As soon as the rounds had ended for the day—dust settling behind him and the smell of gunpowder still clinging faintly to his clothes—Chance had slipped away. He didn’t wait for the others to gather around the dying fire, exhausted from the rounds of the day. He had only one destination in mind: the second floor of the cabin, where the newly rigged slot machines stood waiting like silent sentinels.

His hands smelled faintly of the cold, greased metal—a scent he’d grown to associate with comfort more than grime. With each pull of the lever, each mechanical whine, each clink of simulated coins, the rhythm wrapped itself around him. Familiar. Reassuring. Almost sacred.

Everyone else was bone-tired, collapsing into what little rest the night would allow, but not Chance. He didn’t seek rest. He didn’t dare. Rest meant dreams, and dreams never came without cost. Instead, he chased that strange, elusive sensation the slots offered: control. Not hope. Not luck. Just the illusion that, for a few stolen moments, he could decide the outcome of something.