play for life

"It's your go." Henri states with his professional poker face of boredom. Leih glances at his cards deciding his next move.

"Do you have the queen of hearts?"

"No." Danny and Henri answer in sync. Leih sighs in frustration and picks up the card on top of the messy pile. Sure enough, the card he held in his hand was the card he most needed to get royal flush.

"Royal flush!" he yells gleefully at the dealer and his friends. Leih wraps his arms around the masses of cash in the middle if the table and pulls it towards himself.

"Alright boys, lets make dis un a little more, lets say serious." The dealer finally says.

"What's the plan?" Danny pipes up. Henri, Leih and Danny all take swigs of their beer while not really listening to the dealer explain the rules.

"- but dis time we won' play for money." He finishes.

"What will we play for then?" Henry asks drunkenly. The dealer gives of a small evil smile, hardly noticeable before continuing.

"We play for life." He answers. "De winner get to shoot de person wit de lowest ranked cards." He finishes. The three boys exchange drunken glances before nodding their heads.

"All right we all agree now don' we? Don't wan' any chickens in ma casino now do we eh?" the dealer raises his eyebrow. The boys nod their heads again like bobble heads.

Once the cards are dealt an intense game of poker breaks out. The boys begin to sweat with concentration but the dealer stays as straight faced as ever, not even giving away even a smidge of emotion.

"Ok lads, how bouts we raise de stakes here eh?" the dealer finally says.

"I'm cool with that." Danny agrees.

"Me too!" Henri yells.

Leih gives the dealer a look of confusion, egging him to say more.

"You chicken?" the dealer raises his eyebrow. Leih quickly shakes his head and agrees to the heightened stakes.

"Good now if I win, myself gets to shoot all of you young lads." The dealer says with a menacing grin. The boys look at each other in shock as they take in the new rules.

"it mus' be ma turn." The dealer speaks again. "Anyone got ace o' spades." He asks.

Leih gulps slightly a he slowly hands the card over. The tension in the room tightens as the dealer snatches the card greedily out of his hands.

" four of a kind." He whispers in Danny's ear making him jump wildly out of his skin. The dealer pulls his gun out of his waist band and before the two of them know it. A bullet goes straight through their friends head.

leih makes a break for it with his friend at his side, surprisingly dodging all the bullets that come their way. The two boys earn nasty glares from the dealers at other tables as they rush past them. They stumble out of the crowded casino with the crazy dealer close on their heels.

Soon other dealers join the chase. They are much faster and stronger than the older dealer the boys had played the death game with. Still this only accelerates the boys running paces as they try to out run the skyscraper currently tailing them.

Finally, after a century of minutes, the boys loose the dealers in a crowd of people oohing and ahhing at a magician performing the usual cliche tricks. The two boys stop in a nearby dark alleyway to catch their long lost breath.

Suddenly leih and his friend see a flash of blinding light dance across the sky before a huge crack bellows through the air and into their ears. Tiny droplets of water start lightly peppering the boys as they try to bring some air back into their lungs.

The storm unfortunately refuses to let up. Rain dribbles consistently down their faces. Right after Leih decides it can't get any worse It ultimately does. An ear piercing bang rings throughout the alley and He watch watches Henri fall lifelessly to the hard wet ground.

"Sweet dreams." The dealer cackles in leihs ear before he hears the final bang.