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// Gypsy Witch 
// Story: When Your Card is Drawn 
// by Pinkie_rees 
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	In New York City on New Years Eve, it’s a festive time for everybody who has flocked to the cities bustling downtown and metro area. The performances and entertainment that filled the streets always had a way of exemplifying the spectacle of a New Years celebration in New York. But throughout the crowded streets and buildings full of partying people, there were those who still had sober attitudes, taking there time to write plots and stories for a book they planned on publishing. Two of those people had known each other for a while now, usually only revealing what was necessary of each others personality. They both were friends from late high school, although they never went to the same high school, or even lived in the same state the two had always relied on each other for some type of emotional support. Somehow they still had managed to come together to create a successful publishing company after working together countless times online on cartoon show fan fictions when they were young.

        One of them had always had plans of becoming a writer while the other just did it for a hobby. Even with that said, they combined their work and made great books and even films out of their pieces. Now they are in a small pizzeria, away from all the noise and commotion; Writing the plot for there first new book in a series they were working on together. There was paper sprawled across one side of the small table while on the other side, only a laptop that had nearly identical content on it’s illuminated screen. They both were hard at work even though their methods differed greatly. On the side where the laptop was, sat a rather big, muscular built man, who had dark brown hair, although it was sometimes difficult to tell because he often kept his hair shaved military style. He wore a plain white t shirt and had on a rugged pair of jeans with some nice brown boots. On the other side where there was paper everywhere sat a significantly smaller and leaner guy. His long dreadlocks were adorned with random charms and beads. This person had a much more tan complexion than his typing counterpart. Also dressing far more cultural as well, he had on a simple white t shirt along with a silver chain, and a pair of baggy sweat pants, while having a very expensive looking jacket draped over his shoulders. 

        It was safe to say the two came from two totally different worlds. Still they had combined them to create perfect stories and tales. Rising up, the person with the dreadlocks looked severely frustrated as his friend kept an enduring smirk on his face. “Writers block?”

        “Shut up, I just gotta use the restroom.” The frustrated friend responded walking off in the direction of the restroom.  Still with his jacket hanging over his shoulders. His friend couldn’t help but chuckle at his friends defeated march away from the table. So he had to take a look over at the papers laying across his side of the table. Taking another look at the papers, the ideas weren’t that bad, but they were far too planned out, it was almost like he was making blueprints to building a house. He could only shake his head slowly due to his friends obvious problem. He knew better than to mention it because he knew his friends pride was the centerpiece for everything he did. As he continued rifting through the papers, a mysterious woman walked into the pizzeria. She almost looked like a gypsy of some sort if he didn’t know any better. She was cloaked in strange robes and had a large strange bag at her side.

        The gypsy looking woman didn’t even look towards the counter to buy anything. Instead she walked over to the table next to where the two friends were working. Being a rather unfocused person, the friend who was still at the table had to stop typing to examine the weird woman beside him. Also being a good person, he went ahead and asked a simple question. “Oh, are you enjoying your New Years?”

        The woman turned slowly to acknowledge the large guy. A slight grin grew over her face as she reached into her bag, this cause the guy to stir in his seat as he had no clue what could come out. But as she was getting ready to unveil what ever she had in her bag, the other friend swiftly returned as he saw the weird woman.

        “Oh, no, no, no, no. Go away you con artist WITCH!” he exclaimed. 

        “Hey, now that’s not nice. Why do you always have to make assumptions?” His friend added, a bit disappointed with his sudden outburst. “Maybe, she is just a foreigner.”

“Pff, foreigner, shmoreigner! She tried to get me to play some creepy card game in a back alley… I think she was going to rob me!” He yells. Attracting a lot of unwanted attention from bystanders in the small restaurant.

The larger friend took immediate action and easily pulled his excitable friend back down to his seat with one hand. “ You know what, maybe I want to play this game.”

They both exchanged challenging glares. A competition had been sparked with those simple words, and so they both turned to the smiling gypsy character, who then began to speak in a very raspy tone of voice. “ So a card game we will play, lets hope your reality does not change.”

The smaller friends eyes were filled with fear while the larger one was breaming with anticipation. She pulled out a deck of cards and laid them on the table before her. She signaled for them to each take a card. Their expressions still had not changed as they each pulled a card from the deck. The two cards that they’d pulled out were identical, each had a crude drawing of colorful horses on it. The cards caused the both of them to look even more suspiciously in her direction. But she wasn’t done, she signaled for the both of them to once more draw a card. After some hesitation, the both of them drew another card, only this time they weren’t identical as before . The big friend had pulled one with what had looked like the male sex symbol while the other friend had drawn one with the symbol denoting the female sex.

This caused them both to raise a brow simultaneously and turn their attention back to the gypsy looking woman for an explanation. She responded to their stares with a simple riddle. “ Now from which universe do you belong, you’ll have to make a choice before not to long.” 

The woman began laughing uncontrollably, causing the big fellow to laugh along with her for no apparent reason. But the other guy didn’t think of it as being too funny, he in fact looked more like he’d seen a ghost than anything humorous.“Aw, @#$& this, we are leaving!”

He snatch’s the cards out of his friends hand and he also quickly collects the papers on the desk as he closed his friends laptop simultaneously, creating quite a stir. He looks at the cards one last time before throwing them at the womans feet and fleeing the small pizzeria dragging his large friend behind him. He stops around the corner because the strain of dragging his friend around so quickly had caught up to him. They both looked at each other with very different expressions. But before either of them could say a word, They heard everybody lining the streets begin to chant.

“10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1!!!”

“HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!” The more relaxed friend was one of the voices that chimed in to celebrate. 

But as the ball dropped, a light begun to form underneath it. One that only the two friends could see. But once the ball had hit the ground, the light that flashed in their direction had a very strange aura around it that fanned out from the balls contact point. There was even a low humming noise that sounded off as soon as the distance between them and the light closed. It almost looked as if it was preparing to engulf the bepuzzled two, leaving them left to utter their last words before being completely adsorbed by the light. 

“Awes-”

“- %#&!”