It was all the same, nobody would ever like her. And nobody did. At least this was the credence that was woven throughout her childhood. High school was the most noxious. The voices were more refined, the demons more couth, taller, and the insults sharper. You're too ugly Wendy, you'll never find someone that loves you. Why are you so loud and cheerful, it's pathetic honestly. Did you get a date for the prom? Oh right, I forgot. Look she's opening her mouth again, yeah, it's about her frivolous grades and that stupid college she keeps creaming on about. Heh, cream. Cream on me Wendy! Actually...eew. Don't. The laughs would racket the air, like an anthem of insults. Anyone who could pick on Wendy would be somehow more popular than her. Those years were hell. But hell would only get hotter.

College came around and things started to look a lot brighter for Wendy. Nobody made fun of her as much as they did in her old school. Her old bullies had either become drug addicts or had committed suicide, and this time, kiss kiss God almighty, she made friends. Tons of them. Her erudition, after all, had scored her tons of browny points with students and the institution. She ended up becoming valedictorian and met the love of her life, Ian Galloway. Galloway, a quiet Irish boy who she had met across the way. He was intelligent just like her but way more confident and assertive in his abilities. They signed a blood contract of love and decided they would be together forever. Litanies of enamored vows were made and every single one of them had been breached. Ian Galloway was not a trustworthy man, and he never was.

Ian Galloway was a sex addict. A sex fiend, pardon my french.

During their marriage and after they had two kids together, Ian would sleep with a slew of women he met on his travels and at work. Sometimes he would beat the woman he slept with if they didn't give him enough pleasure. Wendy caught on to him but Ian would continue to lie, give cursory excuses, and get angry. He would start to assertively punch and kick Wendy for her accusations and for being a pathetic wife. A wife who never satiated him enough in bed.

Ian's sexual adventures would meet a lawyer, a fine voluptuous lawyer. A mistake it was to have bitten the bait because after he slept with her and served the beating, the cantankerous man would land himself in court. A bunch of women would rise up and claim they had coercively slept and been violated by Ian. The accusations would land Ian forty years in prison with no parole due to his incessantly violent past. Wendy wasn't shocked or despaired. But she wasn't elated either. She would have two kids she'd have to take care of on her own. Most of her finances had been drained by Ian and she would struggle from job to job because of her obtrusive demonic thoughts. But she loved her kids, she loved them enough to keep trying. To keep pushing.

This was the story she told Nick. But the love had dried out and the dark filigree of the past had won. The stabbing pain had been too much.

Nick stared woefully, mouth dry, as the ambulance sirens abated into the distance. He sat on the doorstep, legs strapped, wrists hung, mind screening for answers. Jonathan was inside taking a call. Nick tapped his knee. His mother's story was a victim's tale of guts but what really broke Nick's heart was how it rang too close to home. It seemed Ian's sex obsession didn't stop with Ian. Neither did his anger or his trust issues. Nick stirred, crunching his fingers. Would he become just like his father? Was Nick becoming just like his father?

Then there was the final thing that Wendy told him. The nail in the coffin that rang among all nails.

"I'm cursed, Nick. My family has been cursed for generations and I seem to be carrying that baton to the finish line. I just wanted to tell you that in case...in case..." Her words had choked, and her face was arrested with fear. But she had said enough. Nick ground his teeth, he couldn't bear to experience more misery. It had always been the innocent ones. As he sniffed, tears didn't jerk out. Nick wouldn't allow them to.

The door swung open. The brawn figure of Jonathan joined Nick's despondent sojourn on the doorstep. The white blonde sheen of his hair seemed more pronounced. It seemed to glow devilishly and uttered a meretricious charm.

"I just got a call from the paramedics. Her heart has failed, completely. They said they could try to surgically transplant it but there was no use, they were too far gone. She's dead, Nick." Jonathan took out a pack and jammed a cig into his mouth.

