Cyber Draw: The Final Fold

Cyber Draw: The Final Fold is a short story (closer to a novelette at nearly 15,000 words) that I wrote specifically for the Writers of the Future Contest, where it received a Silver Honorable Mention. It’s a bit of a weird story, I must admit. I started with nothing more than the idea that I wanted poker, shooting, and sci-fi all in one place. The result follows a professional online poker player and former Marine who is sent to play a game with aliens, one that roughly combines FPS shooters and poker. As the story unfolds, he discovers that the stakes are far higher than he ever imagined and that the mission is deeply personal. I’ve jokingly come to call this kind of story “litFPS.” I’ve made the full story available for free on my website, so feel free to read it below and enjoy.

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1. Making a Deal

“Sometimes the hand you don’t play is the most important one,” I explained to Sam, our faces washed in the glow of the monitors in the darkened room.

I clicked “fold” and stepped out of the current hand. The opponents flipped their cards, and it became clear that I’d made the smartest move possible. Otherwise, I would’ve been cleaned out.

“But Dad, how did you know?” my seven-year-old son asked.

“Eh, you’ll learn. A lot of stats, a lot of intuition, and… a little bit of luck,” I said.

Of course I was teaching him poker. It’s the greatest game in the world. If I wasn’t good at poker and the occasional video game, I honestly don’t know what I’d be doing for a living.

There was a knock at the door.

“Well, Sam, looks like the Witch is here to carry you away.”

“Stop calling Mom that.”

“But what else can I call her, son? She’s a Witch for everything she took from me. She took you, for God’s sake.”

I stood up, knocking off the pizza crusts I’d left resting on my gut. I’d completely forgotten they were even there.

“Where’s Sam?” The Witch’s words were always like a sharp slap to the face.

“He’s right here, just getting his stuff ready. You want to come in?” I asked.

“No. You know I don’t. I don’t know why you even—” she paused, then stood on her tiptoes, peering over my shoulder.

“Are you teaching him to play poker again?” she shrieked, her face turning flush as she glared at me. “Seriously, are you out of your mind? Do you really want our son to grow up to be a deadbeat like you?”

“Let’s not resort to insults, Sara,” I muttered. It was the only thing I could think of. I didn’t have anything better.

“Mom, today I learned that sometimes the most important card is the one you don’t play,” Sam said, sliding into his shoes at lightning speed and jumping into his mother’s arms.

“Let’s go, Sam,” she said, grabbing his hand. “See you in two weeks, Steve.”

I shut the door behind them and let out a heavy sigh. Two weeks with her. Then one weekend with me. I could already feel the ache of missing the kid.

I walked back to the computer and fired up good old Counter-Strike, my second love—the greatest after poker. They never left me, unlike the Witch.

2. Forced All-in

One, then two, then three. Heads were popping like watermelons under the fire of my AK-47, the legendary Kalashnikov. I had only two bullets left and one opponent to go.

“The bomb has been planted,” the familiar voice announced in my headset. Shit. That meant I had to defuse the bomb the enemy had set before time ran out to secure the win for my team.

I moved toward the site marked on the map, checking all the usual and unusual camping spots on the legendary level de_dust2.

And what do you know! There he was, tucked into one of them, using a textbook tactic: wait for me to start defusing and then pick me off. Not today, buddy.

He didn’t have a clue I was coming up behind him. I didn’t even use my gun. I pulled out my knife and slit the bastard’s throat.

But it wasn’t over yet. I only had a few seconds left to defuse the bomb and save the match. I lunged toward it and pulled out the kit. Just… would I be fast enough?

5… 4… 3… 2…

Nooooo!

Ding-dong.

Did the bomb go off? No, that wasn’t the sound. Through my headset, I heard: “Counter-Terrorists win.” Thank God.

Ding-dong.

I pulled my headset off and realized the sound was coming from my front door. Did the Witch forget something? Was she bringing my son back? No. She’d never ring the bell; she’d pound on the door like a maniac, like any good witch would. Who could be looking for me this late?

I crept to the door on my tiptoes and looked through the peephole: two men in black suits, stone-faced, were standing perfectly still, staring directly into the lens.

Shit! They saw me.

“Who is it?” I asked, trying to sound brave and decisive.

“Steve Mojsilovic, please open the door. We have a warrant to bring you in,” the shorter, blonde one said.

“Why should I trust you?” I asked, pressing my ear against the wood to hear them better.

“Take another look through the peephole,” the other voice said. This one was taller, with dark hair, a noticeable gut, and a bald spot that made him look like a medieval Christian monk.

He was holding a badge—and not just any badge. I could clearly see the gold eagle above a crest that read: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice.

Was someone messing with me, or was the FBI actually looking for me?

“Steve, if you don’t open up, I’m afraid we’ll have to use force,” the shorter one warned.

“Do you have a warrant?”

The tall one sighed.

“Fucking movies, man. Why’d they have to teach them that?” he said, sounding annoyed. He held a piece of paper up to the peephole. “We have it.”

What choice did I have? Ignore them and hope they’d go away? Not a chance. I had to let them in.

“What do you want from me?” I asked as they stepped inside. They looked like tough guys—well, not guys. Men. And they had to be well over fifty.

“Mr. Mojsilovic, I’ll get straight to the point: we need you. Your unique set of skills is a perfect match for our requirements,” the big one said.

I couldn’t help but laugh. I still thought someone was pulling a prank on me, and that my friends were about to pop out from… wait, what friends? I hadn’t had those in a long time. At least not in the real world. Most of my buddies lived inside games and online poker rooms. Some I only knew by their handles; I’d never even seen their faces.

“What kind of requirements?” I asked.

“Come with us, and we’ll explain.”

“Go… go with you?”

“Yes. Immediately.”

“And where exactly are we going, if it’s not a secret? Look, you can be the FBI all you want, but I demand answers. This is a free country, and I have a right to know what you want with me, especially since you don’t have an arrest warrant or proof that I—”

Like a cowboy in a Western facing off against bandits in the middle of Main Street, the tall agent drew his piece and pressed the cold barrel against my forehead.

“I’m afraid we don’t have time for negotiations.”

Hands raised, I walked out of my apartment and climbed into a black SUV. I didn’t even get a chance to lock my door.

3. A Big Shark

“Mr. Mojsilovic, we’re going to have to blindfold you,” the dark-haired agent said as we tore through San Francisco, blowing through red lights and completely ignoring rush hour traffic.

By the time the car finally came to a halt, I’d lost all track of time. I couldn’t tell if we’d been traveling for thirty minutes or five hours.

They hauled me out of the car and led me up some stairs.

Was that a propeller I heard?

“You’re actually taking me to a plane?” I asked. “Look, I have a wife and a kid. I need to call them. They’ll worry.”

“I’m sure they won’t worry, sir. They don’t live with you.”

Of course the FBI knew my entire family situation. It was naive of me to even try using them as an excuse.

“Take a seat here.”

They ushered me into a plush leather seat and removed the blindfold. The interior of the private jet looked like something straight off social media. These were the kinds of planes billionaires flew in—Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg…

The President?

A familiar figure entered the cabin and greeted me. I wasn’t sure if I’d just fallen asleep at my computer and dreamed the whole thing… but standing right there in front of me was the most important person in the country. Maybe even on the planet.

“Hello, Steve,” the President said. “We have a very important job for you.”

4. Hand History

“I… I’m sorry, what?” I couldn’t believe what the President and his advisors were telling me. They sat around me, calmly analyzing my disbelief. The hum of the propellers and the drone of the engines only made me more on edge.

“I’ll repeat it one more time,” said one of the advisors, a younger man with a long nose and piercing blue eyes. “The goal is to defeat candidates from other countries in a first-person shooter, and then beat them in poker. The winner of this tournament will represent our planet in a galactic competition.”

Okay, I decided to play along. Whatever this was, they were clearly speaking in codes and weren’t ready to give me the full story yet.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Because of your history,” the guy with the schnotz said. “You have an exceptional track record as a poker player. In fact, you’re one of the best in the country.”

“So? There are better ones. Why didn’t you call Phil Hellmuth, or Negreanu, or any of the big names in the poker world?”

“Because they don’t have the other skills you possess.”

“You mean Counter-Strike?”

“We mean Bosnia. And Iraq. And Syria.”

Oh… that.

Yeah, that was part of my past life.

“When you kill a man at fifteen, it leaves a mark,” the advisor said. “I did it at sixteen.”

“Sabahudin Delić. Does the name ring a bell?” asked the second advisor—balding, freckled, with a large mole next to his left nostril.

The name was the only thing I recognized. Everything else about him had vanished into the whirlwind of war, buried deep in my subconscious and sealed away by PTSD. It was a life I had deleted and forgotten a long time ago.

“The name of my first victim.”

“Correct,” said the long-nosed one. “There were others in Bosnia, weren’t there?”

“Get to the point,” I snapped, then glanced at the President, as if expecting a reaction. He remained wisely silent, letting the professionals do their job.

