The Time Gambler's Curse

Chapter 17: The Price of Greed

The moment Damian landed, he felt it—wrong, twisted. This was no simple jump, no disorienting ripple of fractured time bending under his weight. It was something far darker, a malevolent presence in the very air. The city streets around him appeared familiar, but not real—like a ghost of the world he once knew, distorted as though seen through cracked glass.

He steadied himself, hands shaking as the last tremors of the jump faded, leaving behind a reality that pulsed with an eerie tension. The air was heavy, thick with an unnatural pressure that squeezed his chest. People passed him on the street, blurred outlines of themselves, their faces smudged like ink bleeding across a wet page. Invisible. He felt invisible. Or worse, irrelevant—as though he no longer existed within the framework of time.

This was the price.

The Dealer's words rang through his mind: "Time doesn't care why you made the choices, Damian. It only cares that you did."

The weight of that truth hung over him like a death sentence. Greed. That had been the catalyst. The desire for more—more wealth, more power, more control—had poisoned everything. And now, the fractures that had once flickered at the edges of reality had spread, consuming the world with the same hunger that had once consumed him.

Damian clenched his fists, his pulse thundering in his ears as he forced himself to walk forward. The city was both familiar and alien, a twisted reflection of the life he had once lived. The fractures shimmered at the corners of his vision, no longer fleeting anomalies but jagged tears in the fabric of time. And with each step he took, they deepened.

He could feel the cracks spreading, could hear the faint, sickening hum of reality unraveling. The streets around him warped, the light dimming as though the very sun had grown weary of illuminating his sins. This was the consequence of every jump, every bet, every reckless manipulation of time that had fed his insatiable desire for control.

Greed. The word echoed in his mind, cold and sharp.

He had wanted it all—wanted to bend time to his will, to secure a future no matter the cost. But time had exacted its price, and now he was standing in the wreckage of what he had created. The fractures, the chaos—they were his doing. This twisted reality was not the consequence of a single moment but the culmination of every selfish choice he had ever made.

As Damian moved through the streets, his past played out in fragments before him, a cruel montage of his own hubris. He remembered the thrill of the first jump, the rush of winning. The euphoric belief that he had outsmarted the universe itself, that he could manipulate time like a game of cards.

But greed is never satisfied. And every time he jumped, every time he meddled with the timeline, the cracks deepened. His control had been an illusion, and now, as the fractures grew, he understood—he had never been the master of time. He had been its plaything.

A flicker in the corner of his eye drew his attention.

He turned sharply, his heart hammering in his chest. There, standing across the street, was himself. His younger self. The version of Damian who had made the first fateful decision—the man who had taken that first gamble in a smoky casino, who had believed with absolute certainty that he could win.

His blood ran cold as he watched his younger self move through the crowd with the same reckless confidence that had led him down this path. It was like staring at a reflection through time, a reflection that had not yet learned the price of greed. This was the version of him that still believed the rules of time could be bent, that the fractures could be ignored.

Without thinking, Damian surged forward, his pulse racing as he pushed through the sea of blurred faces. He had to stop him—stop himself—before it was too late. Before the greed could take hold again, before the choices that had fractured time could be made once more.

He reached the other side of the street just as his younger self turned, their eyes locking for the briefest of moments. Everything stilled. The noise of the city seemed to fade into silence, the flickers of time freezing in place as if waiting for something to break.

Damian's breath caught in his throat as he stared into his own eyes—the same sharp gaze, the same defiant set to his jaw. It was like looking into the past and seeing the man he had been before the weight of time had crushed him.

"Don't," Damian whispered, his voice hoarse, trembling with desperation. "Don't make the same mistake."

His younger self narrowed his eyes, confusion flickering across his face. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I know what you're thinking," Damian said, his voice raw. "You think you can control it. You think you can beat time, bend it to your will. But you can't. You won't. The greed—it'll consume you. It'll break everything."

The younger Damian's brow furrowed, irritation flashing in his eyes. "Look, I don't know what your deal is, but I don't have time for this."

"You don't understand!" Damian's voice broke as he stepped closer, his hands trembling. "Every jump you make, every choice you take—it comes with a price. You're not just breaking time; you're destroying it. You're destroying everything."

For a fleeting moment, his younger self hesitated, a flicker of doubt crossing his face. But then, just as quickly, his expression hardened, his defiance returning. With a sharp shake of his head, he pushed past Damian, his voice cold and dismissive. "I've already made my choice."

Damian's world crumbled.

He watched, helpless, as his younger self walked away, vanishing into the crowd, taking the first steps toward the future that would unravel time itself. The fractures pulsed, glowing with a sickening intensity, and Damian could feel them stretching further, spreading through the streets, through the world.

And in that moment, Damian understood. There was no stopping it. The choices had already been made. The greed had already taken root.

And the price was everything.