I got my start in sweepstaking relatively late compared to what you might expect from the elite sweepstaking families that had dominated the game since the advent of agriculture. The people in charge of the world, even if they don't realize it, are all descendents of the original sweepstaker. Every billionaire, every world leader, every A-list celebrity, all of them are directly related to the first sweepstaking king.

All of these personalities, all of these powerful figures, have one thing in common: total loserdom. Sure, they might be able to acquire massive pools of wealth, fame, and power, but they are, by all means, losers. They didn’t have to work for their dignity, their prestige, their respect. It makes me sick, knowing these frauds dominated sweepstaking before I showed up.

My journey to the top was long and grueling: at first, I played Russian Roulette every day, all day, only giving myself 4 hours to sleep and eat. All I did from age 3 to 13 was bet everything I had, without end, but soon even this was not enough. I began betting on others’ lives, at first only family members but later branching out even farther. Betting on entire communities, cities, even nations - all to improve my sweepstaking abilities. If I had failed even once, I, and everyone I loved, would have died. It took everything I had to stay concentrated through the monotony of my training, to never once make a mistake, not once in my life. I sacrificed my childhood: no friends, no school, no summer vacation, nothing to bring me joy other than surviving to see the next day.

That was why I wasn’t a loser, and why finding a worthy rival was so jarring. My luck was deliberate, trained and developed. If Olivia didn’t have to go through the same things I did, she wasn’t worth respecting. Not even if she beat me. All I’d have to do is train harder if something like that happened.

With the rats taken care of, I went on the offensive. An intense roar flooded the room, and everything began to collapse. The ceiling fell between us, though conveniently not infringing on the safety of either myself or Olivia, and created an obstructive barrier. This wall wasn’t entirely coherent, though, and a small opening, creating a line of sight directly from my head to Olivia’s card, was illuminated by a small skylight after the artificial lights had broken and the room was completely dark. Meteor fragments began falling onto Olivia, remnants of the crash, pressuring her to make a move. I would be surprised if anything of the city above remained.

Olivia was visibly stressed now, and her eyes had a new intensity that hadn’t been there before. I was glad to see that she was getting into it as well.

It started raining heavily, but only above the two of us. No doubt this was Olivia’s doing. The droplets collided with the hot meteor fragments that had been falling onto her side and emanated an intense steam that obstructed my view. I could make out Olivia’s figure, but nothing more.

I kept trying to spy on what was happening on the other side, because while my vision was limited, I wasn’t completely blinded.

“55!”

This is bad. That was one of my numbers. I had to act fast if I wanted to have any chance at winning. Damn it! How did it come to this?

I had to start taking things more seriously. Looking through the opening, Olivia’s figure was still right there, so I had some time left to deliberate.

“12!”

It seems like fate wouldn’t be as lenient to me as I had thought. This number, though both of us were inevitably making progress toward a diagonal bingo as a result of the other’s abilities, was, like 55, a corner rather than an inner square - making it far more likely that I would reach a bingo first, even if Olivia was also likely approaching a bingo with several of her spaces.

“76!”

Another one of my numbers. There was no doubting that Olivia knew what was on my card, but how?

A powerful gust of wind whistled as it blew down onto where Olivia was sitting. I’d been playing the game wrong the whole time! One of the rules stated that every player’s board had to rest face up on the table at all times, so if her board was knocked off the table, I could still win even if she did know what was on my card. There was only one number left though, so I acted immediately.

I didn’t have time for luck, so I ran around the wall over to Olivia’s side, willing to fight her off in order to flip over the card. After making it over, I

“38!”

That’s - that was the last number on my diagonal bingo. That’s it. I lost. For the first time. I fell to my knees. How? How did this happen? She’d been sitting there the whole time! How could she have known what was on my card? It just didn’t make any sense!

I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Looks like you’re the one in loserville now, bucko.”

The smoke in front of me began to clear up, revealing that the figure I saw through the hole was not Olivia, but rather a mirage of embers that had perfectly fallen in such a way that they formed the illusion of Olivia’s silhouette. After the rain started, she must have run over to my side and peered at my card, masking her footsteps with the sound of the weather. I’d never been fooled like this!

I could only sit there, and no words escaped my mouth. No congratulations, no snarky remarks, nothing. For the first time in my life, I’d truly taken an L in every metric.