“The point is, Steve Mojsilovic,” the freckled one said, “we’ve known about your victims all along. That’s why we let you emigrate to America and enlist. We knew you’d have a stellar military career as a U.S. Marine, and we knew we could count on you. Believe me, if we hadn’t seen your potential, you’d be a political prisoner right now for everything you did in Sarajevo.”

“And? What now? Are you finally taking me to prison, even though I served this country?”

“On the contrary,” the President finally chimed in, “we expect one more great service from you. A chance to prove you love your country.”

“Which country? America, or my homeland?” 

“The only land we’ve got, Steve. Planet Earth.”

5. Nevada Hold’em

“Welcome to Area 51,” the President said. “Make yourself at home.”

With that, he closed the cabin door and left me to his advisors—or whoever the schnotz and the freckled guy were supposed to be.

We went through several security checkpoints: first at a ramp, then a door, then another door. Marines were everywhere—my former brothers-in-arms—questioning us, searching us, and demanding papers and clearance. There were fingerprint and facial scans too. Everything you’d expect from a place like this.

We entered a compact room featuring a massive pool lit by dim underwater lights. The silence was palpable. Only our footsteps disturbed that heavy stillness.

“Strip,” the freckled one ordered.

“Excuse me?”

“Down to your skin.”

“Could you please explain what the hell is going on?” I asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Strip, get in the pool, and relax,” he said. I could hear the nerves rattling in his voice.

I did as I was told. What choice did I have? There was no turning back. It was time to find out why I was so special that the President himself had to talk to me. What was so goddamn important that it couldn’t wait for me to finish a match of CS?

As I stepped into the pool, the agents left, and the underwater lights faded to nothing. I floated for a while in total darkness until all my senses went numb. The only thing I felt was the slight ripple of lukewarm water caused by my own movements.

I could fall asleep here, I thought.

Apparently, I did, because I woke up on a battlefield with a rifle in my hands.

Desert surrounded me. Did they dump me somewhere far from Area 51 to rot? Why give me a rifle? And why go through all those security checks just for this?

No. Something wasn’t right. A second ago, I was floating in a pool; now, sand was blowing in my face and the dry air was stinging my skin.

I looked at the weapon and realized I had no idea what I was holding. The make and model were completely foreign to me. I squeezed the trigger, and a red light streaked out of the barrel at incredible speed.

I glanced at my left arm and saw “100%” glowing on my skin, with “99” right below it. I fired another laser round, and the second number ticked down to 98.

So, I was in some kind of futuristic shooter simulation. But… it felt so real. It was me, and I was there. I breathed the air; I felt hunger and thirst.

“Where did you bring me?” I yelled. “Get me out of here!”

“Good afternoon, Steve,” a robotic voice said. That’s when I realized I had an earpiece in my right ear. “Welcome to the Galactic Combat Simulation.”

“Okaaay, how are you doing this?” I asked. I wasn’t even sure if the communication was two-way.

“Opponents will spawn shortly. This is a free-for-all match with ten total competitors. The winner is the last one standing. Three…”

“Wait, give me some more instructions!”

“Two.”

“But—”

“One.”

Obstacles materialized around me. Sand dunes, shacks, tires, and piles of materials I couldn’t identify.

A laser bolt whizzed over my head, missing me by an inch. The next one caught me in the shoulder, and it hurt like hell. I felt it tear through flesh and bone and come out the other side.

“What kind of simulation is this if I actually feel the pain?!” I screamed at the robot in my ear.

Again, no answer. Instead of waiting around, I ducked into a shack that looked like a simple desert dweller’s hut. It was empty; the doors and windows were just holes in the walls.

The display on my arm read: 68% and 98.

So that was it. After just one hit, my “health” dropped by 32%. A couple more rounds and I’d be dead, and I didn’t want to think about what that meant. Would I just wake up in the pool? Or would I die for real and stay here in the desert for virtual vultures to pick apart?

I felt my shoulder and realized the pain was gone—a clear sign the game had a way of keeping us mobile as long as we weren’t at 0% HP. That was good. It meant I wouldn’t have to patch myself up while facing enemies.

“Bot 4 has been eliminated,” the voice in my head announced. “Remaining players: nine. Bot 6 has been eliminated. Remaining players: eight.”

I was playing against bots?! And they were killing each other? Well, yeah, if it was a free-for-all, why would they all rush me?

One of them did. He was crawling around the shack, having no clue I was watching him through a small window. Stupid bot. I waited for him to peek through the door, then I grabbed his rifle, kicked him in the gut, and immediately dumped a burst of laser fire into his head.

“Ha! How’s that, you damn bot?” I shouted. His body, riddled with holes, turned translucent and vanished completely. Along with it went the rifle I’d snatched, hoping for more ammo.

The earpiece announced his death. I had killed Bot 9.

“No, no, no!” I muttered. It was clear now: you have your own “health” and “ammo.” You can’t loot the enemy. But what happens when you run out of shots? I looked at the display on my arm: 68% and 60.

What the hell? Did I really fire 38 shots into that guy? Impossible!

The robot announced two more deaths. Bot 8 and Bot 1 were out. That meant only five competitors left. 

Halfway there.

A laser bolt flew through the window and caught me right in the center of my forehead. I went blind for a second, the force of the impact knocking me to the floor. Now what?

I lay there with darkness over my eyes until I realized it was mostly smoke charring my goggles. I wiped them clean and saw a Bot in camo pants and a jacket standing over me. He looked identical to the previous one. Balaclava, goggles, and all.

He was peering through the window, scanning the shack, unaware I was still alive.

He turned at the first sign of me stirring, but I was faster. I aimed for his head and let it rip. Bot 2 was dead. Shortly after, Bots 3 and 7 took each other out.

Only two players left. Me and Bot 5, who apparently was the best of the bunch.

The display on my arm read: 1% and 45.

One. One percent. That meant the guy probably just had to look at me funny and I’d be done for.

The music swelled. I only then realized it had been there all along—military drumming and discordant violins following my every move—but it had been so quiet at first that I hadn’t paid attention.

The soundtrack for this game was top-tier, I had to admit. It forced me to my feet. My breathing quickened as sweat poured down my neck.

I made my choice: all or nothing. I sprinted out of the shack and charged forward—the kind of running I hadn’t done in a very long time, back when my beer gut and soft ass didn’t get in the way.

I spotted a camouflaged head peeking from behind a pile of junk in the distance and opened fire, but the opponent was skilled. He took cover, and I realized I’d given away my position and jeopardized my existence in this strange game.

I decided to go all out, come what may.

I ran toward him like I was carried by the wind. Did this game have a stamina bar? I felt like I could run to infinity and back.

But infinity came to an abrupt end.

With surgical precision, Bot 5 sent a single bolt into my chest.

That was the end of me.

6. Intermission

I opened my eyes in the pool, gasping for air until I was completely winded. My head was spinning, and the darkness at the corners of my vision was closing in, but I fought it. I couldn’t afford to pass out.

Several people entered the room, including the freckled guy and the schnoz.

“How are you feeling, Steve?” asked a balding young man in a white suit. He looked anywhere between twenty and sixty, wearing thick coke-bottle glasses that magnified his prescription so much his eyes looked like tiny dots.

“Everything… it felt so real.”

“Alien technology. We’ve adapted it so it can be played with bots.”

“But… I still don’t get why you picked me?” I said, suddenly noticing that everyone could see my manhood floating in the pool along with the rest of me. I covered myself with my palm immediately.

“Because of what comes next,” he explained. “What you just went through was a test of your combat skills. Next, we will test your ability to read an opponent’s emotions in a card game.”

“Poker?” I asked.

“Poker,” he confirmed. “How do you feel now? Is your head spinning?”

“No,” I lied.

“Then I suggest we move straight to the second part of the test.”

They left the room, and I closed my eyes once more.

I found myself at a poker table, surrounded by alien opponents.

7. New Setup

Aside from the strange, distorted faces at the table, everything else was familiar. Dim lights, whiskey, and a cigar.

There were four of us at the table. I wanted to say ‘four men,’ but ‘four entities’ was probably more accurate. I had no idea what their gender was, or if they even had one. They looked like your standard aliens: small, weird, with oversized eyes. Except they weren’t all green. One was pink, and another was a metallic gray.

“Welcome back to the simulation, Steve,” the robot voice said. “You are playing against Bots 1, 2, and 3. The game is Five-Card Draw, and your ammo is your bankroll. The ante is one round. The more you win, the more ammo you’ll have for the next stage.”

Five-Card Draw? Interesting. It was a variation I hadn’t played in a while, but I’d always liked it for its simplicity.

The rules were easy: everyone gets five cards, and then we decide whether to raise or fold. After that, you can swap up to three cards from the deck, bet again, and then show your hand. The best hand takes the pot.

One round was automatically deducted from my total as the ante, leaving me with 14. Pretty pathetic. But I’d learned a vital lesson: I needed to conserve ammo during the “shooter” phase of this bizarre simulation if I wanted to have any leverage in the “poker” part.

