Game of Cards

• Chapter One : Just a Minor •

THE STATUS OF life I have right now is absolute bullshit.

Come to think of it, I think the word 'bullshit' is my favorite statement. I said it the moment I got here, and I still say it right now. 

I appeared here in Città Di Cuori out of mysterious circumstances. I don't even have any ties to this place, nor do I know a soul here. It was meant to be a childish game so sincerely, I didn't expect myself to be here.

I walked around a little bit but in a cautious manner. It was literally the dead of night. I couldn't see or hear anything. The only sounds accompanying me were my leather boots scraping against the interlocking of the streets. There weren't any pavements whatsoever, neither a single sign closeby. This place was just as I expected it to be, I'll give you that. Old and rotting away.

My close friend, Jenna, and I decided to play a childish game. We thought it'd be funny to look up 'Ancient Hotties' instead of writing the homework we promised to do. We did the usual; walked into the bathroom, shut the door, lit a candle, and whispered 'Re Dei Cuori' three times. Now, you're meant to keep your eyes closed or he'll kill you, but after three minutes I felt the wind blow past me and I opened my eyes only to see myself here. Without Jenna. I really want to blame this all on her, but I agreed. So it's still my fault.

I started to feel vibrating and didn't realize it was my phone. I still had my phone! I reached out for it but felt something slap my cheek.

"Ow!" I yelped aloud. Only to be answered with complete silence. "If you had a problem with me, we could've had some tea and a chat you know!"

No answer.

My mother always told me to slap whoever slapped me, but I knew whatever just slapped me wasn't a human being. I could hear deep chuckling in my head as a voice whispered to me.

"Of course I'm not human."

They were definitely not British like I was, their accent was thick with Italian.

"Re Dei Cuori?" I trembled with fear as I remembered the stories about him. Re Dei Cuori was apparently a demon monarch. He used to rule over this place, but was cursed or something like that. Honestly, you wouldn't want to mess with someone like him. Only God knows what he'll do to me if God can forgive me for putting myself in this mess in the first place, that is.

The chuckle was suddenly full-fledged laughter right next to me. "No, Bellissima!"

"Well, who are you then?" I asked, frustrated. This was all becoming very confusing and it wasn't funny to be perplexed.

"Lingua di demone," He saw my face and suddenly changed his expression. "You can call me Damien."

"Well, Damien, could you show me a way out of here?" He only laughed again and I was once again left with the silence as a company.

Damien wasn't even visible in the first place. He was like a dark, wispy shadow with a pair of glowing golden irises. There was something silver shining too, but only God knows what the hell that is.

"Alright," He muttered. I didn't even ask for him to come back...

He finally appeared in full form. First, a wide, tooth-filled grin, definitely too wide for a normal person to have, and then he appeared in full flesh.

He had purely white shoulder-length hair, a humongous pair of black horns sticking out of his scalp, curling and coiling all the way to his ear lobes. The silver I saw previously, were the piercings pinching the skin of his eyebrows, lips, the sharpened tip of his tongue and placed all over his long and pointed ears.

He wasn't dressed the way I expected him to be. He had a long sleeve black polo shirt, a pair of black skinny jeans with a long silver chain hanging from the belt loops to the front pocket, and black Vans.

"Well, you're dressed quite unusually."

He chuckled deeply. "What did you expect me to wear, Bellissima? A toga? Tunic perhaps?"

I could only stand there. He was stealing words from my mouth.

"Just get me out of here so I don't have to see you ever again." He paused when I finished my statement. I rolled my eyes. "Damien."

We started to walk forwards for some minutes until I saw the sharp lighting of his tongue piercing.

"What is so funny?"

"I haven't taken you anywhere, Bellissima." I could feel the anger boiling up inside me as I felt his warm breath on my cheek.

In fact, I was so angry, I didn't realize my hand had risen and slapped Damien directly in the face, His head jerking to the side for a millisecond with the force, I could still hear it echoing.

All sound was cut off with a deep, dark growl and I could see the conjunctiva of Damien's eyes turn a shimmering black. Every part of his eyes was now a shimmering black, as pearly white teeth became sharp tipped fangs.

I raised both of my arms in surrender, but he continued to shift. My only decision now, was to run. And run far.

I ran in the other direction, not caring about Damien's previous words.

'I haven't taken you anywhere, Bellissima.'

It pissed me off even more just thinking about it, adrenaline rushed through my veins. I ran a lot further than expected, and before I knew it, I had reached some other place.

Better than being near Damien.

I smirked. He wouldn't catch me here. Expecially since I can hear other voices, and they all sound on hundred percent human.