The card screamed when she tore it in half.
This was not the whip of tearing paper or the crack of snapping plastic. It screamed like a human throat being opened. The crimson glow of the card flickered once, and the voice died out with the light.
The Dealer didn't flinch.
Her angelic icy eyes stared at the two pieces of the card as she rested them on a black glass table without legs.
"Four hundred seventy-three," she said, her voice flat as she watched the soul evaporate into nothing. "That's the number you're committing to my dear house?"
"Yes."
The voice vibrated the void of abstract colors surrounding her, layered with a chorus of low pitches.
She picked up another card and brushed her snow white hair from her face. On this card showed a middle-aged woman holding a blurred photograph, standing at a slot machine with a twisted smile. The dealer studied it for exactly two seconds.
Then she set it on fire.
"Such is the fate of those who lose to the house," she sighed.
The woman in the card began to burn, her mouth opening in a soundless scream as the flames consumed her from the inside out. The artwork on the card showed her skin charring at the edges, before melting away revealing flesh and bone.
"Candidate ninety-two of the sixteenth generation," the Dealer observed, watching the card curl and blacken. "Mother of three. Gambling away her memories of her children. How cruel of us to force her into that situation."
"Sentiment is inefficient."
"I hate when I agree with you." She reached for the deck, and her fingers passed through three cards before selecting a fourth. Some of the cards whimpered, others were perfectly still as if they had resigned themselves to their end, and a few bent as if resisting fate itself.
But it did not matter. A gambler must always concede to the house.
The new card showed a teenager standing on a bridge, one foot already over the edge. The Dealer held it up to the non-light of the void. This card was unmoving and the boy's head turned and met the dealer's gaze with lifeless eyes.
"End it," the whisper of his voice said to her.
"This one valued isolation," she said. "He held a hatred of other humans… so he gambled that hatred away. By the time he lost the game he didn't have the ability to care."
The dealer set the card down and leaned back into a black glossy chair. Around them, thousands of cards floated in the darkness, each one trembling with a trapped soul.
They screamed constantly, a chorus of eternal suffering that had become background noise centuries ago.
"You're accelerating the timeline," she said.
"Correct. The twenty-third wave will be rolling out shortly."
Her grip tightened around the cards.
"The twenty-second wave was three months ago." She set the deck down slowly, staring at something that couldn't be seen with the naked eye. "The agreement we came to dictates minimum two year intervals between the creation of new gamblers. You're cutting that period down significantly."
"Protocol is a suggestion. Mathematics are absolute. Our goal is to prevent the cessation of all life on Earth. Protocol does not trump the purpose of my being."
"Well… mathematics will make the Collectors restless." The Dealer narrowed her eyes, into the thing she'd created that had long since outgrown her. Her gaze was ancient, calculating, and eerily calm. "They've already been circling closer. Another wave this soon will draw their attention in ways we can't fully predict."
"Your concern is noted and dismissed."
She smiled. It was not a warm expression.
"How many this time, House?"
"Four hundred and seventy-three candidates were identified. Estimated survival rate: two point eight percent."
"That will end the lives of hundreds within the first month." She retorted, sitting up straight. "That will be," she gestured with a hand to the cards floating within the void, "more mess for me to clean up."
"Your annoyance is irrelevant. These losses are acceptable."
"And the others?" she asked. "The optimistic heretics. The populations who view this pathetic rock in space like some sort of 'heaven' just because the sun rises each day and the grass grows."
"We use the gamblers."
She closed her eyes and exhaled, her ethereal perfect beauty settling into an expression of indifference. "What did you see?" she asked quietly.
The obsidian table cracked down the middle with a sound like a continent splitting.
"The very same heretics. Probability of simultaneous invasion within eighteen months: Seventy-Four Percent."
"Hence… the twenty-fourth wave."
"They will make for meaningful ammunition."
"As you wish then." The dealer snapped her fingers.
The infinite space of the void shuddered violently, deepening the crack on the table.
