The Gambler

Chapter 4: Indestructible

The puppet, in a fit of rage, quickly rushed towards Elijah with a confident stride.“The puppet running towards me seems to be very confident in its victory already; hmmm well, I think I should break its illusion,” Elijah thought as he prepared for the coming fight. When the puppet was close enough, it thrust its knife towards Elijah, but before any connection could be made, Elijah sidestepped the attack and grabbed the host’s wrist, and kneed the arm he was holding, Which broke the host’s arm with a loud CRACK. Before Elijah could do more, the puppet pushed him off and backed away from Elijah. The puppet looked at its host’s broken arm, which was bent the wrong way due to Elijah’s immense force in his attack. 

The puppet looked back towards Elijah and started running towards him again. “How will you fight me without an arm, bite me?” Elijah asked with a cocky tone, as the puppet itself opened its mouth to show sharp and jagged teeth that looked like it belonged to a shark. The puppet lunged forwards towards and quickly pinned Elijah down to the floor; after he was pinned, the host sent the puppet forward to bite Elijah, but before it could bite anything that would cause fatal injuries. Elijah put his left arm out to take the bite but quickly realized that he had Scout on that arm and tried to twitch arms, but it was too late as the puppet already sank its teeth into his arm. Thankfully the teeth seemed to miss Scout, who was screaming bloody murder as she began to send a flurry of punches to the puppets head but no avail as it didn’t seem to do any damage but only increased the force in which it was biting Elijah. Elijah winced at the pain he was experiencing. “How can a puppet have this much strength?” Elijah thought as he slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a playing card. The card quickly turned into the same serrated knife he used earlier and, without a moment’s hesitation, drove the knife into the host’s head, and a moment later, you can see the tip of the blade coming out the other side of its head. At first, the force of the bite remained the same, but after a few seconds, it slowly got looser, and soon, the puppet let, as the host on top of Elijah slumped over dead. 

Elijah pushed the body off of him as he got up, brushed himself, and checked on Scout. “Hey, you alright?” he said, looking at her. “I’m alright, you should worry about yourself, you’re the one who gotten bit bad,” Scout said as she pointed bite wound on his arm that was covered in his own blood but was slowly healing. “I’ll be fine, Scout, it’ll heal,” he said, as she gave him a concerned look. Elijah turned back to the misty room and started to walk with as he checked his wound one more time to find it completely healed. He continued walking but with a confident stride. Scout noticed this and merely sighed.

When Elijah entered the Misty room, he can partially see that he was in a shower covered in steam. “ What is this, a sauna? This must be our next test, hold me above the steam so I can guide you towards the shut-off valve,” she said as Elijah held Scout up as she gave him directions in the form of hot or cold. “You’re hot right now,” Scout said as Elijah kept walking in the same direction “ Your cold as shit right now” hearing this, he turned around and went another direction. This kept going on for several minutes, and it was starting to irritate Elijah. He quickly pulled Scout down into the steam, which she began to cough.” what are you doing? Put me back up,” she said in between coughs. “Quit the hot and cold bullshit and tell me where to go!” Elijah yelled. “Alright fine, I was just trying to have fun, geez fun killer,” Scout replied. Elijah quickly found the valve and turned it off with Scout giving proper directions, making the room suck up the steam in the room. 

Elijah made his way back to the middle of the room, to which they both saw a contraption playing the same carnival music as the one they saw before. but this time, instead of buttons, it seemed to have flags instead. “Welcome to the advance visual sync test version 1.0.13; please approach the handy flag and waving machine,” Riley said quickly before cutting out. “I never made it this far before, okay stick me inside the slot like before,” Scout said with a touch of accomplishment. Elijah smiled and nodded as he put Scout into the slot. “Hey, I can see you out there, I have some colored buttons in here, but I don’t know which one to press. She presses the switch to start the game, and when it started, the screen that was in front of Elijah only had one word on it, and it was Black. Elijah pressed the flag, which made it go down and playing a chime that signified that he was correct. Elijah kept picking out the flags that the screen told him to until another explosion of confetti came out of the machine. “ That’s impossible; even at your best, there is no way you’ll make it through the test!...relax Riley, your plans in place, just slow down this accelerating pace. Riley barely rhymed before cutting off. “Plans in place, what does that mean,” Scout said with a worried tone. “She’s probably just trying to scare us, so we’ll fail the next test, but whatever shes planning needs to be pretty good for us to fail,” he said thoughtfully as he scratched the back of his neck.