The 'Time slower' basically helps the person to live a lot
of time more than he should, since you perceive a lot more time than usual, the
amount of time perceived can be multiplied even by ten, so if somebody lives 90
years, a third of it he sleeps, so normally his 'alive' time is of about 60
years, but with this gadget it goes up to 600 hundreds. But while sleeping even
more incredible things can be done. The 'time slower' device is connected to a
machine that forces a lucid dream in the mind of a human. The lucid dreams
happen in the rem phase, so they can only last about 1 hour, but for some reason our brain increases its time slowing
ability by so much that after sleeping once somebody can spend about 14 days in
his sleep, or at least he would perceive that 14 days was the amount of time
passed even if it was anything but that.
His friend asks him, "Come here we'll have lots of
fun". Mike follows him and says with a
light tone since he started to feel his throat hurting while speaking "I'm
coming Art" As they were walking, they reached their destination, it was a huge
hallway, with, on its sides a lot of capsules, they entered in one of them and
then they seated on the comfortable chairs that were there. "Dear Mike, what
are we going to play today?", Mike felt like passing out so he was swiping
quickly through the hologram-screen in front of him to choice something to
play, since when he'd be inside of it he would not be able to fall unconscious
since he'll already be in a place connected to his unconscious.
While swiping Art's head appeared in his screen, or rather
it would b more precise to say that he literally went through it, and he says
"I've found something interesting. Do you mind checking it out?" Ray looked at
the game that he wanted to play, and well it was interesting for real. It was a
Tarot based kind of game in which roleplay scenes come after turns of playing cards. Ray since he was out of
time was forced to say, "I'm ok with it let's play!". Art choices the game on
his screen and then suddenly on Mike's screen the buttons
their head that would make their game begin and then they were teleported in
the artificial word.
Mike looks around and says "Wow, it's so ugh… dark", Mike
thought that he'd feel better in the game's world, but his guess was totally
wrong. And that made him wonder "Why? Why this feeling again? Aren't my
symptoms related to a body's illness? Or is my soul corrupted? Which one is it,
darn it!". The dark space over them represented a starry night, and also in the
artificial world they were seated over a couple of wooden chairs with a table
between them. Mike in the darkness around him was looking for his friend "hey
Art, where the hell are you?". After saying it, a figure dressed as a mage,
with a coat and a weird cat appeared in front of him, NO it would be more right
to be that he got close enough to be distinguished in the darkness. "I'm here
hahah, I'm not leaving until I beat you."
Mike was wondering how the game would work and then he heard a voice. A
kid's voice coming from his right "A third player?" he thought instinctually.
"Welcome honorable guests, welcome to the world of nothingness, in which there's
nothing but in which there could be anything if your choice the right cards."
Mike remembers the voice coming from that kid, but he didn't remember where
exactly he heard it.
"It's him… it's the kid that got me here! Oh. I remember."
After seeing the kid that only the current Mike saw, his current memory
returned for a moment, Mike sticked his tongue out looking at the child, like
he wanted to mock him and then his memory disappeared once again and he went
back to be the old Mike that he was until an instant ago. Art is confused since
Mike wasn't the type to do such childish stuff but anyway, he acted as nothing
happened. Mike asks, "where are the cards?" and as he said it something shiny
appeared from the womb of the little kid, it was a deck of cards that he was
able to control with telekinesis. Art kept being very quiet making Mike think
that he already knew what's going on, the child began to speak "I'll deal to
you six card, you will use 3 of them and the others will be discarded, each one
of them will decide the opponent fate, or at least with every card you'll get
deep inside his heart so you'll have to decide the best combination between
them" as the kid was talking Mike though
"that means that there are a total of seventy-six-thousand-seventy-six total
combinations". Listening to the kid's voice made him feel like something was of
but he didn't really understand what, then he abruptly thought "his voice, NO,
he, he shouldn't be like this, but why shouldn't he?". Mike felt weird since in
the original memory the child wasn't the dealer but since he was lacking a lot
of his memory, he could really understand what was wrong.
The kid keeps talking "The winner of this game will be the
last one that will be able to keep playing, against that the game will go on
and on. Your fates are in each other's hands, let the fun begin!". The cards
floating in the air arrived in their hands, while still shining. "Beautiful,
truly remarkable" Arts says surprised of the design of the card, with golden
edged and with character that moved inside of the card. Mike too was surprised
seeing his cards move, like his "6 of pentacles" in which was represented a man
making his money grow from the ground, like they were fruits born from a plant.
