The Flame Keeper

Chapter 32

An unearthly silence froze the place as we stepped down the stairs, a hundred heads turning to trail us with suspicious eyes. But, as if someone had snapped their fingers on cue, their gaze shifted back and the clamor resumed, like we were never there in the first place.

Long bars of fluorescent lights ran along the ceiling adjacent to crack-stained wooden beams, and the hum of a faint blue glow illuminated the chaotic din of laughter and yelling.

The commotion emanated from the jumble of round tables strewn along the floor nearest to us, littered with chairs surrounding the tables but elsewhere was not uncommon. Black skeleton legs formed the frame of the chairs, bound together with a metal ring, and the splitting leather seats revealed a spongy cushion beneath.

A few tipped over as players stood up excitedly to exclaim victory, a chorus of groans erupting from one table to the next. Other chairs suffered a more forceful fate: one man hurled the wooden frame against the wall in a fiery rage, a ripe tomato threatening to burst into a hundred pieces.

Cards lay scattered across the tables, their edges frayed and artwork faded, and glimpses of silver and gold huddled around the players, some more than others.

"Shall we sit over there?" Ken pointed towards a small table sulking in the corner, the blue fluorescence grasping at the darkness surrounding it, but only managing to meet the lesser shadows.

"Yes, you three can stay over there. No need to stand out." Albert said as he scanned the tables for a sign of the tattooed man.

He seemed to have blended seamlessly into the crowd of players, the dim lighting concealing the faces of those who could be seen—a variety of emotions flashing by as I glanced across the tables—and a sea of others whose hunched backs stared back at us. Or perhaps he was just running on time; we were a bit early.

"If the situation gets a little... escalated later," Albert called. "I mean, I'll try not to push it, but you'll help me out, right?"

"Of course! We'll beat the flippin' hell out of them if one of them dares set a finger on you—and even if they don't, we're going to need to do so to get our emblem back," Matilda patted him on the back comfortingly, but his back only hunched more as if to hide amongst the darkness.

"Yeah, we'll just have to see," He breathed a sigh of grim acceptance, relief bottled up behind his vacant gaze that could only stare at the floor.

We headed towards the small table and pulled up three spare chairs from an adjacent table, fitting ourselves so that the shadows concealed our prying eyes. Albert took a seat two tables away from us, keeping enough distance that we would not seem suspicious, but close enough to observe him distinctly.

Eyes darting back and forth nervously, he clenched the hem of his coat tightly, squeezing and letting go in cue with his ragged breathing. The tattooed man was nowhere in sight, yet he was anywhere but, seemingly suspending Albert on a thread of suspense that threatened to snap at any moment—

A shrill, piercing screech shattered my eardrums as the masses of people cowered, the whoosh of heads ducking and frantic scraping of chairs against the floor filling the once sober atmosphere.

"Heh, heh. Sorry about that, folks! The mic just slipped outta my hand," Someone called out and I squinted to make out the source: a middle-aged man dressed in a popping purple suit gently plucked the mic off the floor like a delicate dandelion, adjusting it in his hand until it was centered perfectly.

But more popping than his suit stood beside the man.

In front of a patchwork wooden wall whose two sides curved slightly inwards, and in the center of a lowered area accessible via surrounding circular steps, was an octagonal arena lined with chained walls stretching to the ceiling—a patch of trimmed chains forming the entrance. The cold metal flooring glimmered under the faded red luminescence, and an assortment of pixelated images danced along the chains.