Punishment

All of the discarded cards were shuffled into a deck, while the joker was returned to Jack, and the queen of hearts had slipped out and disappeared. Austin had a nasty expression on his face.

"Shit... at least I only discarded two pairs. It shouldn't be that bad."

Then, two cards were dealt to him. It was the 4 of hearts and the 4 of diamonds, both with a large hand symbol in the middle. Austin's expression had become quite pale seeing this. As though matching his trepidation, the edges of the cards became bloody, which rapidly spread.

Once the entire card turned red, they warped to transform into two separate rusty metal containers, both about as wide as a tray, but as deep as a bucket. Both rust and dried blood were plastered over the entire thing. But as a reminder, they both had signs with a hand on them with the same yellow and black that road signs had.

And between the two of them, a knife rose up from the table, though it was attached to a chain.

"Unfortunately you are not in possession of any fours! A replacement will be needed. Please deposit a hand in the first box, and another hand in the second box."

This time, instead of a status screen appearing in front, this time it was fully voiced by an androgynous and teasing voice. Whoever was the one that did it sounded quite sadistic.

Austin took a shaky breath in before slamming his fists on the table.

"What? Both hands? Then how am I even supposed to play these damn stupid games you want me to do!"

Unfortunately for him, the teasing voice was rather unforgiving. Assuming it was a person.

"If you are unable to complete this within thirty minutes, the House of Cards will take you instead."

Austin grit his teeth and slammed the table in anger once more.

"Dammit! That's all because the stupid game gave you the fucking joker!"

Jack tilted his head to the side.

"Hm? But it was my Dad that gave me the joker, not the game."

At this point, Austin's eyes narrowed as he leaned forth.

"What? You had a joker in your playing deck?"

Jack gave a small nod and smiled.

"Yeah, it was a birthday present from my Dad! Isn't it cool?"

Austin grit his teeth and pointed at him.

"Cool my ass! So it's your fault that I'm like this, huh?"

He completely threw the blame, completely forgetting who was the person that started this game in the first place. Jack scratched the side of his head in confusion.

"It's my fault? What do you mean? Ah, was it that you didn't like losing even though you wanted to play the game?"

He nodded several times as though he was a wise sage.

"Yeah, I know what that's like. The first time I told my Dad about a game I thought about, I lost really badly. It made me feel really sad, and I complained a lot too."

Veins began forming on Austin's forehead.

"Screw you! Dammit, I swear to god after this I'll-"

"Can you hurry up and cut off your hands?"

Jack pressed his lips together in annoyance.

"I mean, I can understand that losing makes you feel sad, but you can complain later! If you just do it, then you can complain to multiple people and we can all take turns comforting you."

For some reason, Austin felt a chill go down his spine. His angry expression suddenly disappeared and it was replaced by a slight frown. A frown that twitched ever so slightly. At the end of the day, his anger came with the purpose of trying to distract himself from the reality of the situation.

"...I know I was getting to it."

That he had to cut off both of his hands.

By now, Austin was realizing that something was a bit off about Jack. However, that revelation didn't really matter to him much right now. This kind of punishment was something he had already been aware of.

Although personally, he hadn't previously suffered from any of the punishments, he had seen other people do so. If a person no longer had any twos, then they would have to use their fingernails to compensate.

He had even seen the punishment for a three, where someone had to lop off their finger.

Yet, worse than all of that, was what had happened to those that didn't pay the punishment. Austin knew very well that losing a finger or two was a way better deal than what waited for those that refused.

But seeing them was one thing, and doing it himself was another. Not to mention, this was more than just a finger.

Austin frowned deeply before slowly picking up the knife.

"Dammit. Dammit... I can do this easily. I've been through way worse."

He prided himself to be a tough person, and part of that was because he was actually in a gang. It may have not been the biggest on the block, but it was a group that was still able to fend for themselves on the streets.

He lifted the knife up.

At times, Austin had even felt invincible.

Then let it fall down.

However, something that he hadn't known until now, was that he was still a sheltered lamb. One that couldn't even begin to comprehend how dark and twisted the world could truly be.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The knife had only pierced through a third of his wrist, but it had indeed lodged itself in. Despite that fact, blood still came out generously. Austin cringed hard as an ugly expression formed on his face. His head hung low, while he began letting out wails that didn't sound too different from a child groaning over not getting a toy they liked.

Jack clicked his tongue when he saw this.

"What are you doing? If you want to get the hand off, then you have to do it way harder! Mm... I guess I did make the same mistake, but still!"

Austin sucked in a painful breath through his teeth.