The cards were dealt. I had a pair of Queens, so I raised by one round. Everyone called.

I swapped my remaining three cards, and lo and behold: another Queen. Not bad!

Statistically speaking, this was a strong hand. Now I just had to watch how much the others bet and how they reacted.

The bots didn’t talk; they just sat there in silence and played. It was hard to find a tell—no micro-expressions like you’d find with rookie poker players.

I raised by two, and two of them folded. It was just me and the metallic gray alien, who decided to call. I figured I’d push it to the limit—this was a simulation, after all, and I had nothing to lose.

The alien followed my lead until there were 48 rounds in the pot, represented by chips in denominations of 1, 5, and 10.

We showed our cards, and it was a clear win for me. The opponent had two pair: Aces and Eights. I would’ve pushed that hand too if I were him. But, by all the rules of poker, three-of-a-kind beats two pair every time.

My ammo counter jumped to 48, and a moment later, I woke up naked in the pool.

“Well done, maestro,” said the scientist with the coke-bottle glasses. He was alone in the room. “You adapted incredibly fast. I didn’t expect you to dominate the first hand like that.”

“You should’ve let me keep going, I would’ve cleaned them out,” I said. I had no idea from what depths of my hollowed-out soul I’d managed to dredge up that bit of humor.

“Ho-ho, you’re even getting warmed up. That’s excellent.”

“Now what?”

“Now, dry off,” he said, tossing me a towel, “and get dressed. Your room is on the third floor, 14C. We’ll continue in a few days.”

“The same drill?”

“Yes, but with slightly higher stakes.”

“How high?”

“Your life.”

8. Sky-High

Area 51 was well-equipped, and life here wasn’t half bad. I had access to the fastest internet on the planet, and the food they brought to my room was outstanding. The chefs here were world-class.

At times, I’d almost forget why I was here, losing myself in matches of CS and online poker. The only demand they made was that I hit the gym—lift, work out, and run on the treadmill for an hour a day.

I didn’t really need to do it, since my virtual self had the mobility of my prime years, but I decided not to push my luck and just played along.

When they summoned me back to the pool, they explained that things were getting serious: if my health hit zero in the simulation, I’d die in real life.

It was a bluff. One hundred percent. Why would anyone invest this much manpower and technology only to risk losing the whole project? Besides, the four-eyed scientist kept adjusting his glasses and scratching his nose every time he mentioned my death. The U.S. government and the people behind this project didn’t think I’d be using poker logic outside the game. They made a mistake putting a fish in the same pond as a shark.

My training in the simulation began with one-on-one combat. First, I faced off against a single bot. Then came two, then three, until we reached ten bots per round. I came out on top every single time.

The professional soldier and killer I’d buried years ago in Bosnia, Iraq, and Syria was slowly waking up inside me. He knew what to do. He spotted behavioral patterns in the opponents. He could predict their movements, no matter the terrain.

And the terrain was always different. Sometimes it was a desert, sometimes an ancient temple, other times an abandoned village. The size of the maps changed, and so did the seasons.

Four-eyes—who eventually told me to call him Carter—admitted that the bots and the environments were just a simulation. No one had a clue what actually awaited me at the Galactic Tournament, if I even made it that far.

To qualify, I had to beat the competition on a global scale and eliminate special ops candidates from Russia, China, the EU, India, and several other countries. Everyone had people like me: men with a specific set of skills in gaming, poker, and life and death.

After several weeks of grueling training, Carter broke the news: “We haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Steve. You see, you aren’t the only one we’ve been training in the States. We recruited twenty-five people who fit the profile. All of them went through the same training as you, and they’re ready to face the international candidates. Since only one can represent the U.S., we’re going to test you by splitting you into four groups. The winners of those groups will then compete for the title of National Representative.”

“I knew it.”

“You knew?”

“It was too far-fetched to think I was the only one. America is a big country.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Carter sighed. “So, you’ll face five others. If you survive, you move to the second round, where you’ll play poker with the survivors. You’ll play exactly five hands of poker, and then you’ll be transported back to the combat zone. Questions?”

“Who are these people? Can I get their names?” I asked. I knew I was taking a shot in the dark, and Carter just smiled and walked out of the room.

9. Upswing

When you play against real competitors instead of bots, you get the sense that you’re actually in control. There’s less blind firing, less mindless sprinting, and more tactics. In fact, no one dared to take the first shot; we were all dug in, hunkered down, and tracking every possible movement.

Then the robotic voice chimed in: “Zone restriction begins in one minute.”

“What?” I muttered. I couldn’t believe they were using a Fortnite-style Battle Royale system where the map shrinks to force players into a meat grinder. I realized then that this game was looking more like Fortnite and less like Counter-Strike by the second. No matter; I played both religiously.

I was lying low behind a crumbled wall when I noticed everything around me had turned gray. That meant I was in the zone about to be phased out. Shit.

I sprinted toward the colored section of the map. I didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if I got caught in the gray. Maybe this time it really was a game of life and death.

Right then, the laser bolts started flying. One grazed my thigh, making me stumble.

I managed to limp over to a pile of old tires in this bizarre environment filled with junk. It felt like we were fighting in a city that had been carpet-bombed into oblivion.

Fleeing from the fire taught me the most important thing: my opponents’ current positions. But I had a feeling they’d pinned me down, too.

I heard the hum of a laser, followed by: “Combatant Number 5 has been eliminated. May he rest in peace.”

May he rest in peace?!

The robotic voice had a hell of a sense of humor—if you could even call it that. Were we really dying for real? Was this battle going to be my last?

I had to focus on the remaining three.

“Zone restriction begins in one minute,” the voice announced again. Parts of the horizon turned gray. I wasn’t in the danger zone this time, which meant I could wait a bit longer before making another run for it.

“Combatant Number 1 remained in the restricted zone. May he rest in peace,” the robot declared.

I didn’t dwell on that info. Instead, I spotted an enemy fleeing the gray and took aim. After weeks of grueling training, I finally had the skill and the “feel” to control a laser rifle. I caught him right in the head.

But apparently, I didn’t kill him, because the robot stayed silent.

The other remaining fighter opened fire on me, but luckily, he missed. I localized him: he was almost exactly in the center of the map.

My thoughts drifted back to the poor bastard I’d just nailed with a headshot. He definitely wasn’t going to take any more risks. He’d stay put. Neither would the guy in the center; he had a solid tactical position.

I checked my arm: 77% health and 88 rounds. Not bad.

This was it. Let’s go.

Staying in a low crouch, I began moving tactically between barricades, never losing sight of my opponents. I made sure to stay quiet, ghosting through the debris. Only after reaching cover would I squeeze off a couple of rounds toward the center of the map, just to draw return fire. It was the only way to be sure they hadn’t moved.

That tactic allowed me to close the gap to the guy in the center to less than a hundred yards. I kept up the strategy, though it was getting riskier: I’d fire just above his position—intentionally giving away my own—and then crawl silently to the next piece of cover.

But when I peeked out from behind a barrier, two enemy bolts pierced my palms. I was forced to drop my rifle.

Dammit!

The guy in the middle was sharper than I’d expected. He’d read my play and let me walk right into his trap.

I slumped onto my back and checked my arm: 14% and 65.

The thud of footsteps grew louder—a sign the enemy was closing in. He knew exactly where I was. He stepped into my line of sight a moment later, his weapon leveled at my forehead.

“Goodbye!” he said with a thick Southern accent.

And then he dropped dead.

“Combatant Number 4 has been eliminated. May he rest in peace.”

I looked back and saw the opponent I’d headshotted earlier in the distance. He’d taken his shot and nailed my would-be killer in the back.

The sound of the burst was followed by a metallic click.

I smiled and pulled myself up.

The opponent’s gaze was frantic. He aimed his rifle at me and tried to look threatening, but it was useless. Long live the click.

“Out of ammo, aren’t you?” I asked.

“Aw, shit. You made me.”

“Now what?”

“You out too?”

“Nope,” I said, and fired a single shot into the air.

“Go on then. Get it over with.”

“I’m not going to. If I kill you, you might actually die.”

“I would’ve killed you in a heartbeat if the roles were reversed,” he spat.

“Zone restriction begins in one minute,” the robot announced.

“What are we gonna do when the game ends? When everything turns gray?” he asked, bewildered by my hesitation.

“I guess we’re about to find out, aren’t we?” I said. I sat on the ground, leaning back against a charred tractor tire.

“Why are you doing this? You don’t even know me,” he asked, settling down next to me.

“What can I tell you… Sometimes the most important card is the one you don’t play. That’s my motto.”

“That’s… stupid.”

“You think? I happen to like the way it sounds. It’s got a deeper meaning, even outside of poker. I feel it in life, even if I can’t quite explain it. It’s like… if you play the card, you’re doing more harm than good, both to yourself and to—”

He snatched the rifle from my hands and aimed it at me. I didn’t even blink.

“Alright, philosopher, quit bullshitting and say a prayer or whatever before I blow your head off.” He stood up, pressing the barrel to my temple.

