This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LiquidDongorong on 2026-08-15 23:24:35+00:00.

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I was in a pretty bad slump from a $1,000 bust in Ohio.

Couldn’t ask my family for any more money; they were pretty sick of the handouts and my fiscal volatility. I had to figure this one out for myself.

So I took out one last line of credit, bought a one-way ticket out West, and told myself I was going to win my life back.

The flight to Vegas was six hours of stale air and screaming babies. By the time I stepped out into Nevada’s dry desert, it felt like I’d already lost my sanity.

The address on my phone led me to a strip of decrepit buildings across the street from some generic local burger joints. No neon, nor the usual overpromising signs.

I was looking for a home in the wall, one with a painted number on its side and the sound of a 1980s jukebox leaking through the acacia exterior.

It was nice and cool inside, maybe a little too cold for my comfort. A round hardwood counter sat in the center of the room. Pull-tab machines lined the walls. Green-felt tables occupied the floor. It smelled like cigarettes and cheap booze, with something a little stronger underneath it all. Sulfur? Whatever it was, it was pungent. Like a rotten egg.

I sat at one of the many tables. Three other people joined me within a few seconds. The house dealer arrived last, introducing himself as Mr. Knock. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a brick-shaped head. I don’t think I saw him blink once that whole night.

He asked everybody to buy in.

They turned and looked at each other, then back at him. One after another, they said they “agreed to the terms.” A neat stack of poker chips manifested in front of each of them. Nobody questioned it. When it got to my turn, I said the words too. The chips appeared right in front of me like they’d been there from the beginning.

Jimmy sat in the small blind. He was older than the rest of us, a little pudgy in the middle. He struck up conversation while Knock dealt the first hand and asked what we planned on doing if we won.

Miss Hughes, the large blind, answered first. Bored face, bored voice, expensive watches and necklaces. She said something about investing in a new timeshare with her husband. She looked like the kind of person who already had three.

To my left was Jon. He said he wanted to use the money to produce his passion project, a film about magic gunslingers. He pitched it with real gusto, like he truly believed this was the next big thing… and like we were all bigwig investors.

Jimmy looked at me next. I felt the pressure to answer.

“I just need to get some debt paid off,” I said.

The other three laughed like it was totally absurd. Maybe it was, if it meant selling my soul.

Jimmy shook his head and said he planned on using his winnings to pay off his kid’s college tuition. He wished us all good luck. For a second, the table almost felt friendly.

I checked my first hand—an eight and a nine. Already a decent basis for a straight. The flop came ten, eight, and a jack. People started betting high right away, trying to wipe out the competition. I was forced to put in half my chips just to stay in. Jimmy folded early.

The turn was another ten. The river, a queen. I raised when the other two checked. I felt pretty lucky with my hand.

We showed. Miss Hughes had a nine and a king. She took the pot without ceremony. The precedent for disappointment was set.

Next round I folded early. So did Jon. My stack was already looking thin.

Jimmy made a brave bet. Hughes didn’t flinch. She raised him into the ground. Jimmy was left with a single chip. The cards flipped. Hughes raked in the chips while Jimmy buried massaged his eyeballs, trying to push them back inside his head.

I took a look at my next hand and felt something crawl up my spine. Pocket aces. Time to go all in. Hughes and Jimmy hesitated, then folded almost immediately. Jon was the only one who called, the idiot. He put his whole stack in with that same determined look I saw in the mirror. Aimless bravery. Mistaken boldness.

We revealed. I showed the aces first. His confident expression was neutralized. The cards spilled from his limp fingers—a pair of kings.

“Bust,” Mr. Knock said. “For shame.”

He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt. His jaw unhinged. I felt a suction from his widening maw unlike anything I’d ever felt. Absolute, like the room itself was about to turn inside out.

Jon screamed and fell from his chair, trying to crawl away. A previously invisible form tore free from his body, ethereal. His soul was ripped from him with a sound like stretching the cheese. Knock swallowed it whole and belched into his fist. He dabbed his mouth with a handkerchief afterwards.

Jon was left on the floor. His hair had turned a bright white. His fingernails were bloody from clawing the wood. He didn’t appear injured otherwise, but he was near-catatonic. Bouncers appeared from the shadows and assisted him just so he would remember how to use the door.

I turned back toward Hughes and Jimmy. Hughes was grinning. Jimmy wouldn’t make eye contact. I realized I was sweating through my shirt.

“Shall we continue?” Knock asked. He was already reshuffling.

The game went on for another hour. Jimmy and I seemed to decide, without speaking, to play against Hughes. We bet recklessly high, one hand after another, getting dumb luck more than once. Her stack progressively shrank. She chewed the skin on her thumb until it bled. When she finally called our bluff, I was holding a flush. She shrieked like a parrot being boiled alive when I flipped my cards.

Knock took her the same way he took Jon. Hughes kicked and cried, and cursed our names before she went limp. She looked drugged, dazed, like an animal that had just been declawed. The bouncers escorted her off the property without incident. She didn’t look back.

Just me and Jimmy left.

He looked at me, silent. I could tell he wanted to apologize for what was about to happen. I asked him casually to tell me about his kid while Knock dealt the next hand.

He said his boy had leukemia growing up. Most of the family’s savings went toward treatment. When it came time for college, they were stumped.

Jimmy looked at his cards. I could see the light leaving his eyes. Bad hand for sure. He only had a handful of chips left compared to my stack.

I checked my own. A pair of sevens. My lucky number.

We played. I tried to bet high enough that he would just fold and walk away. I told him there was no shame in taking what he had. Jimmy kept shaking his head. Said there was no going back for him now. In a way, I kind of agreed.

The board ran out. I made four sevens. Bags had appeared under Jimmy’s eyes that weren’t there a moment ago. We revealed. His hand was nothing.

He looked at me and gave a weak smile.

“That’s that, then. Well played, kid.”

Knock took him, just like the other two. The kindness drained from Jimmy’s face and was replaced by apathy. Emptiness. The bouncers walked him to the door, like he was a piece of broken furniture.

Knock congratulated me on my winnings. I was taken to the front of the house to cash out. The chips turned into money, lots of it. They invited me to come back again as I walked out the door. I never took them up on the offer.

I don’t ask my family for money anymore. I pay my bills on time. I sleep quietly and soundly. I wake up every morning without incident.

I’m debt-free now. Living my best life.

But since that night, I don’t think I’ve had a soul to call my own.