Joker | aib

に

Act one

The beach

に

two

game cleared

Everything seemed to work slower. The players were stressed, the old man was tapping his deck when it wasn't his turn, the woman was tapping her heel against the marble floor, the living school girl was breathing very loud and the other person, a young boy around the age of eighteen, not older, was cracking his joints every few seconds. The man sat silently in his seat while Akari discarded as many cards as she could. Already on the fourth round and she had already discarded half of her deck.

"I don't trust," uttered the old man as the woman in the suit placed two cards above the big deck in the middle. She sighed, her breath shaking, and took all the cards that were down. She lied. The old man let out a breath of relief while Akari stared at the cards in the hands of the players. There were more than 52 cards, which only made her think that there were two full decks into the game, which mean eight of everything.

Before the old man could start a fifth round, a sound echoed from one of the corridors. Everyone froze and turned to stare at the dark hall. "What was that?" Asked the girl, her hand tremors shaking slightly the table.

"Nothing," said the man.

They heard it again. The old man quickly placed a single card on the table, muttering his answer before leaning back into his chair and staring terrified at the dark corridor. They heard it again. Akari raised her leg and placed her foot on the chair, letting her body slightly slide down. Don't trust the players, she thought. She knew that particular information wasn't a lie, because everyone seemed to agree with the man. Don't trust the players, she repeated to herself, it's a game of trust and betrayal... don't trust anything.

They heard it a third time. Closer this time. "Its getting closer," someone stated, but Akari wasn't paying attention who.

"Its nothing," she said, repeating the words of the man.

"You know nothing," hissed the woman in the suit, making Akari raise her eyes to look at her. The rest did the name, the hatred in her voice surprising everyone of them, even the man. "You've never played a game," she said, "you don't know how it is, to see people die the way they do. You don't know what the hearts did to all of us!"

Akari nodded and let out a small huff, her eyes falling back on her cards. "You're right," she answered, "this is my first game. And it's a heart game. It's a game of 'manipulation, betrayal and trust'. So I don't trust... anything around here. Not even myself."

The man let out a small chuckle and placed his own cards down after the school girl and the teenage boy. Akari did the same, placing three cards down, not even caring that another five were already down. The players were scared to say "I don't trust". Once they succeed in one round, they'd try again in the next. They would have the courage to say the words, but not the luck. And when they told it to Akari, the luck was never found. They would always lose.

But the woman didn't care. She said the words and Akari slowly took her cards back and flipped them over, showing the three ace of spades she said had previously stated to put down. The woman's eyes widened and Akari pushed the eight cards towards her.

Suddenly, the high school girl let out a scream and everyone turned to stare at her. She was petrified in her seat, her shaking hand pointing to the corridor, and when Akari turn to look at what she was so scared of, her eyes widened. The skeleton of an animal was walking around, its skull staring at the six players. It started moving faster, circling the table and eyeing particularly the high school girl. She was scared, terrified even, and the moment it started running towards her seat, she got up and pushed her chair in front of it, hoping to hit it.