“It’s no use. Don’t even bother.”

“What do you mean it’s no use?” he hissed through his teeth, confused by my lack of reaction. He realized it a second later. The rifle refused to fire, as if it were jammed, and then it turned translucent. A second later, it vanished and reappeared in my hands.

The opponent was left clutching thin air. He waved a hand in frustration.

“This game still has hand-to-hand combat, doesn’t it?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, only one way to find out. I play my cards all-in.”

He lunged at me, landing several blows. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect it. I reacted like a complete amateur, flailing my arms in a desperate attempt to defend myself. I managed to block a punch here and there, but he kept pressing, harder and faster.

“Come on, you coward!”

I glanced at the display: 7% health. I couldn’t risk it. If he was really going to be this much of a fool, I had to defend myself the only way I knew how.

The robot announced the penultimate zone shrink. We were left in a circle about thirty yards wide, with no obstacles or cover between us.

He lunged at me again, and I finally played that key card I’d been holding onto for so long. I fired a single shot, precise and unhesitating, right between his eyebrows.

---

I found myself back in the poker room. Four other players joined me—the winners of the other heats, and my future enemies in the next armed confrontation. Now, it was time to beat them at the table.

“Five-Card Draw will be played under Jacks or Better rules,” the robotic voice announced. “Meaning, you can only open the betting if you have a pair of Jacks or a stronger hand.”

I knew the rule; it was a staple in “cowboy-style” Five-Card Draw. It was designed to prevent the game from becoming too passive. Given that we were playing exactly five hands, it was a welcome addition.

“Player 1 enters the game with 64 rounds,” it added. That was me.

“Player 2 has 20 rounds. Player 3 has 7 rounds.” Things were looking very good for my side of the table.

“Players 4 and 5 are granted a 5-round bonus for the five hands, as they finished their combat round with zero ammo,” the robot explained.

It was fair. They had to have some skin in the game, even if they’d emptied their magazines earlier. It also meant they’d likely play aggressively right out of the gate, trying to claw something back in the first or second hand.

The first hand began, and we all posted the mandatory one-round ante. I had absolutely nothing—not even a low pair—so by the rules, I couldn’t open the betting. It seemed the other four were in the same boat.

“Hand one is complete. The rounds remain in the pot, and an additional ante is required from each player,” the robot said.

That meant the total pot for the second hand was already at 10 rounds.

I was dealt a pair of Kings in the second hand, so I opened the betting to put pressure on the guys with smaller stacks.

“I’m betting three.”

“Call,” said one of the guys playing on bonus ammo. He shoved everything he had left into the middle.

Bold move. He probably smelled a bluff.

“I’ll call too,” said the other guy with the bonus rounds. Expected.

The rest of the players followed suit, and it was time to draw. I decided to take the bluff all the way. I stood pat—I didn’t swap a single card, staying with my two Kings.

Standing pat is a classic tactic in Five-Card Draw. Drawing cards would signal that my starting hand wasn’t as strong as my opening bet suggested.

I’d always loved watching my opponents’ faces when I did that. The less experienced ones immediately thought I had four-of-a-kind, while the veterans just eyed me suspiciously. It was safe to assume everyone at this table was a seasoned player.

It was time for the second round of betting.

“I’m all-in,” I said. The guy with 20 rounds folded, leaving him with 15. The others called.

We flipped the cards. One had a pair of Jacks, another a pair of Queens, and the third had a pair of Kings, just like me. In that case, it came down to the high card among the remaining three. Luckily, I was holding an Ace to his nine, and I took the pot.

By the end of the second round, it was down to just two of us. I’d swept up 17 rounds from the three who busted out, bringing my total to 81, against my last opponent’s 15.

In the next hand, he managed to claw back five rounds, only to lose ten in the one after that.

In the final hand, he went for a high-risk play and beat me, ending the game with 20 rounds to my 76.

---

Is there even any need to recount what happened after the poker game? There’s no point wasting words on it. The three who finished with zero were granted exactly four rounds each for the combat phase.

That meant they would have to spend exactly one bullet on each opponent. To pull that off, they’d need to land a headshot every single time and hope it would deplete 100% of their health. You’ll agree, the chances of that were minimal. But not non-existent.

The beginning was unexpected: they immediately took out the guy with 20 rounds with one precise laser bolt right to the crown of his head. The robot read him his last rites.

I wasn’t going to wait anymore. Just like in poker, when you have the advantage, you press it.

I charged out, took aim, and immediately dropped two of them with a burst of fire before they even managed to spot me.

I waited for the last one, hunkered down in the center as the map continued to shrink. Direct conflict became inevitable after a while, and I emerged as the victor.

10. WSOP (and Shooting)

My confidence was launched into the stratosphere like a rocket. And even further—out into the cosmos, toward the unknown.

I couldn’t believe it! I, a retired soldier and a bloated gamer, was the best in America. I wasn’t even thinking about the Witch or Sam anymore. I was a killing and bluffing machine, just waiting for my shot.

And that shot came soon enough. I found myself in a virtual ring with nine other players from all over the world. There were competitors from Japan, China, Russia, South Africa, India, the EU, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and, of course, the USA. Every single one of them was a hardened killer, having served their nations through various military interventions, and each possessed years of experience in shooters and poker. In short, that mix of skills—virtual and real—was part of our identities, rooted in the very core of our being. Now, it was time to put it to the test.

I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ll explain the concept. There were three rounds of shooting and two rounds of poker. We played poker for ammo at the end of the first and second rounds.

No one was read their “last rites” here, so I was fairly certain we weren’t actually killing anyone this time. That hadn’t been the case in the national qualifiers. Carter explained that the other American candidates I’d faced were “threats to national security” and had to be neutralized. He added that the same would have happened to me had I not won. Lovely!

In the international competition, I stumbled upon a glaring, stupid oversight. I couldn’t believe such a massive loophole existed in the rules. Essentially, the first two rounds didn’t count. The winner was whoever survived the third.

I exploited it immediately. As soon as the first round began, I took a couple of laser bolts to the head. By doing so, I entered the poker round with the maximum ammo count: 100. It hurt like hell. Every bolt seared into my flesh, but it was worth it. Oh, it was worth it!

The poker was also played over five hands, and I managed to win fifty rounds. That meant I entered the second shooting round with a staggering one hundred and fifty rounds of ammo.

I did the same thing again: I went out, didn’t fire a single shot, and finished the round first.

However, an interesting situation developed: the others caught on to my tactic. They started taking each other out with minimal ammo consumption to keep up.

Regardless, I had by far the most ammo to wager in the second poker round. It gave me a massive strategic advantage; I could bully the other players, forcing them to play and bet aggressively, leaving them with no room to think through their moves.

The second poker round didn’t go too badly. After three hands, I’d lost about ten rounds, but everyone else had significantly less, despite their efforts to conserve.

And so we reached the final round. That was when I truly engaged everything I’d learned from the army, Counter-Strike, and Fortnite. Representatives from various countries fell before my sights, while some simply killed each other off.

I didn’t conserve my fire. Whenever I spotted an opponent, I opened up on them. I had the luxury.

The map was some kind of archaeological site, with Corinthian columns and the faces of Greek gods. I moved through ruined temples and forums, carefully picking spots where I could easily pick off my enemies.

And what can I say? I won. It was actually much easier than the previous rounds and competitions. If we’d been in a video game, the opponents would have probably teamed up to take me down first before turning on each other. But this wasn’t a game. This felt real, and in reality, the brain reacts the way it reacts: it secretes adrenaline and all the other necessary hormones, and those hormones heavily influence your decisions.

Maybe I was just better than the rest at not letting my brain chemistry mess with my composure and decision-making. I don’t know. All I know is that at one point, I stepped out of cover with 98% health and dumped 50 rounds into the last opponent.

The robot declared my absolute victory, and I woke up in the pool.

11. Sweetening the Pot

Carter entered the pool area, a wide grin plastered across his face. “You lying son of a bitch.”

I looked at him, bewildered.

“You spotted the loophole right away, didn’t you?” he asked, tapping away at his tablet with the tip of a gnarled index finger.

“Did you leave that oversight in there on purpose?”

“We did. We agreed not to tell anyone about it. We wanted to see if anyone would exploit it… we just didn’t expect someone to figure it out so fast.”

“The gap was obvious. I’m surprised the other players didn’t catch it immediately. I’m starting to doubt they were actually top-tier poker players and gamers,” I said, climbing out of the pool and drying myself off. I didn’t feel any shame in front of Carter or anyone else anymore. Everyone had gotten used to seeing me buck-naked. I still didn’t understand why I couldn’t at least wear swimming trunks.

“Follow me,” he said, heading for the door. I had to sit on the edge of the pool for a second to steady myself. Just for a minute. My head spun every time I dragged my consciousness back into the real world.

The automatic doors slid open, and I saw Carter fidgeting. “Come on, what took you so long?”

“Where are we going?” I asked, rushing after him, trying to keep my towel from slipping. Drops from the pool left a damp trail behind me.

