[standalone] // When the Clock Strikes Midnight

My first game was the most difficult I'd ever played. It wasn't so much that my target was challenging, but it was my first. It was the first time I was moving my queen into dangerous territory, making the first strike, trying to win. It was terrifying and exciting, but that was made it so difficult. There was so much room for error. I wasn't comfortable with my approach yet, hadn't fine-tuned my plays to perfection. In fact, I was quite sloppy. I was unsure of myself, despite my attempted confidence. There were more chances for things to go wrong than for things to go right and boy, did they decide to appear everywhere. I couldn't catch a break.

I was nineteen when I played that game, padding alone the dark streets and searching for an opponent. Our district was generally quiet at night, except for the seedy areas: bars, alleys, "comfort houses." No, that district was very much alive in its moral decadence. It was practically crawling with the souls of the dead, trying to latch onto the few living that remained and drain the spirit from their tempted flesh. It was sick. I wasn't as disgusted by it as my cousin or sisters though. I suppose I understood the game all of these wandering ghouls were playing. They were searching for just a little more fun, just a little more 'happiness', just another game. I was no different. I had played board games and word games and hand games all my life in the closure of my room or with Kae or in the tree thicket by myself, never daring to let other know of my obsession over tricks and strategies and puzzles. In public, I played chess. Chess is a dignified game of calculation and wit. Cards were acceptable too. However, I couldn't play the silly games I'd made on my own. I couldn't play in the mythical Candyland I'd created with old scrap wood and colored leaves and berries. I couldn't curse my luck as I slid down a chute and just barely missed a ladder. Such were the misfortunes of my life. I couldn't let others see the bit of broken soul that was hiding inside my cage of a chest.

I saw him when I was just about to give up on my quest for a little whimsy. I was so ready to forget my new game and go home, but something in his eyes drew me in. I wanted to see those eyes when he lost, fear flashing through them with the faintest flicker of hope. I wanted to see the whites of his eyes as he said goodbye to the life he once laid claim to. I wanted to see him die by his own choice, drowning in his pick of poison. He was so beautiful, so completely mesmerizing. I wanted him to end by my hands. It wasn't very hard, convincing him to play. In fact, it was easier than I anticipated. All it took was a little charm, a little conversation. You live around here? Oh, you're so kind. I wish I could find a man like you. We walked for hours, my hands holding onto his arm as we strolled about the dark streets, avoiding dark shadows and ignoring hushed whispers. Our game was already in progress and we both knew it. We were playing our cards carefully, biding our time. He just didn't know that my cards were a bit more sinister than his intentions.

I don't know how we ended up back at his apartment, giggling over traced paths upon uncertain skin. There was music and blinding smiles and kisses that lasted longer than I could bear until I would have to break away. I was practically dizzy with the power of it, playing the game despite the twists that have already whittled their way into my plan. I shouldn't have even been there, with his warmth pressed against my every curve as the vials in my back pocket got heavier and heavier. I wasn't planning on going to a place he knew, a place he was comfortable in. The game we played was dangerous, his of seduction and mine of poison. We each had our tools and tricks. His glowing skin, his twinkling eyes, his subtle advances. My little smiles, my slow strategies, my vials of ending. Giving either of us an upper-hand is unfair. Considering I was the ringleader of that little show, however, I didn't want anything to run off course. I couldn't afford for that to happen. I simply couldn't let the games fall out of my hands and crumble against the cold, tiled floor. The black and white tiles alternated in a pattern so very familiar to my eyes, my stomach flipping and settling as I found myself on familiar ground in such a familiar place. It's all just chess. Moves and counter-moves, timing and planning. It was all a familiar game to me, but the stakes are so much higher now. It wasn't just some backyard game with Kae, hours spent cursing over moves gone wrong and plots gone awry. I couldn't afford to make that kind of mistake.

It became too much before I realized what was happening. Hands everywhere, breaths panted into the air, clothing being pulled at. I could feel my heart thrumming in my chest as I choked out a strangled, 'wait, wait!' I pushed against him and moved away, slipping my hand into my back pocket and pulling out the small clear vials. A smirk and an offer, my hands shook as he grinned back just the same and plucked the left one from my fingertips. He drank it without a word as hid the other vial back in my pocket again for safe keeping. I didn't even know which one he took, but my nerves were on fire anyway. He kissed me again before I could react and I could taste the bitter liquid on his lips, cringing at the slightest flavor of it. Within the following half an hour, he didn't react at all. His breathing was labored, but not abnormally so. He was still awake. He was still alive. My blood was racing through my body, my heart furiously beating against my ribs, and my mind screaming in agonized disappointment. Why didn't it work? Either one should have worked by then, at least started to affect him in some way. I could practically feel my blood boiling in agitation as he pulled away from the spot on my neck, smiling at me and telling me to wait while he got drinks. Turning his back wasn't his first mistake that night. It was his third. The first two were letting me into his apartment and not dying. The forth came seconds later in the jiggling of his front door handle.

