to see your beloved fall to pieces right in front of your eyes… it was a hellish thing to experience.

chance had experienced this firsthand. it hadn’t been anything much at first, but it was only seen in this light due to his negligence. his partner, elliot, was going through major trouble at work. chance didn’t emphasise with elliot, as he earned his money through chance & slot machines alone. sure, he listened to elliot’s troubles, & he wished he could help, but he hadn’t quite applied himself to it. chance was only really snapped back to his senses when elliot was suddenly hospitalised, due to his pizzeria catching on fire while he was working there. chance had rushed to the hospital as soon as he could, & he’d passed the pizzeria on the way. the thing was swallowed up in crimson flames, reduced to ashes on the spot where it had stood only that morning. chance stepped down on the gas a bit harder at the decrepit sight of it. he reached the hospital in record time, & was devastated to hear the news that elliot had sustained major burns across 60 percent of his body, but had luckily survived. chance breathed a sigh of relief, & camped out at the hospital for every day & night until the nurse told him he could visit his partner.

“elliot… are you feeling alright?”

“…no. everything hurts.”

“i’m sorry i wasn’t there. i could’ve saved you.”

“it’s okay.”

“it won’t happen again. i swear to you. you won’t have to hurt again.”

it won’t happen again. you won’t have to hurt again. well, that was a lie. chance wasn’t the reliable sort. he never had been, as was the nature with him being a gambler. he had to keep on his feet & keep up with the surprises to keep living, since he had the mafia on his tail. however, he could surely keep a promise to his love, correct? trust chance to be unreliable even with his sacred promises.

chance wasn’t able to keep his promise. one day, he had paid his usual visit to the casino, & was just returning back home. he passed the pizzeria on his way, & thought he might pop in & say hello to elliot, as was his routine. however, chance paused in his steps when he saw some guy out front of the joint, messing around with some scripts on a screen. chance immediately recognised the guy—elliot always told chance about what a pesky hacker this guy was during late-night conversations in bed—& his first thought was to stop the hacker from doing whatever he was about to do. the hacker, whom was called 007n7, seemed to be producing scripts on the screen to deploy the newly-rebuilt pizzeria into flames for a second time. chance immediately rushed over to the hacker & wrestled 007n7 to the ground, preventing him from doing anything else with that script. but it had already been deployed. the pizzeria burst into flames right before chance’s eyes, this time the fire being much worse than before. chance froze, hands going still as he attempted to keep 007n7’s hands behind his back on the ground. after a moment, chance scrambled off of the hacker, & sprinted straight for the pizzeria. he desperately tried to locate elliot through the blinding flames & growing smoke, collar covering his mouth & nose as he attempted to breathe with much difficulty, but as he finally found elliot—whom was already unconscious on the ground—chance passed out himself from the smoke inhalation.

chance didn’t awaken in a hospital. he woke up again in a sort of forsaken place, a wasteland of a city where he had to survive with his chance skills & flintlock if he wanted to live to see the next day. he wasn’t sure of where his love had ended up in, but he’d heard tales from the other survivors in his group about a yellow pizza worker with a rotary saw for a hand slicing bodies in two for “fun”. chance had no idea he was to encounter this very man the next month after his arrival. he was on a walk to clear his mind, traversing through the desolate streets. he paused when he heard the faint sound of a saw humming, & turned to look behind him, lowering his headphones for the moment.

“who’s there? i’m warning you, i have a gun..”