Nick coughed and made a mock attempt at a sniff. He didn't look at Jonathan. It was as if he wasn't there, a phantasmal figure of the night. "Our house is going into foreclosure next week, we don't have much time. Looks like mama bear had been waylaying those scary bills till kingdom come."

Jonathan sighed. The smoke swelled out, shaking a cloudy fist into the air before it misted out. "We're in the big leagues now, Nick. If we don't find a roof by Monday, the streets are all we got." He yanked out his pockets. "We're basically homeless."

"What about that friend of yours, Andre?" Nick said, daring to speak up.

Jonathan grinned. It was a curved lurid grin. "I got into it with Andre. I don't think he'll be wanting me back."

The lucid dark painting stirred. A sable painting of him standing in an alleyway behind a strip club, puffing his usual one-twos. Maybe he'll stretch his legs and throw in a twenty for a beer and a pizza. He'd already had his easy blowjob and the two seemed to fit like a dirty puzzle. It was one of those nights.

A stripper came through the backdoor looking torn down with exhaustion and somewhat beleaguered. The night's oily shine praised the stripper, but what ran through her mind was anybody's guess, Jonathan figured. He shrugged off the figure. But then the black lady met his eyes, she didn't grin, but there was an infinitesimal interest. Jonathan shook the powder from his cigarette, gaze averted. Here we go again. It was the very thing that made Jonathan and Nick complete opposites. Because the thing was, Jonathan wasn't Nick. Nick had a miserable, frightening way of pushing girls away from him while Jonathan's angelic looks lured girls to him. The lustrous blonde curls that draped to his shoulders behind those sapphire blue eyes were an irresistible totem that shook the many bony legs of young women. Jonathan could recount the number of unwanted women he'd slept with and each one deserved a cut from a knife. He'd be a venerated soldier by now.

The truth was he hated women. But the truth was he was also a gentleman. It was hard to tell which one outweighed the other, but Lucifer would've been jealous. 

Two beefy black guys hounded after the prostitute and banged her against the wall. They tore off the lingerie and robe with their knife and demanded that she give them the dance that they paid for. The knife had already inched deep into her neck, a point of blood already oozing out. Jonathan's eyes swallowed the minatory scene. He slipped out the eagle pistol that he had strapped inside his jeans and shot the two thugs. Their bodies slid on the ground, cherry holes in the back of their heads. Jonathan picked up their knife.

"Thank you," whispered the black stripper, voice dry, ass and boobs trembling. Jonathan nodded. It had been far time to make his way back home.

"You do this often?" the stripper asked, peeling a grin. Jonathan didn't return it. The knife twirled around his fingers like a minacious plaything.

"Kiss me," said the black woman, cracking the innuendo. She moved closer to make his body warm. To make him forget.

Jonathan forced a grin, his jeans not nearly as stiffened as he expected them to be. "I'm flattered. But a beautiful African American lady such as yourself shouldn't be out here in a slimy limbo like this. I'll throw you a five to buy yourself a cookie. Take your life and go."

The stripper struck a high-pitched laugh, affronted. "Are you rejecting me? I said kiss me!" The stripper grabbed Jonathan's shirt and manhandled him forward. Jonathan pushed the night woman away, invoking a new surge of energy. The knife arched and sunk into the stripper's forehead. Jonathan stabbed it repeatedly until the woman fell in a heap. But c'mon he could do better than that. He tore away the lingerie and the panties and dug the knife deep into the stripper's womb. The knife ripped all the way down to the girl's vagina, oozing black blood. It smelled sweet. Like intoxicating blueberry.

"I told you to go, bitch. Should've been a good girl and listened." He'd had enough of it. Always being forced into relationships with trolls he couldn't stand. The pretty ones weren't any better. You've simply replaced a troll with a troll in a wig.

"Jonathan?"

Jonathan whipped around.

"What have you done to my sister?" It was Andre, the pimp he had met at work. The pimp who had given him an opening slot at this club. He was standing under the flashing doorway, a glint in his eyes.

Jonathan gaped in horror, smearing the spots of blood from his lips. "Y-Your sister?"

