Vincent was filled with anticipation after hearing that his fortune was about to be read. His body was shaking with excitement, so much so that anyone who could see him would be able to see it.

“An unusual fate, huh? What does that mean?” Vincent asked.

Cowol took a deep, slow breath and answered, “Um, well…” He then coughed a few times, like he was gathering himself, and then extended his arms out in an energetic fashion. “What I saw was something unlike anything I have seen before.” His composure and persona seemed to be back to the way it was, at least it seemed that way to Vincent.

“Ok, ok,” Vincent excitedly began. “What does that mean? Do I have a future?”

“Oh, my boy, you have more than a future,” Cowol responded, wagging his finger in the air. “Yes, indeed, I would say that you have a future beyond all futures. I sifted through the threads that make up the universe and saw a very special thing in you.”

Vincent was at his breaking point now, his eyes grew larger and his smile covered most of his face.

“You have a gift, or many gifts—that much I can tell,” Cowol continued. “These gifts will be used to either save what you hold dear, or mishandled to bring devastation.” Cowol looked up and pointed towards the sky. He then brought his eyes and finger down, facing both of them directly at Vincent. “Yes, for you carry the Thread of Fate within you.”

“Thread of Fate?” Vincent asked.

“Oh yes, the Thread of Fate. It is something that binds those who stand at the crossroads of the future and destiny of the world. This thread is very rare and only finds itself wrapped around those individuals it favors.” He then did a theatrical twirl, his robes following his dance perfectly. “I have only seen this thread once before, and it’s something that intrigues me, especially in your case.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well…” he hesitated, “unlike the one from before, I could not follow yours to the end. Each time I found an end, another one would appear next to it, carrying on where the other left off. Quite strange.”

Vincent, although still excited, was thoroughly lost and confused by Cowol’s words. “Soooooo...what does that mean for me?”

“I would say, in this case, that you have an infinite number of possible futures ahead of you. And in that infinity, pulling all of the strings, is one.”

“One?”

“Yes, and that one is you. It is a paradoxical thing, and paradoxical things seem to be in your nature. Even though you are filled with infinity and nothing at the same time, the number one is what propels your future.”

“I, uh, don’t really know what that all means, but it seems like one is my lucky number. Also, it seems like I’m a pretty lucky guy and I have a bright future ahead of me, right?”

Cowol’s eyebrows raised for a second and he just stared at Vincent for a second. He then brushed his luscious hair to the side and let out a genuine laugh. “You are certainly a unique one. Sure, if that’s how you wish to interpret that.”

Before Vincent could continue that conversation, he heard something echo in the distance. Looking in the direction of the sound, he saw two figures walking towards him—one waving their hand and the other cupping their hands around their mouth. It took him a second to realize who it was, but he could not mistake those two for anyone else. It was Zander and Eliot.

“Hey!” Vincent yelled, gesturing for his friends to come over to where he was.

Zander and Eliot picked up their pace and jogged over to where Vincent was. Both of them arrived at the same time and were sweating pretty badly. They were both visibly uncomfortable, Zander more so than Eliot, but Vincent couldn't figure out why they looked that way.

“There you are Vince,” Eliot said, his breath a little heavier than normal.

“Where did you go? I still don’t understand how you always manage to disappear the moment we take our eyes off of you,” Zander added.

“He’s honestly like a child, never sitting still,” Eliot commented, looking at Zander.

“You can say that again.”

Zander then looked around him, seemingly gathering his surroundings. Eventually, his eyes landed on Cowol Jarr Wan’s table and he was seemingly taken back by the sight. “So this is where you were, huh?”

“Dude,” Vincent began, “this guy can read your fortune and future and stuff. It’s so cool!”

“Of course, you would fall for something like this,” Zander said with a sigh. His eyes then moved downwards towards the sign on the front of the table. “These are your prices?” he asked, his voice carrying his obvious disgust.

“Why yes, yes they are,” Cowol replied with a smile. Cowol then averted his gaze, moving back towards Vincent. “So, your name is Vincent, yes?”

“Oh, yeah, my name’s Vincent,” Vincent replied. “And this is Zander,” he said, pointing at the now glaring Zander.

“And my name is Eliot! Nice to meet you,” Eliot interjected while smiling wide.

“It is nice to meet both of you,” Cowol slowly replied. “Now, I am curious about you two. You’re friends with Vincent, yes?”

“What of it?” Zander rudely inquired.

Cowol then threw his hands up in a very defensive manner. “My, my, such fiery anger. I was just wondering if you wanted to get your fates revealed to you both before—”

“For those prices? You’re out of your mind.”

“Tsk tsk tsk.” Cowol wiggled his finger. “So impatient.”

