𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑹𝑻𝑳𝑬𝑺𝑺 • Shuntaro Chishiya

• 11 •

"Unexpected"

"I was definitely expecting a different reaction." Sayaka stated after a moment of silence.

"What, why?" The man asked confused.

"You don't get it, do you?" The girl waited a couple of seconds before finally giving her explanation. "There's no way for you to win now. It's your turn and there are only two possibilities because I have only two cards: The first one is that you take my nine which would mean the death of everybody here, because I would be left with one joker and you with eight of them. The game wouldn't be cleared... And the second possibility is, that you take my joker and I'll just hope I will take the nine you are holding. For you it's a die or die. Now Kuina's and my life is in your hands."

"What!? You said you would make us win!" A woman standing behind Sayaka screamed angry like at the leader.

"Admit it, you fucked up as a leader." Sayaka confronted the man.

The man didn't answer and just looked down at the table. He slowly started sobbing quietly and put his hands over his face in order to hide all of his emotions.

"You're right. I failed." He admitted after a while.

"The right card is a joker and the left card is the nine." Sayaka said while holding the cards so that everyone except the man could see them.

"She's not lying." A woman quickly confirmed the girl's words.

Without wasting any more time, the man reached out for the right card, which was the joker.

Now Sayaka was left with her last card, the nine of hearts.

'Ironic, isn't it. The last game I played.' The girl chuckled.

"I'm sorry." The leader bemoaned. "I'm so sorry."

The man with glasses, who obviously was also part of the group, started crying very loudly. He really did have a mental breakdown. The man started to throw chairs around the room until he collapsed to the ground.

"I have children." He said sobbing. "All I want is to see them again."

"Our days are counted." A woman spoke. "But yours aren't."

She walked up to the leader of the group and pointed at one card.

"That's the nine of spades."

"Thank you." Sayaka said softly in a very grateful way.

The girl was just about to take the card but stopped in the last moment.

"Spades." She repeated the woman's words.

The girl quickly went through the cards that were lying on the table.

"So I remembered it correctly." Sayaka smiled and took the nine of spades card along with the nine of diamonds. "How come, he has a nine of spades if somebody already put it on the table? Shouldn't he be holding a nine of clubs?"

Silence

"You little bitch." The woman commented. "If I don't deserve to live, neither do you!" She screamed at Sayaka.