Poisoned

2. Addicted to Gambling After Injury

"I mean I had thousands and thousands of dollars in winnings just from these apps," I tried to convince my coworkers that they should join this online money gold mine.

On my phone, I was running at least 13 apps, actively checking through each of them, 13—multiple times a day, and winning.

They looked skeptical.

"That's not say that I didn't have days or certain apps that were making me lose," I went on. "A ton, and some of them I think were rigged, but—"

I was making so much more money than all of my friends because they were all against online gambling. I felt good.

One thing they didn't know that I spend most of my time doing this.

In my last year's therapy sessions, I concluded I was ashamed.

I started eating a lot more takeout, or frozen meals, because I just didn't want to drive anywhere; Making money from my couch was the only thing that was making me happy.

The money I was making wasn't dramatic, but it did allow me to have a lavish lifestyle; Let's say I thought of something, anything, I could get it. If I had this craving of food that was really expensive, here's my steak delivered with the bread, the dessert, the whole five course meal, or if I wanted to have one-day getaway to Los Angeles, there I was, with my ticket purchased and almost first class.

I thought that I deserved this, and better, since I had been out of work ever since I graduated, until I found this job. It's true that if you're working you love what you're doing because I was writing speeches for the State Attorney's Office. 

It was away from where I grew up, but I didn't want to be this part of the wave of millennials that were just like unemployed and living at their parents. For one, I didn't have parents. 

I felt for them, but I did not want to do that. I was willing to put more and more money into these apps to just be able to secure my finances. Becoming financially independent to everyone means something different.

I was comfortable where I was and I was getting a sort of high from checking these apps, and seeing my money grow. The bar charts they put in, and watching the animation grow is my favorite, although lately, I don't know what happened.

I don't know what happened. I started to try to research, and it seems like there was some new software that got bought within these companies, and it ends up being owned by the same Silicon Valley company. Well, their games were making me lose.

I was starting to lose and actually got an ad about it, even though by now I had all the paid versions of all the apps, and I got into one ad those that were more serious. It was underground, and I don't know if it was intended to be an ad because it was just a Reddit comment that looked sponsored from a thread defining that this was legit, and it turned out to be about this app.

I won't disclose the name, but it actually lets you bet on anything. Anything you want, with anybody. You want it? There. And it's advertised as if it's going to be with your friend, but it's used on all these chat rooms within the games, and basically you choose anything, you put your credit card in, and if you and the seller agree on the outcome, either you get the full money or they get the full money. By full money I mean both of whatever you put in with your credit card an their credit card's amount. I went too far.

Anastasia picked me up in her brand new car and I was in love with it.

"Thank you so much," I said to her, stepping out of the vehicle "You look bad ass driving this."

"I love it!"

"Don't roll down the window," she reminded me, so that I could make sure that she didn't get her brand new tints damaged.

"And don't forget I'm having a small get together today at Maya's place."

She was a great cook, so I was looking forward to it. She and my friend Arturo were the only ones who I believed cooked a better BBQ than me.

I got inside.

Arturo was out of the country, but I had hung up on him when he was explaining that the world was going to end soon. I missed talking to him.

"Why are you out of the country?" I remember I asked.

"It just got too bad," he started.

However crazy, I loved picking his brain about intellectual topics. I had been adopted by older parents and they had passed, so I was alone. His winded stories summed up at the end nicely and he explained, "I started noticing patterns. I'm in Miami Beach, walking up and down Collins Avenue and I see the same cars. The same people. People all in bikes and they just fly by and you look up and they're gone. Stealthy unless you're on a bike, too, but I'm on foot-"

"Do you think they were definitely same cars?"

"I took pictures."

"Of the plates?"

"Yes. The same cars were appearing over and over."

He was telling me of a gang that supposedly used Snapchat and Whatsapp to have secret conversations that are encrypted and easy to delete.

He brought it up when I explained the new bet I was doing: betting on iPhone features that would be in the new models and I won $9300 from that last year.

"Couldn't they all live in your neighborhood?" I asked him, dismissing it as paranoid.

"Not in a chance. Not all of these cars that I had never noticed before were suddenly tracking me. It was as if they were tracking me."

"Did you ever get to talk to any of them, or they just drove too fast?"

"They drove too fast, but that's what they do." He sounded researched.

"You can look it up, they're biker gangs in the middle of the city. It's happening in other towns, they communicate with each other and go seek out victims.

They're so subtle, even during the day, they can cause silent crimes"

"So do you think they were going to take you?" I remember asking him.

"I'm not sure what I think they were going to do with me."

"Yeah, I'm glad you didn't find out."

"But I left. I made sure to not leave any tracks and I left. "