Eliot then tapped on Zander’s shoulder and looked at him with a look of a disappointed father. “Just hear the man out, ok?” Eliot gently asked.

“You should listen to your calm friend,” Cowol added, looking directly at Zander. “If you always jump to conclusions, thinking that you know everything, then how could you ever learn anything?” A smug smile then began to crawl across his face. He then seemed to turn his attention towards Eliot. “As I was saying, I’d be more than willing to tell you of your fate and your destiny…” He then looked directly into the eyes of Zander. “...for free.”

Zander didn’t respond and just averted his gaze elsewhere.

“Come on, come on! Go do it!” Vincent exclaimed, excitedly and impatiently. He really wanted to see his friends’ reactions after going through what he experienced. He knew that Eliot would really appreciate it, but he wasn’t the one he was looking forward to watching the most; that would be Zander. If Zander went through such an experience, even a doubter like him would surely be rocked to the core.

Eliot then walked up to the table and stood there stiff as a board. He then began to look around awkwardly while swaying from side to side. “So what do—” Eliot began.

Cutting him off, Cowol pressed his finger against his own lips, signaling Eliot to get quiet.

“Oh, sorry,” Eliot whispered.

Cowol then, with exaggerated movements, moved his hands across the crystal ball. Vincent recognized movement patterns that were similar to when Cowol read his future. It’s probably something he does a lot, he thought.

After a few seconds, Cowol then looked up and into Eliot’s eyes. Eliot seemed to recoil a bit at first, but quickly stood still. Both of them held eye contact for only a few seconds before Cowol moved backwards with a smile, breaking their eye contact.

“Ah ha ha ha, I see now,” Cowol exclaimed. “Your destiny has been revealed to me.” He then reached his hands in the air in a very dramatic fashion. As he brought his hands down, his whole body seemed to follow. “Yes, the very strings of the universe did unfold before my eyes.”

“Um, that’s pretty cool,” Eliot nervously replied.

“Indeed,” Cowol replied. “Now, I see that your destiny is one that is full of strife and growth. Your string is worn and torn and, quite honestly, beaten down. In addition, there seems to be one great tragedy that embodies all of your struggles.”

“Oh…” Eliot’s face visibly deflated and his demeanor was immediately more somber.

“BUT!” Cowol stuck his pointer out, directly in front of Eliot’s face, causing him to jolt back for a second. “That does not mean it is all bad. No! In fact, I would argue that it is the exact opposite for you. Struggle and tragedy can make one stronger if they can endure it, and in your case, I can see that your string is very durable.”

Eliot’s face then began to lighten up, and his expression showed that he was now more interested in what Cowol was saying. “So what does that mean?”

“Good question, good question indeed. I believe that it means that you will grow stronger than you can imagine by overcoming the obstacles in your future. And maybe the old string that I saw might come back to you and help you grow, too.”

“Old string? What does—”

“Anyways,” Cowol said, cutting Eliot off, “that’s enough with that destiny, seeing as this is a free reading.” He then looked at the still rather unimpressed Zander and gave a smile. “I suppose it’s your turn, grumpy boy.”

Zander rolled his eyes in response and made his way over to where Eliot stood. “Let’s get this over with.”

Just like with Eliot, Vincent could see that Cowol was putting on a bit of a theatrical show before the reading began. This time, however, Vincent could follow everything that he did, so much so that he even predicted what he was going to do next. Vincent had always known that he was good at picking things up quickly, but even this seemed quicker than normal.

After Cowol had finished his presentation and finished staring into Zander’s eyes, he pulled his gaze back and Vincent could see how bored Zander was.

“Are you done?” Zander flatly asked.

Cowol didn’t immediately answer, instead, he seemed to actually ignore Zander’s question and presence altogether.

“Well,” Cowol began, “I’m glad you all decided to stop by, this is the most enjoyment I’ve had in a while.” He then looked at each of the friends, one at a time, except Zander. “I’m sure your fates are going to lead to something very interesting for each of you.”

“Oh, I already knew that,” Vincent replied, confidently.

“Now hold on,” Zander interjected. “Are you just going to keep my reading a secret, then?”

A devious smile then stretched across Cowol’s mouth, like a predator who knows that they just cornered their prey.

“Oh, now you’re interested in my services, hmmm?”

Zander didn’t immediately reply, and instead, narrowed his eyes and remained silent. Vincent had only seen this look from him a few times before in the past. Zander had always been good at hiding his emotions, in general, but when someone outsmarts him, he doesn’t hide it. This face that he had on right now, Vincent knew, was the face of a Zander that had carelessly fallen into a trap.

After taking a deep sigh, Zander replied “I just simply want what I paid for, even if it’s free—I’m not one who takes swindling very well.”

