The Gambler

Chapter 3: TimeToPretend

The first thing that Elijah saw when he first woke up was white. As his eyes soon adjusted to the bright light that littered the room, he realized that he saw the world through a blank tint, like something was covering his head. He started to analyze the place he was in; there were file cabinets and a desk that seemed to see some recent use. Elijah kept looking around the room until he realized that the puppet he picked earlier was on his hand. Elijah started to freak out, and the puppet seemed to notice that he was looking at it.

" Wait, was that eye contact just now, are you awake ?" the puppet asked as Elijah soon realized that the female voice that was in his dream just a few moments ago belonged to this puppet. Elijah tried to respond to the puppet but could not due to his mouth being stitched shut, so he just opted for a swift nod. " No, no, no, you are supposed to be out, a zombie, Zonked, I'm supposed to control you completely," she said worryingly. Still, before she could continue talking, a collection of small screens placed on the wall sparkled to life, showing both of them an image of what Elijah could guess was a puppet's face that seemed way to close to the camera. This puppet appeared to be wearing a smiling face mask and had two different eye colors, one of being green and the other blue." I guess even puppets need to wear a face mask during this pandemic. Geez, what has this world come to?" Elijah thought to himself as he turned his body to pay full attention to the screen.

"Welcome to Puppet, Host Orientation, our purpose is to measure your host control and manipulation,'' the new puppet said as Elijah noticed the rhyme she put in there. " Wait a minute, I think there's something wrong with my host," the puppet on his arm said as the puppet on the screen was getting agitated for some reason. "Rhyme Scout!" the puppet said. " Oh shit," Scout said as she tried to think of rhyme as quickly as possible. "What if my host is not working? Could I get one without any jerking...... around?" Scout said as Elijah was starting to get impatient with these two's antics. " You had two failed tests in the past, the third one will be your last," the puppet on the screen said threateningly. Scout looked back towards Elijah " dammit, look, you are not supposed to be awake right now, so you're just going to have to pretend that I have total control over you, or we are both dead. Elijah only responded with a low guttural affirmative growl. " Oh right, I forgot Riley stitched your mouth shut, so just keep making those noises, until we find a better way for you to communicate," Scout said.

" Did you say something?" the puppet on the screen said as both Elijah and Scout forgot she was there. " No, no, just talking to myself, I didn't mean to spread the wealth," Scout rhymed. " Surprisingly coherent rhyme scout, maybe your future is no longer in doubt," the puppet replied as the screens turned off, signally to Elijah that she was not watching them, or hopefully not. Elijah used his right hand to feel around his mask on and soon felt what seemed to be a rope tied around his neck. Elijah did quick work of the rope as he untied it and pulled off his mask for him to see the world a bit better than before. Scout saw him do this " what are you doing? We're going to get caught," she said as Elijah swoon focused his attention on the stitches shutting his mouth shut.

Elijah rummaged through his pockets until he pulled out a playing card " what are you going to do with that" Scout said questioningly. Scout could only hear a slight chuckle from Elijah's mouth as the playing card slowly morphed into a serrated combat knife. After the card completely transformed, Elijah began cutting away at the stitches on his mouth. One by one, they slowly fell out as Elijah started to breathe through his mouth again. Once he was done with the stitches, he took a deep breath in and out as the small wounds that were on his face slowly healed and soon there were no visible wounds or scars on his mouth telling that there once was stitches, the only thing left on his mouth was the blood that seemed to be dried up.

Scout looked in absolute bafflement at the events that just happened, she knew that magic did exist in the form of voodoo since they were born from it, but she never knew stuff like this existed. " What the hell was that" she half yelled since she did not want Riley to notice. "It's magic. Have you never seen it before," he said. "No, I have seen magic but not that, that's something completely different," she said. " Hmm, well whatever floats your boat, miss," he said as he raised his left arm so they could look at each other eye to eye. "Alright, the look, can you just put the cloth back on and pretend?" she asked as Elijah quickly turned the knife he had back into a playing card and put it back into his right pocket. "Sure, I'll play along for now, but if I see anything fishy from you, you're going to be in big trouble," he said. Elijah quickly put the piece of cloth back on and put the rope around his neck, loosely tightening it. After that, he gave Scout a thumbs up and walked towards the door in front of them.