I panicked.

I wrapped my hands in the sheet of his bed and grabbed the nearest, heavy-looking object I set my eyes on- his lamp- and swung at his head. The shattering of the lamp only startled him for a moment and sent him stumbling against the wall, confused and enraged. When he turned around, his eyes were like hot coal and his face streaked with trails of blood. And for the first time in my life, I felt real fear. I was terrified as he advanced toward me and pulled me close by the sheets my hands had become tangled in. My head was light as he slammed me against the nearest wall and started shouting, face turned red with blood and anger as he held my neck tight in one hand. My eyesight blurred with tears of shock as I felt my airway cut off, my ears deaf to all noise except the rasping from my throat. Neither of us noticed the footsteps in the apartment until the maker of the noise was inside the room and snatching him away from me. I fell to my knees, sucking in air as quickly as possible while trying to scramble away from the angry babble above me. Another woman was in the room, screaming and pushing the man back with long, skinny fingers and a temper set aflame by the situation at hand. It gave me the moment I needed to collect myself- and a shard from the lamp.

Nothing that night was supposed to have gotten that way. It was supposed to be a game, but it turned into a nightmare. There was never supposed to be so much blood as my opponent bled out on the floor before me, once beautiful eyes empty as he gazed into somewhere beyond my own sight. I wish my eyes could have seen what he had, the glassy blankness spreading across the contours of his face until every crease was gone. He was serene, just like the first moment I had seen him on the street mere hours before. I cradled his head for a moment, breathing ragged as I tried to grasp what had just happened in the minutes passed by in such haste. I'd won the match, but the game wasn't over. I removed the shard from his lifeless body and set my eyes on the second competitor, all wide eyed fear and docile confusion. That match was much easier to complete.

For a long time, I sat there. I sat among the losers of the debut game of a great player's blossoming career. I sat among the silence of the otherworld as they were collected and taken away, their eyes gone grey with sight for another time. I sat among corpses, lifeless and lax. I sat among a murdered couple in their youth. My eyes never seemed to run out of tears as I rocked myself back and forth, hands rubbing at the blood that had started to dry on my hands. It was only when their essence came within inches of me that I finally moved, stumbling upon sleepy legs and over sleeping souls towards the bathroom to wash away the mess I'd become. The girl in the mirror had pulled hair and red lips and fingers wrapped around her neck in light purple and blood on her hands. Her soul was tainted, the tear and stain never to be mended or removed. The game she'd chosen to play was permanent and without undoing. She was still shaking as she put her hand up to the mirror to touch herself, to touch me. I stared at myself and wondered belatedly how suddenly everything had changed, how I had gone from private player to public paralyzer. I couldn't stay paralyzed myself, though. So instead, I ran.

Looking back now, I can see all that I managed to get wrong in that very first game of my career. It all starts at the beginning of the match. I should have never jumped in so quickly, chosen an opponent and gone right in. It would have done me better to wait and observe, watch him and learn him until his weaknesses were the tips of my fingers and my voice. Instead, I'd thrown myself into the fire of the thrill I so longed for and wound up with quite a few surprises. He was strong and able to fend for himself. He also happened to have a girlfriend who lived with him and got home from work at midnight. Second, I should have never let him lead the plays even once. I had let him pull me through town, back to his own apartment, before he'd played me like a fiddle. I had to be flexible, but giving him outright control had been careless and nearly gotten me killed. Most importantly, I should have checked my supplies more carefully. What is a game without its pieces? My pieces didn't function up to par and had nearly resulted in me being the one lifeless in his apartment instead. I should have been more prepared in that category anyway. I'd read in Kae's notebook about a plant's leaves that could hinder functionality, but not intelligent processing. Instead of searching for it, I'd chosen to begin the match without it. I was so naive, so young.

It takes comparison to truly see my improvement. As I look down at the woman below me, I can't help but think back and compare the results of this game to my first. I've come to do this a lot lately, think about how my choices have affected me so completely. My life has been about games for as long as I can remember, but never had they been like this. Games were always simple for me, but this is different. It has taken me so long to get to this point where I am comfortable in my approach and execution. The game tonight was so smooth, so rehearsed, so clean. Everything fits now. The atropa belladona leaves had left her defenseless, my riddles had left her clueless, and her choice had left her lifeless. I was almost sad to have seen her go so fast. Chloroform is always more fun than cyanide. Well, you win some, you lose some, I suppose. I just hope I never lose where it counts, not in this game or any other.