"You don't know me nor can you understand my pain." I tell them, but yet they do not listen.

     "Seek help..."

     They tell me, but I say,

      "Why? Why should I seek help when none will truly help me or try to understand me?"

     All that I ever get from anyone is a mocking smile and an unsincere pat on the  back caliming that we had a good session when, in truth, nothing has changed.

     You see, there was a time when I was happy and my friends and I would laugh the time away. I was on top of the world and everything seemed to go my way. A top notch hustler paving my way through the world by gambling at the casino. I had all that you could want in life and more, but in an instant everything left me.

     For I had fallen, FALLEN I say from the heights of Mount Rushmore to the valley beneath the peaks of the Grand Canyon. My life of dealing with congressmen, federal judges, and diplomats from across the globe is now a distant memory. Try though I might to achieve the greatness that I once held, but success kept eluding me.

     Sadly I look down to my hands and watch the tears form puddles in my palms. With each drop the puddle ripples and the edges reach farther with my rocking motion. Seeing the reflection of a stranger in the midst thereof made me ponder mine own reflection. A shave was sorely needed and a hair cut was definitely called for. Seeing that I had pregnant women dancing underneath my eyes made me toss the puddle only to realize that it landed upon the shoes of my therapist.

     "I'm sorry..." I said as I looked through the ocean upon the face of my so called saviour.

     I could've sworn that I saw horns, red eyes, and jagged teeth, but when I wiped my eyes I saw no demon. There was only him, Dr. Mock Yu, standing before me with a spiky crew cut, braces, and the eyes of a man that hasn't slept in three days or more.

     "There is no need to apologize sir. I truly do understand your plight. I mean to lose everything that you own in a blink of an eye and all because you read the cards wrong. I, myself, had lost a bundle betting on you to win. ‘What was I thinking?' I ask myself while I watched over $5,000.00 leave my hand."

     And then out of nowhere I felt a slap and my cheek stung from the blow. Slowly I raised my hand to my face and noticed that it wasn't tears that pooled in the palm of my hands, but, instead, there was only bright crimson blood sparkling in the sunlight. My hands began to tremble violently as I remembered the debt that I owed to the man standing before me. It was then that I realized that I kneeled in deaths' hands and his fingers were slowly closing around me.

     Dr. Mock Yu turned to one of his companions and said, "Finish him off and dump him somewhere so that he will never be found." After doing so, he then walked through the crowd and another took his place. Slowly he raised a gun towards me and seeing that it was either my life or his I swiftly grabbed his wrist, pulled his hand aside, and drove his nose into his brain with the heel of my hand. His head rose up and he toppled over like a felled tree. Without a second thought I snatched the gun from and pumped a bullet into the kneecaps of my assailants.

     They screamed in pain, but I ignored them. I rapped one of them upon the head when he grasped my pant leg and he immediately let me go. Blindly I ran to the end of the alleyway and darted down the street. Seeing that I needed treatment, I stumbled from doorway to doorway until I came upon an old bar with an unlocked door. I opened the door, stepped inside, and the words

     "Help me..." died on my lips.

     For none other than Dr. Mock Yu coldly looked me in the eye. Without thinking I avenged myself.