The kid says, "in the first turn you'll have to choose a card, put it face down
and you'll turn them at the same time". The tarots are very particular cards, a
part of this deck looks like a French set of cards, with four seeds 'cups,
wands, pentacles and swords' each seed has card numbered from 1 to 10, with
also a 'page, a knight, a queen, and a king' for each seed. Those are called
minor Arcana, and then there are 22 unique arcana called major Arcana numbered
from 0 to 21. The kids keep explaining the rules "when you turn those cards the
one that will put the card with the highest number, will win. If the number is
the same, then we'll do it again. Until one of you will win and will choice the
three cards to play first".
The silence took over the huge place, that felt pleasant, it
gave the feeling of being rested but at the same time of being rested. Mike
looks at the card in his hand "I've got some very bad cards, since to make him
unable to continue I should have cards that would predict a bad fortune but
that's not my case?" Art slides his card over the table and says "got a bad
hand uh? It can happen, don't worry; you'll have plenty of time to get back on
your feet. Mike looking at his hand sees only very lucky cards, like the ten of
pentacles, that is a sign of incredible material fulfillment, then he had the
had the Sun, that was literally one of the best card to get from a prediction
with Tarots. There's then the six of spades that symbolizes a new beginning and
a breakthrough. Mike had an idea and thought about using it as well as he
could. "Are you done choosing?" that was Art's response that was very concise,
but it also makes him seem like he was in a rush. Mike makes his own choice an
slides the card too over the table. "I think that he has a very bad hand
compared to mine and hearing his confidence he might as well be cheating, so
I'll play it safe and I'll choice three, so if he wins, well whatever, but if
he do has such a bad hand to get more than a five to waist it, well he won't
get the chance to". While saying this the pain expanded over all of his body,
for a bit his chest disappears. "Oh my… I think I might not be able to continue
playing even without being K.O.ed". What he felt wasn't wrong, the glitch over
his body was transmitted over his left eye too until they once again reach his
hands, and he can't do anything but to despair himself seeing all of his card
falling over the table revealing all of the other cards to his friend Art.
Between those cards
there was the ace of spades, that is neither inherently good nor bad, it's just
very neutral, Then there's the ten of cups, that symbolizes the peak of
emotional fulfillment. "That was indeed a horrible hand, it's a shame that they
dropped from your hand but it's also true that you couldn't do much with them
anyway, wouldn't you agree?" Mike was totally concerned about what happened
that literally destroyed any plan eh was trying to come up with, anyway even if
coming from an opponent what his friend said was very true, he couldn't do much
with what he had got. Then acting like nothing has happened the little kid
says, "If you're ready then we can proceed to expose the cards that you just
chose to compete". Mike nods and then both without hesitation turn around the
cards that they had just chosen. Mike used the six of spades, while Art used a
six of wands, it was a tie!".
The kid after seeing the result says, "Ok since we're in
front of a tie we'll have to once again play another card and see what the
result could be". The decision that they took was very relevant, but the next
one will be even more important since it will reduce the number of cards to
choice to use in the next round from 5 to 4. That meant that Mike and Art would
only be able to discard one card from their future prediction and that could
result in a chance of not using important cards for the first round, so their
decision it's about giving at least an amount of help to the enemy near to zero
or to turn it into something negative for that opponent too. "Art probably
thought about the same thing as me when choosing a card with the number 6, so
he was also very cautious himself but the fact that he wanted to waste a
negative card like this means that he probably has something else going on. So
the best thing I can do right know is to ger rid of the sun Arcana, with it I
will also almost certainly win, since it's a number 19 card, so if he doesn't have the major
arcana number 20 or 21 I should win" then Art that was losing his patience says
"hey boy, would you like to make a choice more quickly?" Mike though keeps
thinking "I can't do any kind of harm to him, and he knows it very well and
that's probably the reason he's acting like this, he's basically saying you
can't do much anyway so don't waste both of our time. OK. Know I got it." Mike
and Art both slide their cards in the center of the center of the table, Art
looks at him straight in the eyes looking at him with tranquility. That was one
of the characteristics of the people that were 'chosen', they didn't act too
passionately even when the situation was extremely at their favor or against
them.
They
both turn their card at the exact same time