“To the control room. I want to show you something.”

The control room looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. There were thousands of glowing buttons surrounding a massive screen displaying a map of the virtual world I’d just left. Green numbers and letters cascaded down the corners of the map like the Matrix.

Heh, the Matrix. It hadn’t occurred to me before how much this place resembled that movie. Though Neo and Trinity didn’t have to languish in fluid for hours until their skin got all wrinkled and shriveled like mine.

“Here’s the data on your performance. As you can see, you’re near the bottom in terms of kill count. You’re also first in terms of deaths, since you died first in two out of the three rounds. As for the poker, you’re on solid ground there—that first game was excellent.”

“Okay, so what does this mean for me?” I asked, sitting in one of those rolling chairs that let you zip between the control panels.

“We measured other metrics, too—movement speed, strategy, heart rate, blood pressure, and precision. We pulled all sorts of poker stats to calculate a final ranking.”

“And?” I asked, gliding around on the chair.

“Out of ten competitors, you’re ranked ninth in overall efficiency. That means, Steve, that you were actually quite poor,” Carter adjusted his glasses and exhaled.

“But I won, didn’t I?”

“That is true.”

“And I’m playing against aliens soon?”

“Yes, that’s also true, but one thing worries me deeply. Your physical conditioning. In the coming period, we have to fix your diet. You’ll train even harder, and you’ll face even smarter bots.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but I had no choice but to accept. I’d be representing the planet. The whole planet. It was a massive honor, but an even bigger responsibility.

“We have to prepare you for whatever comes next. Whatever that may be.”

I stopped my dance on the chair. “What do you mean, whatever that may be?”

Carter took a deep breath, removed his glasses, and wiped them on his white lab coat.

“Everything we’ve gone through so far has been our own simulation of what’s to come, based on the info we have and the tech they gave us. We know there will be shooting and poker. But beyond that, we know nothing. When the music starts, you’ll have to learn the steps from the very first beat.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“No, I’m dead serious. And there’s one more thing…” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I followed the movement with my eyes, surprised by this sudden flash of humanity from a being who, until now, hadn’t seemed… human.

“What?” I asked suspiciously.

“Our… celestial friends… demanded we put up a stake before the tournament begins. The buy-in is a bit larger, just so you know.”

“How large?” I asked, slowly dropping my shoulder to shake off his hand and silence that attempt at warmth.

“Well… you know how when a gambler runs out of cash, he bets his house? That’s roughly what happened to us. To us Earthlings, who’ve been in contact with this civilization for some time now.”

“You bet someone’s house?”

“Yours.”

“Mine?” I jumped off the chair. My breath grew shallow.

“Calm down. When I say yours, I mean mine, and everyone else’s. We bet the planet, Steve.”

“You bet… the planet?!” I repeated, unable to believe what I was hearing. “So what happens to the planet if I don’t win?”

“We’ll have to move. Collective evacuation.”

“Move where? Where would we even get the tech for that? Can we even reach other habitable planets, if they even exist?”

“That’s the problem: we don’t know.”

“You… you don’t know?” I asked, feeling my hands begin to shake as I nervously cracked my knuckles. My ears started ringing, and I froze in place, gasping for air. I clutched my chest, thinking I was having a heart attack or a stroke. But no. It was that good old panic attack that had been following me since Bosnia. It hadn’t happened in a long time. Luckily, I knew how to ride it out.

Carter didn’t seem to notice the train wreck happening inside my head.

“In short, we’ll cease to exist if you don’t win. You’re playing for the survival of the human race, Steve.”

With that, Four-eyed walked out.

And me? I closed my eyes as my head throbbed. I collapsed onto the floor and stayed in a fetal position for hours, until the chaos finally subsided.

12. Queen of Hearts

“Steve, someone is here to see you,” Carter said.

Sam burst into the room, shouting, “Dad!”

A month of training had passed, during which I’d managed to cool my nerves and reclaim a good chunk of my youthful form. A team of trainers and nutritionists actively monitored my progress while I gave everything I had to avoid snapping under the crushing weight of the task I’d been assigned.

I was holding my own against the pressure—what else can I say? My days were packed. Gym and running in the morning, real-world military drills in the afternoon, followed by sessions in the virtual world against bots. At the end of the day, I’d have a little free time to hang out with Sam. Yes, the Witch was there too; I saw her whenever she brought him to my room. We played Counter-Strike and Fortnite, as I was strictly forbidden from playing poker with a minor.

One night, the witch stopped by alone, without Sam.

“Where’s the kid?” I asked. She immediately burst into tears. I saw something different in her eyes, and my first thought was that something had happened to Sam.

Luckily, he was fine. It turned out that the whole situation—the possibility of me vanishing, along with the rest of humanity—had finally gotten to her. Naturally, they had briefed her on everything and threatened her with god-knows-what to keep her mouth shut.

A night of lovemaking followed. Had I forgiven her? No, but I certainly enjoyed the time we spent together. After sex, she told me something truly unexpected: in a way, she and Sam were being held prisoner. They were the leverage my country was using to ensure I’d give everything I had to win—saving not just the entire planet, but my own family.

I’ll admit: it hit me harder than I expected. The next day, I tracked down Carter and slapped him across the face, just to vent the rage. Then, we talked through it like men.

“We can’t exactly punish you for misconduct now. It’s too late for that,” he said.

13. Chip Up

“Dear contestants, welcome to Svrrrkr, the largest shooting and pokerrrr tourrrnament in the galaxy. Allow me to introduce myself; I will be your host and master of cerrremonies, Krrr. You may also call me Kr.”

The host on the podium was a giant egg with a single eye. He had no mouth. It seemed he was some kind of organic speaker himself, his voice permeating the entire arena.

We—the participants of the 1,300,529th tournament—stood around the host’s platform, while the crowd in the stands roared a chant I couldn’t understand.

The whole situation felt… grotesque. Like a circus. The stands were a kaleidoscope of colors, with fans in every imaginable hue. I noticed that some of them were wearing light blue, matching the jumpsuit I was currently wearing.

“The Earthlings arrrrrre joining us. Earth is a medium-sized planet, and humans are its smartest race, reprrrresenting it today. They have chosen a rrrrather unique specimen of their kind. Steve, would you like to introduce yourself to the audience?”

There was no microphone. Nothing.

“Eeeeerm, hi everyone. I’m Steve, from America. Originally from Bosnia.”

“Bosnia, America,” the host’s voice flooded the arena, “these are all constrrrrructs, so-called nations, by which Earthlings divide themselves. Thank you for that intrrrroduction, Steve. The Earthlings have staked their own planet as their buy-in, as they haven’t reached any others yet, and do you know what that means?”

The multicolored crowd erupted.

“That’s rrrright!” the voice yelled in ecstasy. “If Steve is eliminated, we will be watching a live ANNIHILATION!”

I didn’t join in the cheering.

“Now, let’s go overrrr the rrrules, or at least what is allowed to be known before the competition begins. Because, as you know, the main motto of Svrrrkr is… THE FUN BEGINS WHEN THE FAMILIAR ENDS.”

I… did not like that. It felt like all my grueling preparation wouldn’t be enough for what lay ahead.

But here we were. I pricked up my ears to hear the rules better. The announcer’s enthusiasm didn’t waver, much like the energy of the crowd and the other players.

“The firrrst game is a favorite for many because it’s a light warm-up for what’s to come. Can you guess what it is? Yes? No? I already hear correct and incorrrrect answers. The game is… Demons of Death!”

The crowd roared louder than ever as the announcer continued:

“Each contestant will face a horrrrde of demons from the most terrrifying hell-planets. With unlimited ammo, you must slay as many as possible. For every demon killed, you will receive one round to be used later in pokerrrr. And as you well know, the game lasts until the demons win! After that, we move to pokerrrr before starting the second of five games. Do you want to know what it is?”

The crowd screamed.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you! You’ll find out when the firrrrst game is over. And nowwwww, let the demon slaughter begin!”

14. Devil’s Area Code

Poker players are the most creative people in the world; I say that with absolute certainty. Anything they name—be it a phenomenon, a move, or a hand—it stays written that way forever. I’ve never encountered a game with such linguistic richness. For example, a pair of Aces is called “Bullets” because they’re lethal and look like two projectiles flying at an opponent. Four Kings are the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” and three Queens are “Six Tits.” I could ramble about this until tomorrow because there’s truly so much creativity in the world of poker.

Why am I telling you all this? That creativity in naming was key to my performance against the hordes from hell.

I found myself on some planet filled with streams of lava and raging volcanoes. One might say this was exactly what hell looked like in my mind, so I wasn’t sure if the map was universal or tailored to my own perception of damnation.

Bridges stretched over rivers and streams, and there were scattered ruins of ancient buildings, suitable for hiding from the monster onslaught.

I was still dressed in my light-blue military jumpsuit. My arm display showed 100% health, and below it was the ∞ symbol, meaning I could fire to my heart’s content.

