The Omega Existence

Chapter 17

What had at first seemed like a brilliant idea now sent shivers down Ben’s spine as they entered the casino. They had seen the massive building that covered the entire small island nearly twenty minutes before they had finally reached the entrance. The large automatic glass doors were invitingly open and musical hits of decades ago could be heard clearly, piercing the otherwise silent world they had been walking in.

“Perhaps we should just find a bottle shop,” Ben suggested, unable to determine the source of his concern. Perhaps it was the music, or the open doors, or perhaps it was just his gut feeling, either way, something felt wrong.

“Nonsense, this is the perfect place to drink and wait for the end.” Andrew replied, sarcastically joyous. Ben sighed as he glanced over to see Abigail solemnly nodding.

Entering cautiously Ben stepped onto plush red carpet that blanketed the reception room. A large officious desk faced them nearly five meters away from the entrance with gilded steel covering the face of the desk, “Jupiter’s Casino.” The desk was empty, and as far as Ben could see so far, the lobby was devoid of life. Two entrances stood on either side of the far back wall, and stairs ran from both the left and right walls to whatever lay waiting on the higher floors. Beneath the right walls stairs, a small hallway opened up to lead visitors to the elevators that would help ease their travels around the huge building.

“This way,” Andrew indicated as he took off down the far left entrance. Following close behind Ben strolled down the hall that quickly opened itself into an enormous room filled with slot machines. Andrew purposefully walked down the aisles and as Ben followed close behind he wasn’t surprised when he saw a few elderly people still sitting before the slots, lost in their never ending search for that small piece of joy that bloomed at every win.

“Anyone want to try their luck?” Andrew joked.

“Let’s just find the bar,” Abigail replied morosely. Ben almost cringed as he recognised the exhaustion in her voice. He desperately wanted to say something. He wanted to pull her out of the darkness that was flooding her, but he knew there was nothing he could say, nothing that could take the pain away or alter the reality of her situation, of all of their situations.

“It’s just over there,” Andrew pointed across to the far left of the room where another entrance awaited, above the doorway, Ben could see a sign ‘bar’, well that was easy.

As they approached the new room Ben heard men laughing and joking, he spotted a group of men boisterously shoving each other and pointing at something seemingly incredibly entertaining. Ben counted six of them, and all six seemed to spin around to face them as they approached. Each one of them wore various styles of black leather jackets with the same badge stitched onto their right sleeves and Ben guessed from one of the men who had his back to them just moments earlier, the symbol was also stitched on the back of their jackets. Great, just what they needed, drunk bikies.

Their laughter ceased as a burly man with a straggled grey beard and black bandana grunted at them and stumbled slowly to the bar. Ben glanced back at Abigail and was relieved to find her wisely waiting at the very entrance to the bar.

“Looks ‘ike we got er’selve’s sa’ new c’stmers” The man drawled, as he stumbled over his own feet, somehow catching himself on the bar before he could topple over to the amusement of his mates.