"Shut up! Shut the fuck up!"

Jack let out a disappointed sigh.

"Well now that it's like that, you might as well start sawing by moving the knife back and forth. It's kinda hard to aim at the right place if you try to cut it again. Oh yeah, don't forget to use one finger to press down on the back of the knife! It really helps."

Tears began falling from Austin's face. Although he had difficulty understanding what Jack had said because of the pain, he still made out enough to get his general meaning. While his thoughts were spinning, he just began following the suggestion almost instinctively.

Yet, the moment he dragged the knife through his wrist-

"GAAAAAAHHHHHH!.... ah.... aaaAAAAHHHH!"

A completely new type of burning hot pain assaulted him as his flesh was torn apart.

Jack stood up, trying to get a better angle to see.

"Make sure you go through the joint! It's not like you can't go through the bone, but that's usually a bit harder."

Though despite his suggestion in good faith, Austin was unable to act on it. He was still agonizing from the pain that his hand was in. At this point, all of his willpower to continue onward was lost.

Jack furrowed his brows.

"What are you doing? Just hurry up already! Are you really going to take the full thirty minutes just to cut off your hands?"

Although Austin heard that blurrily, he knew very well what Jack was saying. After all, those were the same words he gave to other people that had to suffer. A strong sense of irony had assaulted him. Granted, a finger or fingernail was quite different from an entire hand but more important than that was the mentality.

Austin knew fully well that cutting off both hands was the right choice in his situation, the logical thing. In fact, a part of him was telling him to hurry up and get them off. However, it was more than just being logical.

Although pain was something built into people with the purpose of helping them survive, it wasn't as though it would just stop because the conscious understood that feeling pain wouldn't help here.

Austin's breathing intensified.

At this point, all he wanted was for the pain to stop. But even just the weight of the knife pressing against his wrist only made the feeling continue to intensify. His brain went into overdrive, as many thoughts and emotions collided with one another, all in conflict with each other.

And the one that was winning through all of that was an increasingly large desire for something to speed up his own death, just so that he would no longer feel all this pain.

As those thoughts crept up to every single part of his body, Austin suddenly remembered something.

The reason why he had even come to the place called the House of Cards in the first place.

His older sister was dying of cancer, and he didn't have the money to even send her to the hospital. To top it off, both of their parents were dead, so they weren't getting that kind of money anywhere else. Yet, Austin was able to find a way to send her there, but only to find that they weren't able to do anything.

But he heard of the House of Cards. A magical place where even those that were dead could come back to life. He came here to save the last person still in his family.

Austin tightened his grip several times over as an incredible amount of willpower surged through him.

"Like hell I'm dying here!"

With all he had, he used brute strength to force the knife down. With a brutal snapping sound, his hand came off. Now blood was pouring out from his newly formed stump, but it didn't even seem as though he realized it. Instead, he let out a sigh of relief, finally finishing it.

Jack smiled when he saw this.

"Ah! You finally did it. Now you just got to do the other one."

Austin suddenly froze up. Not noticing this sudden shift, Jack continued happily.

"Normally I'd use my teeth for the second one, but since you have the knife, you could just put the knife in your mouth instead."

Austin looked down at his bloodied stump, and then at his other hand. It was now he realized that while the goal was the same, it had actually gotten harder. Because now, he had to cut off his hand without using a hand.

Since well... it was gone.

Although he had a great burst of willpower, it was just that. A burst. It wasn't the kind of will that a hardened veteran had developed that could allow him to do that.

Austin began to sob again, wallowing in self-pity. Jack furrowed his brows, not understanding the problem.

"Why are you crying? It's not like it's that hard."

At this point, Austin didn't even have the energy to fight back. The only thing he did was grab below his stump in an instinctive attempt to stop the bleeding. He continued to cry for ten whole minutes.

Jack had gotten quite upset, but only gave an annoyed stare.

Eventually, Austin laid his eyes on the knife and reached out to pick it up with his mouth. Seeing this, Jack's eyes lit up.

"Ah, you're finally going to do it?"

Austin held the knife above his wrist for a while. But in the end, he threw it aside, unable to muster the courage.

"...I'm sorry, sister."

A bitter smile formed on his face as his tears dripped down onto his arms.

"I couldn't... do it..."

Jack furrowed his brows and puffed up his cheeks.

"There's still ten minutes. It only takes a few seconds to get rid of a hand."

Unfortunately, Austin didn't hear it in the end. Instead, he was only in a daze, waiting as the last few minutes slowly began ticking away.

Then, time was up.