I fired a burst into the air just for the hell of it, and then I spotted about a dozen horned, four-legged creatures leaving a trail of flame behind them. They were damn fast, and their horse-like faces consisted of massive, snapping jaws.

In my head, I called them “Hell-ponies.” They had one weak spot: whenever they jumped to bite, their jaws opened so wide that you could see their insides, including a red, flaming heart that exploded with a single bullet. That explosion was so powerful it would take out the surrounding ponies as well.

I learned that when I killed the first one; the blast caught me and dropped my health to 77%, but it also killed four other “ponies.” Next time, I knew to jump back immediately after firing to stay safe.

The first wave ended, and the announcer—that strange egg-like being—spoke into my ear: “Well done, Earrrrthling, you’ve earned ten rrrrrounds. On to the second wave.”

The second round brought the “Rhinos”—massive, bulky masses with a horn that looked like it was tearing reality itself apart, separating matter from anti-matter while black smoke billowed out of it. It turned out that smoke was highly flammable, so you didn’t need to aim at the demon itself, but just above its skull. When a bullet passed through the smoke, a chain reaction would incinerate the rest of its body. The Rhinos leveled everything in their path, so I had to stay constantly on the move. I felt proudest when three Rhinos collided; I leaped away at the last second and hit the smoke above their interlocked horns, frying them all at once.

“Excellent, Earrrrthling. For each one, you get ten morrrrre rrrrrounds. On to the thirrrrrd wave.”

At first, the creatures around me surprised me because they were small, round like eggs, with large, soulful eyes. They didn’t look threatening. To top it off, they made chirping sounds, like chicks waiting for a hen to feed them, with their beaks wide open. They reminded me of miniature versions of Krrr.

But looks were deceiving. These little devils were fast as the wind and exploded when they got close. If you shot them, they wouldn’t explode; they would simply fall apart, like an egg whose shell you crack to pour the contents into a hot frying pan.

Here, my survival depended solely on my precision. Infinite ammo, but at least fifty of them. Maybe a hundred. I didn’t know, and I didn’t intend to count. I just intended to kill them all.

I ran as fast as I could while a dozen “Eggies” chased me, and for a moment, I felt like Serious Sam from the game that defined my youth—the same game after which a boy dear to my heart was named.

I fought in honor of Serious Sam, and my Sam, and in honor of all the Sams who bravely faced adversity—including Frodo’s Sam, and that timid but smart one who befriended Jon Snow on the icy Wall. Sams of all lands, unite. Sams of the universe, unite.

I didn’t notice one Eggy that snuck up behind me and exploded. My health dropped to 32%, which spoiled the fun a bit and shattered the illusion that I had things under control.

Regardless, I managed to fight off the Eggies, and then the announcer said: “Well done, Earrrthling, you’ve got fifty rrrrrounds. Prrrrrepare for the final wave, which no one has everrrr surrrrvived, because it is impossible.”

And so it was. The Rhinos, Hell-ponies, and Eggies swarmed me from three sides, and there wasn’t much I could do. This wave was designed for everyone to lose in the end. After a few more cracked shells, exploded hearts, and scorched noses, my health hit 0% when one of the Rhinos rammed into me, impaling me with its jagged horn.

---

It hurt! Oh, it hurt like hell! But the pain didn’t last long, as I soon “respawned” at a poker table, surrounded by four other contestants. We were playing at two separate tables, five players each.

Then, I noticed a bizarre fact: they were all humans. Human beings. I wondered if this was just a projection within the virtual reality, while small green men actually lay in pods somewhere, floating just like I was.

“You… you’re human?”

“And what the hell were you expecting?” a tall, blonde guy interjected. He spoke perfect English. “Just because you lot tripped yourselves into thinking you’re the center of the universe and that all aliens are ugly and big-headed, that’s your problem.”

“How… how do we all understand each other?”

“That’s the algorithm at work, kid,” said another contestant—a dark-skinned man in his fifties with long black dreadlocks. “But yes, human beings, exactly like the ones on your home planet, are the most dominant race in the universe, albeit with a few genetic modifications.”

He lifted a dreadlock to show me a pointed ear. “Some of us even served as inspiration for your TV shows… what was that one called… Skop?”

“You mean Spock?”

“That’s the one. See?”

“Then who are all these strange people in the crowd? Who’s the announcer?”

“Them? Oh, they’re just NPCs.”

NPC. Non-Player Character. A character in a game controlled by the machine, not a human. Usually irrelevant, there only to fill the space, guide players, and push the story along.

We began the game while Krrr laid out the rules. We were playing five hands of the same version I’d practiced: Five-Card Draw. I had a total of 75 rounds to wager. Oother players had fared more or less like I did in the shooting phase.

Then, Krrr said something that spiked the pressure:

“The two playerrrrs with the lowest rrrrround counts will be eliminated frrrrrom the competition!”

“What does that mean?” I asked, more rhetorically than anything.

“It means we won’t be seeing each other again,” said the man with the dreads, whom I’d dubbed Skop.

“It also means the house takes the stake,” added the tall blonde guy. In my head, I called him Johann because he looked like a German.

I sank into my virtual seat, my head throbbing. I felt the weight of eight billion people on our “insignificant blue-green planet,” recklessly wagered and piled onto my back. I felt like goddamn Atlas.

In that gloom that threatened to become chronic and “tilt” me—making me pull reckless moves like some greenhorn poker player—a glaring question that had been lurking in the shadows finally stepped into the light:

“And what’s the prize?”

“The prize for what?” asked a girl at the end of the table. She had bushy brown hair, a freckled face, and a sharp, intelligent gaze. I labeled her “Hermione.”

“The prize if I actually win this stupid tournament,” I said.

“Six units.”

“Excuse me? What does that even mean?” I asked, drawing cards and holding onto a pair of Kings.

“Every player wagered one planet of similar estimated intergalactic value,” explained an old man with silver hair and yellowed whiskers. I’ll call him Larry. “The winner gets a total of six wagered planets, including their own, and the house keeps four as commission. Everyone else loses.”

Six planets? Six planets? Was that even possible?

“How…”

“How will you travel to them, and are they habitable? Let me tell you right now: if you win, you’ll get the travel technology, and you’ll be able to settle all the planets immediately. They’re all suitable for human life, and none of them, except Earth, currently have human inhabitants. That’s why they were chosen as stakes,” Hermione explained coldly, raising the bet.

What? Why did Carter and his crew hide this from me? This was a whole new level of pressure. Not Bosnia, not Syria, not Iraq, not a single poker game… nothing could have prepared me for this.

“And what happens to the people on Earth if… if I’m eliminated?” I managed to ask.

“You heard Krrr. Annihilation. Kaputt, as some on your planet would say,” Johann said. The irony!

“Every single one? Everyone is kaputt?” I asked, then decided to fold the current hand due to my poor cards. I was left with 65 rounds for the next hand as Hermione swept a sizeable pot from the table.

“Depends,” she said, “on what the new owner wants to do with the planet. But generally… hm, how do you say it… they want to turn a new leaf. A blank one. Tabula rasa. Clean slate. You have plenty of creative expressions for it on Earth. So, yeah—annihilation.”

“And what happens to the four planets the House takes?”

“Oh, they definitely start over. The entire civilization is razed to the ground using the Conglomerate’s latest laser technologies. But that is why we stake planets with no humans in the first place. It’s cleaner that way.”

“The Conglomerate?”

“Ugh, Earthlings really are new to this,” Larry chimed in. “The Conglomerate is the organization behind this and pretty much every other galactic game. They’re also the most powerful organization in the galaxy.”

Wonderful, I thought, and kept playing poker.

15. Dead Man’s Hand

“The second game consists of a four-on-four battle. The winners will be the grrrrroup that either delivers the enemy flag to their base first or simply the one that surrrrrvives. Winners receive a +30 round bonus for pokerrrr; losers play with whatever they have left. Only those at zero will receive an honorary five rounds to ensure they can play the five hands.”

I found myself in a strange medieval fortress. Beside me were Larry, Skop, and Hermione. Johann was on the opposing team with three others.

“Earthling, do you have a plan for how we’re going to pull this off?” Skop asked.

I did. I don’t even know how or where I pulled the tactic from, but we used to play it often in shooters where you had to steal the enemy flag. We called it “Dead Man’s Hand.” When the famous gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok was killed while playing poker, he reportedly held two black Aces and two eights—and that served as the name for my strategy.

The tactic was simple: those skilled at running would go forward, acting as the Aces, while the slower but better shooters would stay back, defending the base, supporting the Aces, and ensuring the enemy didn’t snag our flag.

My health was at 100%, my ammo at 60. I hadn’t done brilliantly in the previous poker round, but I hadn’t been eliminated either, which was what mattered most. Two guys had been knocked out. They were so insignificant and unmemorable that I hadn’t even bothered giving them nicknames.

There were eight of us left, pitted against one another.

Total chaos ensued. In the first two minutes, everyone died except for me and Johann, and no one had even spared a thought for the flags.

