A Devilish Gamble

The Comfort of Memories

There was a soft yellow glow in the room as the sunrise peered through the curtained window. The boy was sat on the floor, shuffling a pack of cards. Acutely aware of what cards were going where. The small apartment had a soothing silence over it. His pale mint green eyes were focused on the hand movements he was using.

"Ah-ha!" He chirped once all the cards were shuffled.

The chirp caught the attention of a dead faced women, her green eyes looked tired and black hair was tied back scruffily. She looked like the kind of women with a lot of hate in her heart.

"What have you done?" She asked rather blankly, her voice devoid of all emotion.

The boy got to his feet and walked to the chair in which the woman sat. The chair was in the corner of the room, by the large window that spread across the whole wall. She had her elbows propped up on a small round presumably oak table.

"Go on mama, I bet if you take out three cards I know what ones they are" he said proudly.

His messy long white hair fell over his face. His shirt hung out of the suspender shorts he wore. He was covered in dirt and was scruffy looking.
His mother raised an eyebrow as he held the spread out cards for her. With a very unenthusiastic look she took three cards from the collection and looked at each equally. Her tired dull eyes taking in the vibrant cards in all their colours.
The boy folded the stack together again and held them to his chest, as he had done so he counted all the cards he had in his hands. The stack was of course missing three cards. He had seen her take numbers: 27, 19, 45 out of the stack of 52.

"Go on then, amaze me" his mother challenged raising her eyes to look beyond the cards and glare her son in the eyes.

"King of spades, 7 of hearts, 3 of diamonds" he said challengingly narrowing his eyes and smirking.

His mother looked down at her cards, her expression didn't change but she turned the cards around. Revealing the King of spades, 7 of hearts but 5 of diamonds. The boy felt his heart sink and his whole mood dropped down. His gaze fell on to the rough carpet under his shoed feet. His mother put the cards down on the table and stretched out a hand, she messed his hair up and smiled slightly.

"Hey it ain't that bad My Love, you'll get there some day" she said in a warm voice.

The boy looked up again and he chuckled with a smile, feeling the weighing sadness fly off his shoulders. He scooped up the cards and skipped back to the middle of the room. Plopping himself down on the carpet in front of the couch and starting to shuffle all his cards again. The women let out a small inaudible sigh and stared out of the curtained window.

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The steady and constant electronic beep echoed through his ears, his eyes felt druggily heavy. His head pounded and body ached. He let out a groan as he came to, with struggle he half opened his eyes. Only to have light flood into them. It was harsh, bright, yellow light that hurt his head even more that it already killed. He lifted a hand to try and block it as he sat up, that's when he felt something brush against him. His slow sleepy mind took a while to realise he was sat in a bed. He glanced around. Monitors stood at his left side and chairs on the other. He was in a hospital room..? He looked down and realised he appeared to have a drip or whatever it was in his left hand. As well as all kinds of weird things attached to him. He never really understood what they were.

He lifted the covers to see he was completely bare on his upper half, with bandages wrapped around his stomach, on which he could see a spot of blood staining. He flinched in surprise and looked over as the silver door handle was pushed down. Within a split second the white door swung open. A nurse walked in holding a clip board, her eyes were focused on it as she closed the door. She had her blonde hair in a bun with a nurses hat on top her head. Her pretty grey eyes looked up and she gasped in shock. Almost as if he wasn't supposed to of been awake yet.