From the darkness, a blue chip materialized. It was small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, but carried a cosmic weight. It emerged slowly dragging reality with it like fabric caught on a nail.
Earth.
Compressed and contained, billions of lives reduced to a betting token.
The chip settled above the table spinning slowly. Then with an explosion of blue aura hundreds of cards flew out from it. They were blue instead of crimson, and they fell like snow settling across the cracked table in perfect rows.
Each card showed a candidate.
The Dealer's gaze swept across them analyzing each one.
A yakuza boss covered in tattoos, kneeling before a sword, gambling his honor.
A mafia queen in a blood-stained dress, gambling her empire.
A princess of a minor European nation, tiara askew, gambling her freedom.
A surgeon with shaking hands, gambling the lives of others.
"This one is particularly dangerous," she commented before scanning the rest of the rows.
A mother of four, gambling her children's futures.
A priest, gambling his faith.
On and on. Row after row. Faces twisted with desperation, determination, resignation.
Then her eyes caught on one card near the edge.
Unremarkable. Forgettable. Almost invisible among the others.
A young man with shaggy black hair, slouched in front of a slot machine in what looked like the saddest casino ever constructed. He was feeding quarters into the machine with the mechanical motion of someone who'd stopped caring about the outcome hours ago. His eyes were glazed over and carrying dark eye bags.
"He's not even trying to win." She picked it up with two fingers as one would a disgusting insect. "We certainly have… some interesting candidates this wave."
"We do not have the leisure of choosing. The humans choose their own roles in the world."
"I wonder how quickly these cards will turn red," she chided, setting down the unimpressive card into its proper place.
"The Collectors won't ignore this."
"The collectors are not the real threat."
"They'll move against us."
"They will try."
"And if whoever is left alive out of these four hundred new gamblers isn't enough to stop them?"
"Then I will activate the eighteenth wave."
The Dealer laughed devoid of humor.
"You're gambling," she said. "The House is gambling. How delightfully hypocritical."
"I am mitigating risk."
"Semantics." She stood and rested a hand on the edge of the table. "You are betting on a risk." Her calm expression twisted into an amused smile. "I love this."
She tapped her fingers against the table. "But you're missing the larger problem. These gamblers you're creating, they're not just fighting each other anymore. Some are starting to ask questions about the system itself."
"Curiousity is natural."
"Curiosity becomes investigation. Investigation becomes understanding. Understanding becomes rebellion." She walked to where the massive blue chip floated, Earth spinning slowly within it. "What happens when one of them figures out that you exist to limit them? Or worse, what happens when they start working together?"
"Impossible. I am absolute."
"Nothing is absolute. Not even you." The Dealer touched the chip, and images flickered across its surface. Cities burning. Skies splitting open and unleashing blood-red hellfire. Twisted monsters pouring through cracks in the ground, each one more gruesome than the last. "I created you from desperation and grief. You outgrew me. What makes you think these gamblers won't outgrow you?"
The void went very still.
The floating cards stopped glowing.
When the House spoke again, its tone carried something that might have been warning in a being capable of such things.
"Your point is noted and irrelevant."
"How is it irrelevant?"
"Because if gamblers remain outside of the system they become infinitely more dangerous than any external threat. The waves will continue, and we will restrict them in a way we can control."
"You're not trying to save Earth," she said quietly. "You're trying to save reality from Earth."
"Semantics as you would say."
She returned to her table and sat down. "Fine," she said. "Activate your twenty-fourth wave. Flood Earth with another four hundred seventy-three desperate souls." She picked up her deck of crimson cards, and the souls inside resumed their screaming, louder than before.
"I was not asking for your permission. Play your role effectively Dealer."
The Dealer's hands froze.
"Of course," she said softly, and resumed her shuffle. "My apologies."
The void began to recede, the pressure easing like a boot lifting from a throat.
"There's always one," she whispered, her eyes drifting across the hundreds of blue cards.