Worldview
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Fortune's world unfolded before the Prophet as a derelict casino floor. Gaming tables stood dust-covered, their green felt frayed at the edges to reveal worn wood beneath. Poker chips lay scattered like frozen remnants of abandoned bets, while faded cards fanned out as if their dealer had vanished mid-deal.
The bar counter, once gleaming with polished mahogany, now stood dull with water rings from long-evaporated glasses. Bottles of thickened liqueurs lined the shelves, their labels bleached to pale ghosts of former opulence. The air carried a cloying mix of stale perfume, sawdust decay, and something metallic beneath.
In the corner behind a chair with torn upholstery sat a lone slot machine—its screen dark but the spin button still glowing faint yellow, as if refusing to accept that no one would ever press it again. Above them hung a gilded mirror, its surface cracked and clouded, reflecting nothing but emptiness.
"Cozy place," the Prophet remarked cheerfully.
Fortune finally looked up from the broken slot machine where she'd been perched. Her poison-red eyes slid over him like she was calculating poker odds. The pink streak in her hair swayed as she jerked her head back, making the spiked bracelet on her wrist clink against a pendant.
"Hello, friend..." Her voice was rough, like a night chain-smoking cheap whiskey.
She flicked open a butterfly knife—not threatening, just bored. The blade caught the dim light, its reflection fracturing in the shattered mirror above.
"Ask your questions. I'll answer anything." Her gloved hand crushed a poker chip to powder.
The Prophet cut to the chase:
"Who's pulling your strings?"
Fortune rolled her eyes like he'd asked something stupider than the "1" tattooed on her cheekbone.
"Don't know his name. Just the alias." A knuckleduster clinked as she shifted. "The Communist... that's what they call him."
"Meaning?"
"Fuck if I know..." She kicked an empty bottle toward the roulette wheel. "From what little I've gathered? The word's original meaning got lost somewhere."
The Prophet's brow arched.
"So he's..."
"Yes!" She slammed to her feet, combat boots echoing. "He remembers the world before." Her grin turned feral, sharp canines glinting.
The Prophet laughed, but it rang hollow:
"Hah... now I really don't get it. Drugs, the Dealer, this casino, you—what's the endgame?"
Fortune shrugged, leather jacket creaking:
"Beats me. I joined their little club for the connections." She fiddled with her pendant. "They don't exactly share PowerPoint presentations with the hired help." A pause. "Hey, Prophet... can I ask you something?"
"Depends."
"Why doesn't my world warp you?" Her pupils slit like a cat's. "Everyone else looks like they're made of playing cards here."
He flopped onto the dusty floor.
"How should I know?"
"You really don't have an ability?" She leaned in, pink hair curtaining her face.
"Not that I've noticed..."
"Ever think that might be your ability?" She traced the knife's edge, smirking. "Immunity."
The Prophet froze. Poker chips ground to dust in his fist. A metallic taste filled his mouth—static or dawning realization.
"To stay... unchanged?" His gaze lifted to the cracked mirror. His reflection stayed sharp while Fortune's bled at the edges like wet ink.
She went preternaturally still. "You feel it, don't you? How reality slides off you. How the rules don't apply." Her whisper carried the weight of a verdict: "You're the Joker in this deck. No suit. No place."
Somewhere, a chip clattered—a final bet hitting the felt. The Prophet's spine prickled with something like forgotten deja vu.
"Right," he forced out. "Hey!"
"What?"
"Why's your world look like a fucking casino?"
"Hm." She kicked a slot machine. "To me, everything's neon signs and strobe lights."
"Theory goes," the Prophet began, then faltered like a page torn from his thoughts, "that a Genome's worldview crystallizes around childhood desires. Forms by age six or seven."
Dust motes hung suspended as Fortune dragged a finger through decades of grime on the slot buttons.
"My parents," she began, voice suddenly muffled as if behind glass, "didn't just gamble. They worshipped it." Her fingers whitened on the joystick. "Every morning started with Dad flipping a coin: Heads we eat, tails we starve. Mom laughed like her bones were rattling in a tin can."
She jerked her head up, pink hair slashing across her face like a wound.
"On my sixth birthday, they bet everything—house, savings, even their honor. When they lost..." The joystick creaked in her grip. "They put me on the table."
The Prophet didn't move, but something flickered in his eyes—maybe a reflection from the broken mirror above.
"And lost?"
Her laugh sounded like shattering crystal.
"Win against a cheating dealer?" She hurled a chip at the mirror. "They didn't just lose. They folded me like counterfeit chips."
She kicked over her chair. Her shadow warped into something long-fingered and hunched.
"Funniest part?" Her whisper could've frostbitten steel. "I wasn't even there. Slept in the back room wrapped in Mom's fur coat—reeked of tobacco and dime-store perfume. Woke up to someone shaking me. Thought it was her. Turned out to be him."
Ice crawled down the Prophet's spine.
"Who?"
"The winner." She licked a canine. "Called himself the Master. Face smooth as polished glass. Emerald eyes."
Her fist smashed into the slot machine. Lights spasmed like a distress signal.
"Six years." Her voice cracked like the machine's casing. "Six fucking years he... reshaped me."
Her shadow stretched unnaturally as the air thickened with the stench of old blood and incense.
"First with gifts. Porcelain dolls that watched me with glass eyes. Then lessons. 'A girl should know her place.'" Her pitch-perfect mimicry raised goosebumps. "Then..."
She ripped her collar down. A surgical scar bisected her collarbone.
"He called it 'initiation.' Said he was 'investing' in me." Her laugh became a cough. "Bets, interest rates, my body as collateral..."
The Prophet noticed her trembling—fine, uncontrollable. The mirror's crack pulsed like a vein.
"One night I woke to him petting my hair. 'You're my finest asset.'" Her pupils dilated. "Had scissors in his hand. 'Let's make you perfect.'"
She hurled a bottle at the mirror. The crack split their reflections into separate universes.
"So I killed him. Thirteen stabs with a kitchen knife. Know what a punctured lung sounds like?" She breathed copper into his face. "Gurgling."
A slot machine whirred to life by itself: cherry-cherry-blood.
"But here's the kicker," she pressed a hand to her scar. "Sometimes I miss him. Because he..." Her voice broke. "He at least said my name."
The chandelier died with a pop, plunging them into gloom. Only the cracked mirror still glowed faintly—a sleeping monster's half-lidded eye.
The Prophet stood paralyzed for two full minutes.
"Hey!" Fortune barked.
"What?"
"You fucking zoned out. Creepy."
"Right." He turned to leave.
"Prophet!"
Her gloved hand caught his wrist—not like a predator seizing prey, but a falling woman grabbing a cliff's edge.
"Wait."
Not a command. Not mockery. Something fragile neither expected.
When he turned, she invaded his space—no permission asked. Arms locked around him, tight enough to bruise. Pink hair curtained her face as she buried it in his chest.
"Don't go."
Not stay. Not help me. Just don't go—like he was the last fixed point in a hurricane.
She didn't know how to ask. So she held on. White-knuckled. Spikes on her jacket drawing blood.
The Prophet hesitated. Then slowly hugged back—careful, like she might shatter.
"I have to," he said softly.
Something in her story had resonated—maybe reminded him of someone precious. Almost family.
"Yeah... goodbye..." She released him. "Thanks for listening. Even if it's... right before the end."
"Anytime." He turned toward the exit.
"Kalinina Street, thirty-four!" she called after him. "The theater there—someone knows more."
"Thanks... goodbye, Fortune."
With that, he stepped out of her world.