet it did not break apart Jules’s skin, it only melded in and disappeared into the flesh.

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    The only clue that it was there was a dull reverberating greenish glow.

    Jules grumbled and grasped at his head. A terrible thumping sound came from within. His memory was shaky from last night. What happened? Where was he. Jules opened his eyes and stared at the gray sky.

    Was he alive? No he couldn’t have been. He remembered the CARD going right through his own throat and out the other end but, Jules stared down. He was on the top of his building, a couple of broken down lawn chairs stared back at him.

    His nose started to work and Jules wretched. He sat folded over sideways, in a garbage container. He had been stripped to his underwear and he shivered in the winter air. It was cold this time of year in New York. Jules got up, lifted himself out of the trashcan, and plopped down onto the roof.

    His legs buckled as he hit the ground and he crumpled into a little puddle on the ground. The headache throbbed even worse. Not a dull pain but a dagger pain, a bloody pain. It felt like there should’ve been something visible, Jules grasped at his hand but nothing was there besides hair.

    The pain was leading to something. Dragging him along to push him towards some goal. Jules closed his eyes and breathed in cold air. Jules dug his nails into his palms. The pain was coming to a head. Something was in his mind, something, that he had no name for.

    He needed to get up. He didn’t want to be caught out here where one of Boss’s henchmen might find him and wonder why he got out of his early rest. Jules lifted his body up this time taking his time soon he was standing there letting the wind breeze through his curls.

    He had a good head of hair, wouldn’t have looked great on a dead man but hey he wasn’t dead. Jules stepped forward one step at a time, waiting to make sure that he didn’t crumble in a heap again.

    He made his way down the stairs and back into his apartment building. His room was trashed, every single card was gone, the cabinets had been searched all over the place, the bed was overturned. Jules sighed. He couldn’t go back here anyway, not that he would want to.

    This place was just temporary, he was used to that, but it still hurt. Jules kicked a can that was on the ground, it was high time he got out of here, the goons would be back again to search it. Jules put on some of his strewn about clothes, some old jeans, a beanie leftover from his mom, a stained white t-shirt, a nice warm jacket, the same old, same old clothes.

    Nobody was out on the streets when Jules got there. It was early morning, not even past 4’o clock, Jules didn’t feel tired. First things first he checked an ATM, empty, all of his accounts had been emptied out.

    He’d have to make everything over again, easy enough in this city. Jules really wanted to Chew now. It’d been twelve hours and he was starting to feel the hunger for it. None of the stores were open, it’d be hours before they would.

    Jules sighed, it’s hard being an addict, oh woe is he. 

    Jules meandered his way till he got to his safe-house. It was ramshackle and built into the side of a warehouse but it would have to do, it was warm and nobody came around there. Morning had officially started, it was around 8. Jules hadn’t eaten anything, luckily this safe-house had a working refrigerator.

    Jules took out a half-eaten sandwich that he had left a couple months ago. It was fine, his stomach could handle dead old ham, these freezing procedures get better every year. Some rogue Builder will always find some way of improving old dead technology and then bam overcharge for it.

    Maybe a little sickness would do him a little good. He just wasn’t awake, he didn’t have that same hunger that he used to. He felt so meandery, so worthless, there wasn’t anything to do but yet there was so much.

    The big boss had put a hit out on him that was sure enough. Sent one of his abominations. Jules could never get over that power. The boss could make flowers that never die and he could also make creatures that lived in a state of death and undeath. A terrible duality. Jules was happy that the boss didn’t come to eliminate him personally.

    The card though, Jules swore that he had the card when he died, even used it to shoot and kill the henchmen but the card disappeared. Jules knew that it couldn’t have landed in Boss’s hands but where could it have gone. The God of Emeralds, the rarest card in the Mystical Tarot, said to possess powers created by the Card King himself, one of the most powerful supers ever.

    Billions of dollars down the drain like that, not that Jules lost any of the money, he stole the card. But it still hurt, all that planning, all that infiltration of Boss’s gang, sucking up to the old man for nothing.

    Jules saw a packet of Chew on the corner. Old stuff, an ancient peach flavor that he had probably stockpiled for this exact purpose. Jules took it and opened it up, the face of the slimy greasy Chew stared back at him.

    Jules took a large chunk out of the Chew, Chew when it was like this looked strikingly close to meat, and put it right on his front tooth. From his teeth came the sensation of grinding gears, of moving objects.

    Chew always made him feel just more… alive. The sensation settled into his mind and Jules leaned back into the decrepit old armchair and closed his eyes.

    The headache faded into a dark, green, blur and Jules fell back asleep.

Pick a Card:

                 Queen of Bodies                      King of Souls                     Ace of Minds