Andre hung his head low, "I thought we were friends, Jonathan. You've disappointed me."

Instant reflexes kicked in and Jonathan sprinted away, parkouring over dumpsters and boxes to avoid the spit of bullets. Andre's thugs didn't chase him that night, they were too satisfied with themselves. He got lucky.

When Jonathan finished the story, Nick stared at him like a black cat. Whether it was in wonderment or disgust, the older brother couldn't tell.

Nick snorted. "You surprise me sometimes."

This obviously led to a slew of issues that went just beyond foreclosure. Jonathan could be dressed in cuffs at any moment, or worse, killed by the retaliating band of Andre's people. They really were fucked.

"Not God's little angel anymore, am I?" Jonathan tossed the cig away like it was a toenail clipping.

Nick stood up. "I gotta go."

"And where to, Earhart?"

"To get a job like you told me to. Remember, asshole?"

"I hardly–"

"Well, who's being the negative Nancy now?"

"Happy hunting." Jonathan stuck a middle finger at Nick and spat on the ground. There was a genuine stir of irascible fear on his face.

Nick slipped into the open doorway. The living room was dead and airy without his mother. It smelled of ghostly kerosene and forbidden dust. And the tv, strangely enough, was still on. It stood in the devouring darkness, resplendent, and babbling incoherent nonentities. Who cared about the new Neonda Viper or the clone yourself holograms? But just as Nick was about to make it to the stairs, he heard the words "virtual...game..." tickle his ears. He inched a little closer.

The anchorman was a waxen mannequin of a man who seemed uncannily glossy. His hair was groomed to perfection, his skin tight smooth, and his suit remarkably unblemished. Nick was unfathomed that the man wasn't being ogled at the mall. Nick had to squint to avoid the powerful shine of the anchorman's teeth and the potency of his garishness.

"...that's right folks, I'm talking about Chaos, the game that's taken the world by storm. It's selling like hotcakes, I tell you! Millions of people in America are cramming themselves in stores hoping they will be the lucky soul to find the last ticket to the game. Could it be you?" the shiteating ostentatious grin of the man seemed to be driving a heavy wedge into Nick's heart.

"The lion's share of the tickets have already been found by players from over one hundred countries so far, including Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, China, Russia, India, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, South Africa, Australia, Vietnam, Tunisia, Nigeria, Mozambique, Congo, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and well, I could keep listing them all, but we're only locked into a ninety minute block here people." The anchorman laughed. It seemed painful enough that he was the only one. Nick wondered what the tv producers thought of this man. Their expressions were probably dry and clinical considering the man cleared his throat and carried on saying, "Now it's only up to America to find its remaining players. It's up to you, so hurry up and find that ticket."

Nick could already taste the cringy, acerbic chants of "Amurica" coming from jocular meatheads across the country. He tensed up. The way the anchorman had worded it made it seem like they actually had a chance against everyone in the world just because they were from America. Did it ever cross his privileged high toned mind that it took pure prowess to win a game?

The regale resumed. "We've witnessed the rise of games like these in the media before, like Hunger Games and Battle Royale. But the stakes have never been raised like this before. Hundreds of these international players will be thrown into a city and only one can come out alive to win ten million dollars and change their life. At least this is what the premise of Chaos entails. The game will be filmed by the iTech sensors inside the city for the whole wide world to see. Come out on top and you'll not only be rich, but famous. Could it be you? Tune in tomorrow to find out who'll be the American players. And tune in on Sunday to watch the big event. This has been Deutsch Hartman with CNN and I'll catch you after the break."

"Mmm," said Nick. It was a Thursday. The televised game was only a silent corner away.

Jonathan's room was a den of sexual crimes. It smelled of armpit hairs and penis bushes with a faint touch of body spray. Posters of porn stars hung on the walls, panties were thrown recklessly on his bed and drawers, and photographs of naked children were displayed on his large neon monitor. Nick opened his drawer and pulled out the sleek gray revolver.