Outside the fortress, a tropical rainforest awaited. The air smelled of heavy rain and even heavier greenery. The alien-German and I sprinted through it, taking occasional shots at one another. We were trying to outsmart each other.

After half an hour of trench-warfare style skirmishes and random potshots, I saw Johann running with a flag in his hands. My flag! 

I gave chase, firing only when I was sure I could hit him, but Johann was fast and calculating; he hid tactically behind trees and dove into the thickest brush to make my job harder.

I failed. The Aces and Eights didn’t help, and Wild Bill Hickok would have been disappointed in my strategy.

The voice of the great egg Krrr announced the victory for Johann’s “Red” team, emphasizing that my “Black” team would enter the poker phase without any bonuses.

Soon we were back in the poker room, in groups of four. Skop and I sat at a table with Johann and another player. The announcer repeated the rule: the two players with the lowest counts at each table would be eliminated.

I’ll make it short: I wasn’t the worst. In fact, I shone at my table and finished the session with a total of 53 rounds. Johann, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky; he managed to gamble away the massive advantage he had, as did another contestant at the other table.

This meant that the next round would include Skop, Larry, Hermione, myself, and two others.

I dubbed one of them “Woody” because his face was always so stoic. He had the ultimate poker face and almost never spoke. Something about his face looked familiar. If he weren’t an alien, his tall, elongated, and serious frame could have passed for a Balkan man.

The other was a woman, no older than forty, with short black hair and visible smoker’s wrinkles around her eyes. Ashlee.

“Prrrrrepare yourselves,” Krrr’s voice boomed, “because things are about to get even crazierrrr in the thirrrrrd rrrround.”

16. The Bully

The third round was a free-for-all, but with a slight twist: players who were eliminated would lose all their ammo, which would then be claimed by their killer. This meant the winner would enter the poker phase with a massive arsenal, while everyone else would be left with a symbolic five rounds to wager. Most importantly, it set a strong foundation for the fourth game, as the winner of the third would likely have the most ammo for the next skirmish, regardless of the format.

I was not the winner. On the contrary, I was the first to go down, taken out by Woody, who eventually won the whole thing. He was clearly the most talented among us.

This meant that when we entered the poker round, Skop, Larry, Hermione, Ashlee, and I had only 5 rounds each. Woody had 281.

Now we were all playing at a single table, and the hands weren’t particularly exciting. Woody was a total “bully,” always betting as much as possible because he had nothing to lose. After the first hand, Ashlee ran out of ammo, and old Larry did the same in the fourth. They were eliminated from the competition, and their planets were lost.

Only Woody, Hermione, Skop, and I remained.

Woody had 270 rounds, Hermione had a mere 3, I had 14, and Skop, who fared the best among the rest of us, finished with 19.

17. Collusion

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the penultimate game of the most famous tourrrrnament in the galaxy and beyond. Four contestants rrrrremain, among them Steve frrrrom planet Earth,” Krrr announced as the virtual reality around us shattered into fragments, only to reassemble into something new and unknown.

“The next game is rrrrrather straightforward: four players, every person for themself. To make things morrrrre interesting, all players with fewerrr than twenty rrrrrounds will receive double health.”

I materialized at some kind of spaceport, surrounded by bizarre starships that looked more like beer cans than aircraft. The runway was a long, wide field where the main confrontation between the remaining players was set to take place.

My wrist display read: 200%, 14. The tactic was now clear: find a way to collaborate with the other two players to take down Woody, who held a massive advantage over the rest of us.

I took off at a sprint, listening intently for the others, and soon stumbled upon Hermione, who was clumsily hiding between the steel wheels of a spacecraft. I approached her from behind and said:

“I’m not going to shoot. I just want to talk.”

She agreed to play along, raising her hands before nodding. “I know what you’re after.”

Someone opened fire, and Krrr immediately followed up, announcing that the Red player had been eliminated. In this game, that was the guy with the dreads—Skop. That meant Hermione and I were left alone against the man without emotions.

Soon, more bolts whistled over our heads: he had found us.

We forged a plan on the fly. It was simple, but potentially fatal for me: I, being more agile and faster at the moment, would do my best to run and draw Woody’s fire, while Hermione would analyze the situation and shoot only if she was absolutely certain of a hit—since she only had three rounds. Three attempts.

One of those rounds landed directly in Woody’s head, but not before he thoroughly riddled both me and Hermione with fire. She was eliminated, leaving only me and this strange character.

We chased each other, trading shots, until I hit the scenario I feared most: I ran out of ammo.

My wrist read 90% and 0. Zero. Z – E – R – O.

What was I supposed to do? Surrender was my only option. I stepped out from behind cover, raised my hands high, and waited for Woody to gun me down.

But it didn’t happen.

“Steve?” I heard him call out, and then I saw him approaching from my left. He kept me in his sights.

“Go on, shoot.”

“No… not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to confirm something with you.”

“What?”

“What’s your name?”

“Well… Steve.”

“You wouldn’t happen to be named… Stefan? Stefan Mojsilović?”

That name. I hadn’t heard it in a long time. Who was this “Woody,” and how did he know my real name?

“How do you know that?”

“It’s been a long time, my friend.”

He said it in perfect Bosnian, and then eliminated me with two laser bolts to the head, delivered with surgical precision.

18. Tilt

I found myself at the poker table, facing Skop, Hermione, and Woody, whose long, somber face was starting to look familiar, stirring demons buried deep in my past. Who was this man?

He had a slight advantage over us, as our chips—rather, our rounds—were distributed based on how we had died moments before. Skop received ten, Hermione twenty, I got thirty, and Woody forty.

“Who are you?” I asked, tossing my cards onto the table. I didn’t have a strong enough hand to even try competing in this round.

Woody sized up everyone at the table, then said, “So, it’s true then?”

“What?” I asked, watching the other contestants exchange cards and raise the stakes.

“That you’ve forgotten me, my friend.”

“Answer my question.”

For the first time since we’d been here, Woody smiled. A thin, straight line curved slightly at one side. It looked more like a sneer than a sincere expression of happiness.

“Sabahudin Delić was my name when I lived on Earth.”

I met his smile with a grin of my own. I thought someone was playing a prank on me.

“It’s not funny, Stefan,” he said, and the curved line flattened again. Skop and Hermione were following this conversation closely, but I could see in their eyes that they weren’t happy about the distraction—they were on the brink of elimination.

“How… Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I am officially dead to you.”

“Ho… How are you here?”

“Same as you. My body is in a tank just like yours, but on a planet thousands of light-years away from Earth. Everything is more or less the same, except for the fact that in the real world, I’m a cripple who eats through a tube, pisses into a bottle, and shits into a pan.”

“I’m truly confused.”

“When you riddled me with bullets, you didn’t kill me,” he said, straightening up in his chair. “I didn’t die. A single spark of life kept flickering inside me while they carried me to a hospital, then another, then a third, which was part of the peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. No one believed what I’d survived. While I lay there, falling apart, two men in suits came and asked me to sign a document. Consent to be declared dead and to undergo recovery in a special facility. My face was on every world news outlet. And me? I was sent to an unknown alien organization that performed experiments on Earthlings. I was part of their research on human endurance and resilience. They were trying to understand what humans have inside them that allows them to survive seemingly lethal conditions.”

His gaze grew darker and more intense.

“Did they find out?” I found myself asking. Skop and Hermione watched us with wide eyes, realizing they were witnessing a real-life soap opera.

Krrr chimed in, urging us to play “them cards” as he feared the galactic viewers would lose interest.

“They didn’t. It remains their greatest mystery. But I know what it is, Stefan, and I’ll tell you. Revenge. That spark that refused to go out was the ember of vengeance I wanted to fan into a wildfire. I spent years looking for the best way to do it, competing in the tournaments of this stupid game, perfecting my skills. Finally, I convinced the game organizers to invite Earthlings to the competition. I wanted to get my revenge on you and everyone on that pathetic blue marble of a planet. To destroy everything. Everything led to this moment. And the fact that it’s you on the other side of the sights and the table… that’s pure fate, but it only makes my revenge sweeter.”

As he spoke, the darkened glass screen my brain had erected between me and the war in Bosnia began to shatter, revealing the truth piece by piece. It stripped bare all the atrocities we had committed, often against innocent civilians. The crack revealed one face: Sabahudin’s. The face of my first victim.

Like an old friend, a faceless young man pushed his hand through the jagged glass of the past and smiled. That smile was predatory, and it wasn’t Sabahudin’s. No. It was mine.

The beast entered me, digging knives into long-healed wounds from which a cavalry of deeply buried emotions rode out. I began to sweat; the stone in my chest rolled over, shedding its moss. Then it cracked, revealing traces of muscle fibers pulsing beneath the hard surface.

What followed has many names. In poker, it’s sometimes called tilt—when emotions overwhelm a player, and they can no longer control their moves. Experienced players would use it to milk them for every last dollar. In medicine, it’s called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and it manifests in many ways. Believe me, none of them are pretty. For me, it meant: panic attacks, high blood pressure, rapid breathing, and uncontrollable behavior.

In short: tilt.

