Author Games: Ace of Spades

Semifinals: Ren Cayse

Fresh air had always been a blessing to Ren Cayse, and in a time where he thought he'd never run out of it, he found that he was, in fact, running out. Naturally, when things run scarce, desperation comes in to fill all the empty gaps.

Ren was desperate, but his gaps were yet to be filled. He was filled with holes, blank, empty holes that left him feeling bare as he stood at the center of a room. He could feel the surrounding eyes scald his skin before they moved onto better things, he could feel people move right through him as they collected once more in the gambling hall for what seemed to be another drawn out series of games.

It was strange and almost foreign, but Ren was beyond uncomfortable.

He didn't show it, only continued to wonder how only six of them were spread throughout the room, and how the ride of luck had managed to take him all the way back to the blackjack tables, to the poker rounds. Unused chips still sat at places where trembling hands once lay, and cards were scattered across the floor, almost strategically, to cover speckles of crimson. Florence fiddled with the green velvet, Adam tapped at the shattered bottles around the bar.

Ren found it much easier to forget the names and crunch over broken glass to an overturned chair, which he quickly uprighted and slumped down in. Fingers dug mindlessly into his suit pocket, fumbling with a little cardboard box and the few contents. His lips were hot, and his forehead had broken out in a sweat, but it didn't keep him from slipping in the little cigarette and lighting it up.

If I could burn like that money, I'd be a beacon for miles. He leaned his head back so that he blew smoke to the chandeliers. Thing is - by the time anyone gets here, everything's just a black, charred mess.

He kept up like that for some time. Light shadows passed around him in wait for the Aces, faint murmurs came muffled, smothered, and the coppery smells were almost - almost - masked by the alcohol in the air. Ren might've been grateful, had the scent not reminded him of someone he'd barely even gotten to know.

Nails dug into his palms, but the distraction he hoped for never came, not fully.

Instead came a flush of anger, one that left his cheeks tinted a bright pink and his hands slick with sweat. He took a break from the cancer-stick to take a wavering breath that did little to cool his body. Quit shaking. He swallowed, ducked his head down so he could stare at the floor between his knees. Quit fidgeting. A tooth bit down on his lip, and he tasted metal - he could still taste his first cocktail along the insides of his cheeks. Quit thinking.

At some point he grew fed up with himself and brought his hands down so they hovered just above his lap, bitter smoke wafting up and stinging his eyes.

They never stopped shaking.

"Shit," he whispered, breathless. You're doing the thing again, Cayse. Y'know, the thing where you sort of start to give up on everything? Yeah, that. Don't you see it?

He didn't answer himself - the cigarette went back between his lips and he let it sit there.

Before he could blow out another stream of smoke, the double doors to the gambling hall were flung open, thundering against the walls as the four Aces trickled through the doors in such a way that they very nearly toppled over one another. Ren barely lifted his sore eyes to the scene; Emerson had taken front and center in a matter of seconds and no one else made a move to pass them.

"Alas, the night is finally over," Emerson said. A lock of bright orange was flicked over a shoulder, and Ren turned away from the spectacle, much more interested in the plume of smoke spilling from his own lips. "As much as we're sure you'd love to stay, the time has come for the night to end."