The Time Gambler's Curse

Chapter 1: The First Bet

Damian Cole was a man of numbers. For most people, they were just digits on a screen, but to him, they were secrets waiting to be unlocked—patterns that whispered wealth, promises of a life free from the grind. He sat at his cramped apartment desk, staring at the latest investment news. He should've been satisfied—after all, he was doing better than most in his field—but satisfaction was a stranger to Damian.

It was the letter sitting on the desk that had triggered the itch again. A credit card debt warning. His gambling habit had once been small—friendly bets with coworkers, poker games on weekends—but lately, it had grown into something insatiable. He needed a big break. Something guaranteed. No more probabilities, no more risks.

Then came the discovery. The eccentric physicist Dr. Weaver had been a legend at Damian's university. The rumors about his disappearance had only grown weirder over the years—some said he'd gone mad, others swore he had built a functioning time machine and vanished into history. Damian never believed the nonsense... until the day he found Weaver's journal in a dusty bookstore downtown.

It had been tucked between worn copies of science fiction novels, so unremarkable that Damian almost left it behind. But one page, filled with hurried notes and formulas, made his heart stop. "Time is the ultimate investment. The present is a diminishing asset; the past holds untapped wealth."

The pages revealed more—a simple, crude machine, pieced together with coils and dials, capable of short jumps through time. The last page of Weaver's journal had a note scrawled in jagged handwriting: "Don't make more than three jumps. Too many bets and the game fights back."

Damian read the journal three times that night. The words burned into his mind, an impossible idea planted like a stubborn weed. He couldn't shake it. A time machine. The power to travel back, place perfect bets, make flawless investments. No uncertainty, no chance of loss.

It took two weeks of scavenging through junkyards and calling in favors to piece together Weaver's strange contraption—a device that looked half like an old radio, with tangled wires, copper coils, and a worn leather strap attached. Damian stared at it, heart racing. If it worked, his days of scraping by were over.

With trembling hands, Damian strapped the device onto his wrist and set the dial. June 8, 1996. He remembered it well—Game 6 of the NBA Finals, Bulls vs. Sonics. He knew exactly how that game ended. Michael Jordan would seal the victory, securing another championship. He could bet his life on it.

He pressed the button. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the room seemed to fold in on itself, as if reality were a deck of cards being shuffled by some unseen hand. Damian felt weightless, like a man falling through a dream, and then—

He landed.

The colors were off—faded, like an old photograph—and the sounds of traffic drifted through an open window. Damian stood in a dingy motel room, the smell of stale cigarettes in the air. He glanced at the glowing red digits on a clock radio.

4:32 PM. June 8, 1996.

He laughed, more out of shock than joy. It had worked. It actually worked.

Within minutes, Damian was out on the street, the time machine concealed beneath his coat. He found a payphone and called a local bookie, placing a modest bet—just enough to cover rent if it hit. He didn't want to attract attention with too large a wager. Not yet.

When the game ended that evening, just as he knew it would, Damian collected his winnings from the smoky backroom of a bar. He tucked the crisp bills into his pocket, heart pounding with exhilaration. It was the easiest money he had ever made.

He didn't jump back to the present immediately. Instead, he wandered through the streets of 1996 Chicago, marveling at the sights—the old advertisements, the cars he remembered from his childhood, the people moving through their lives, unaware that he didn't belong there.

It was intoxicating.

By midnight, Damian was sitting at a bar, nursing a beer and watching the world pass by. The bartender struck up a conversation, and for a moment, Damian almost forgot himself, lost in the novelty of being out of time. When the bartender asked where he was from, Damian hesitated for only a second before replying, "I'm just passing through."

But deep down, he felt the first pang of unease. As thrilling as the jump had been, it was strange to be a stranger in a familiar world. Time moved differently when you weren't a part of it—when you knew the outcomes before they happened.

Finally, Damian returned to the motel, pulling the time device from beneath his coat. He set the dial back to the present. His fingers hovered over the button, and for a moment, he felt the weight of what he was doing. But the thrill of the win was too strong. He pressed the button.

Reality folded again, and in an instant, he was back in his apartment—same desk, same clutter, same life. But now, a thick wad of cash sat on the desk where there had only been bills before.

He grinned. It was only the beginning.

The next few weeks were a blur. Damian became bolder, making small, calculated jumps to place perfect bets and buy stocks in companies on the verge of meteoric rises. Each time he returned, his bank account grew larger, his debts melted away, and the future seemed brighter.

But with every jump, strange things began to happen—small, unsettling details out of place. A billboard advertising a product that had never existed. A news report mentioning events Damian didn't remember. And always, there was the nagging feeling that someone—or something—was watching him.

He ignored the warning signs, convincing himself it was just paranoia. The jumps were too easy, the rewards too tempting. He was playing the perfect game, one step ahead of the world. Nothing could go wrong.

But on his next jump—a quick trip to 1929 to place a bet on the eve of the Great Crash—Damian would discover just how dangerous time could be.

Some games, it turned out, could not be won.