Only now, I couldn’t drop to the floor and curl into a fetal position.

“Steve, what is yourrr next move? The viewerrrs are waiting…” Krrr asked.

“I fold,” I said.

The stakes were now two rounds per hand, and I folded for the fourth time in a row, leaving me with a total of 22. In the fourth round, Sabahudin managed to outmaneuver Hermione and knock her out of the game. In the fifth, Skop went aggressive, all-in, knowing he had nothing to lose. He would have been eliminated anyway since he had the fewest chips of the three of us.

He won, but I—the passive observer trying not to let the tilt in my head bleed into the tilt in my game—still had one point more than him. Then the announcer said:

“Congratulations, we have our two finalists! See you in the final game.”

19. Heads-up

“On one side, we have Sabahudin Delić, forrrrrmer Earthling, now the prrrrroud rrrrrepresentative of planet Sark 383—the last planet claimed by the Sark Grrrrroup. Sark 383 is his stake in our tourrrrnament. Sabahudin has stated his prrrrrimary motive is rrrrrevenge, a rrrrrarity in our competition. On the other side, we have Steve frrrrrom planet Earth, their very firrrrst planet and their only stake. Steve is fighting not just for a prrrrrize that will trrrrransform his entire civilization, but for the very surrrrrvival of a race that doesn’t even rrrrrealize it stands at a historrrrorical crrrrrossroads.”

Shit.

I’d managed to calm down slightly, but my hands were still trembling as if I’d never held a weapon or played a hand of poker in my life.

“As the winnerrrr of the prrrrrevious rrrrround, Sabahudin will have ten rrrrrounds, while Steve will have half that.”

A battlefield materialized around me. In the distance, I heard the intermittent sounds of gunfire, shouts, and pleas for mercy. I recognized this place. And this time. Sarajevo. The nineties.

“To add to the uniqueness of this clash, we will set it durrrrring the time our finalists firrrrst met as enemies.”

We stood on a wide street, facing each other with about a hundred yards between us. We were surrounded by half-collapsed buildings with crumbling facades.

Despite the distance, I could see he wasn’t entirely unfazed either. He leveled his rifle at me and fired, but he missed by a mile.

One less bullet.

I dove behind a heap of rubble and watched him as he walked calmly toward me, calling out:

“You remembered who I am, but you haven’t remembered everything, Stefan,” his voice cut through the relentless sounds of war surrounding us. “I wasn’t just anyone to you. I wasn’t just another enemy in just another war. Do you remember, Stefan?”

Trauma is a curious thing. It can sever a piece of memory and bury it so deep that reaching it is nearly impossible, because what it would trigger would be too much for an ordinary man.

Except, I’d long been convinced I wasn’t an ordinary man, so what was one buried memory to me? It would haunt me, pierce me, drive me mad. But I would survive it.

“Do you remember, Stefan, our games of Partisans and Germans? Do you remember our boyhood days and dreams?”

He wasn’t radiating nostalgia, but calculation. He wasn’t telling me this so we could reconcile; he was doing it to throw me off my game.

And it worked. Memories began to flood back. All of them. All at once. Two small boys with buzz cuts carrying sticks that they imagined were rifles, defending their hometown from an invasion of Nazi troops. We played Walter Defends Sarajevo, Sutjeska, and Neretva. We swapped roles, acting out every famous Partisan from World War II.

I didn’t cry. I felt sick from the surge of undefined emotions, and then I shut down.

Just as I’d shut down in the pool to appear in the game, I shut down in virtual reality and materialized in a familiar place. I was on a well-known hill, looking at my hometown in the distance with another boy. With Sabahudin. He was crying, saying, “This is where we part ways, Stefan.”

I replied, “Belgrade isn’t at the end of the world. I’ll come to Sarajevo again, Sabi. We’ll still hang out.”

And I did come back. But not to hang out. We met in a whirlwind of shells and sniper fire, and Sabahudin was just another victim. I didn’t recognize him when I pulled the trigger. No. Only when I approached did I see that I had taken the life of my best friend from childhood.

My consciousness snapped back to virtual Sarajevo. To the finals of a galactic tournament.

I stepped out from behind cover and took a bullet to the shoulder and thigh. I raised my hands in surrender.

“What are you doing?” Sabahudin shouted. My HP was at 21%.

“I surrender.”

“You can’t just surrender. I’ll kill you, Stefan.”

“I deserve it, old friend.”

At those last two words, Sabahudin flinched, as if waking from a dream.

“You… you remember?”

“I remembered. I remembered everything. I’m sorry; I have nothing else to say to you. It was war, and you were on the opposing side. I didn’t know who I’d killed. Not immediately. I realized too late who I had shot.”

“Did you regret it?”

“Yes. I regretted it until my brain performed a miracle and buried my memories of the war.”

“Why should I believe you?” he said, his rifle still trained on me.

“Because I’m not shooting at you. I have no other option. Only… what will you do if you win? The entire planet will be… lost.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass. I have no one left there anyway. No one alive. You people killed everyone I had,” Sabahudin snarled, stepping right up to me and leveling the rifle against my forehead.

In that lethal barrel just inches from my nose, I didn’t see death or loss. On the contrary. I saw a very familiar female face.

“What about Sara?”

Sabahudin took a deep breath.

“Sara?”

“Sara is still on that planet.”

The Witch hadn’t always been a witch. No. She had been a saint. And she had been madly in love with Sabahudin, just as he was with her. They went to high school together, two lovebirds who swore loyalty to each other until the end of their lives. Until death do them part. And it did part them. The war broke out, and Sara fled to Belgrade, then with me to America, where our love story both began and ended. I wondered: now that death was no longer an obstacle, would the flames of high school love reignite? Would their vows still hold true?

“Sara is… alive?” he asked, his breath shallow and his hands trembling.

“Alive and well. She isn’t far from me. She’s waiting for me,” I said, taking a step toward him.

“Waiting for… you? What do you have to do with her?” he asked through gritted teeth. The rage returned to his eyes, and the confusion vanished completely.

“I have a son whom I love very much, Sabahudin.”

“You… You took her from me, too?” he uttered.

I approached him confidently and, with a gentle motion, moved the rifle aside.

“I want to make a deal with you,” I whispered.

And then I told him everything I had in mind.

Sabahudin’s jaw slackened after that, and he nodded with conviction.

I backed away a few meters, and then I emptied the entire magazine into his head.

20. Chopping the Pot

Sabahudin and I sat across from each other at the poker table. Alone. One-on-one.

There was no more rage in his eyes. He didn’t utter a single word; he simply took his cards and pushed all his chips into the middle.

He had 20, while I had 5 more than him—an advantage I’d earned for winning the duel. Yet, that duel hadn’t meant much, because the winner of the poker hand was the true winner of the tournament.

I followed him in silence, placing 20 chips on the table.

We didn’t draw any new cards. We just showed our hands. I had a pair of Jacks; he had nothing. I knew he had nothing.

“The winnerrrr of the 1,300,529th Svrrrkr tourrrnament is Steve frrrrom planet Earth!” Krrr proclaimed.

21. Know When to Fold ‘Em

I was playing Counter-Strike in my small room in my small apartment. Sam was sitting beside me, along with Sara, who was tapping her foot impatiently.

My phone vibrated. A message appeared on the small display: I’m here.

I nodded, took Sam by the hand, and followed Sara as she paced nervously toward the elevator.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I just… I still can’t believe he’s real. And I’m still livid with you for keeping this from me all these years.”

“I would have told you if I could. But it just… it never surfaced. I’d buried everything so deep that the name was all I had left.”

A black car of an unknown make with no license plates pulled up in front of the building. A dark-haired man with thin lips stepped out, his smile widening even further when he saw Sara. Tears and heavy embraces followed. Then more tears, and more embraces.

“Why is Mommy hugging that man?” Sam asked. He looked at me with his large, green, innocent eyes, and in that moment, I realized that I was the one who had lost. I would miss my son—God, I would miss him.

Back home in the Balkans, we say: “Come visit sometime, you’re not at the end of the world.” But what happens when you reach the end of the world and then go even further?

“He… he’s her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? Mommy has a new boyfriend?”

“New, old… let’s just say.”

Sabahudin approached and shook my hand. We didn’t hug. Despite our deal, he hadn’t forgiven me for killing him.

“They’re waiting for you in the car,” he said quietly.

“Now?”

“Well, when did you think?”

“I haven’t even packed.”

“Don’t worry, they have everything.”

I said my goodbyes to my family and climbed into the back seat.

“Good day, Stefan,” said a gray-haired man in a gray-and-black jumpsuit. “Are you ready?”

“I’m ready. What’s next?”

“You’re going to a tournament where you will represent planet Quak 657.”

“And after that?”

“After that, another tournament. Then another.”

“How long does this go on?”

“Oh, Mr. Stefan, there are tournaments all the way to the end of the world. You see, there are two things common to all humans in the universe.”

“And what would those be?”

“Poker and shooting, Mr. Stefan. Poker and shooting.”

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