“You can say that again,” Cowol replied, swiftly, but gently, bopping Zander on the nose. “You are all so fun and interesting.” He then repositioned himself and sat down in his old, wooden chair that was behind his table.

“So?”

Cowol let out a quick sigh and smiled. “Fine, I guess I can share what I saw.” He then pointed up to the sky and snapped his head down towards the ground. His finger and head then met in the middle, both facing Zander. “You, Sir, have a rather boring and, if I’m being honest, a pretty standard path ahead of you.”

“Oh really?” Zander replied, blankly.

“At least that’s how I’m choosing to interpret what I saw.”

Cowol’s posture then slumped down rather lazily in his chair. Vincent could tell that Cowol was probably done and tired with Zander, which he could understand—there’s not a lot of people who could handle Zander for more than a few minutes.

“Just because Vince and Eliot are going to pester me about it if I don’t ask: What do you mean by that?”

“I’m sure that’s why you’re asking,” Cowol sarcastically retorted. “You know, I don’t actually know anything specifically that’s going to happen—I can’t see the future. What I do see is who you are, how your string travels, and where it has been. I then interpret how it got to where it is now. In your case,” he said, snapping his fingers, “I saw a bold, stupid string that travels at it’s own pace, slowly growing smarter and more mature.”

“Ha! Yeah, I figured it was going to be something like that. What a scam.”

“Blame yourself, not me,” Cowol shrugged.

“Well,” Zander began, turning towards Vincent and Eliot, “I think we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get going.”

Confused, Vincent asked, “What do you mean?”

Zander then grabbed Vincent’s arm and began to pull him along with him. “I’ll remind you about it later.”

“I’m so con—OH THE OBELISK!” Vincent exclaimed out loud.

Immediately, both Zander and Eliot shot him a deadly glare. Zander’s eyes were filled with anger, while Eliot’s seemed to be filled with fear. Both of them then grabbed one of Vincent’s arms and hurried their pace away from where they were.

Before they even made it a few yards away, Cowol piped up and asked a question. “You’re looking for an obelisk, huh?”

Both Zander and Eliot slowly turned around to face the inquiring Cowol. They were both sweating more profusely than they were before.

“He, uh, meant something else,” Zander replied, lying through his teeth.

“Yeah,” Eliot interjected, “h-h-he was talking about the, uh…” Eliot’s face was one of obvious distress, which Vincent knew all too well. “...the o-o-obstacle courses here.” The ending of the sentence fizzled to a whimper, as if Eliot wasn’t even sure of what he just said.

The tension of the space immediately diminished and a strange look of confusion rolled across everyone’s face as they stared at the nervously shaking Eliot.

“What those two marsupials were trying to say is that we were going to look at the pyramids, not an obelisk.”

“Mmhm,” Cowol replied.

“Well, it’s true. If you don’t mind we’re going to be heading off—”

“Do you know anything about the obelisks?” Vincent bluntly asked, cutting Zander off.

“Vincent!” Eliot and Zander yelled.

“What? It doesn’t hurt to ask,” he asked, looking back towards

A loud, vibrant laugh rang out from the direction of Cowol’s table. Looking back at it, Vincent saw the extravagant Egyptian holding his gut. His head was tilted back as he sat on his chair and the air around him seemed a lot warmer.

“You certainly are a unique bunch,” Cowol stated, wiping a tear from his eye. “I haven't had a good laugh in a while.”

He then sat up, leaned forwards, placed his elbows on his table, and folded his hands in a way that covered his mouth. With a quick head movement, he motioned the group over to his table. While Zander and Eliot seemed to hesitate a bit, Vincent casually strolled over and stood across the table from Cowol. Eventually, Eliot walked over, followed by Zander.

“Now,” Cowol quietly began, “I can help you out with this, but you have to keep what I say a secret.”

Suddenly, the warm atmosphere turned cold and serious, which surprised Vincent. While Vincent had seen the attitudes and actions of people change on a dime too many times to count, this seemed a bit different. In those cases from his past, the people were simply adjusting their outward selves to match the situation at hand—adapting in order to preserve their stature within the situation. With this, it didn’t seem like Cowol was pretending to be something he wasn’t, nor did it seem like he was trying to adapt to the atmosphere. Instead, it seemed he created the atmosphere itself, which actually surprised Vincent even more. After all, he could tell that Cowol was someone that walked to the beat of their own drum, much like himself, and this atmosphere seemed out of character.

“I have heard things here and there, as I usually do, but anything related to an Obelisk is anything but common to hear about.” Cowol’s expression remained neutral and focused the entire time. “However, my reputation has let me into some of the, shall I say, fancier areas of the city. Just a few days ago I heard a passing whisper from a drunken politician that I am acquainted with, stating that the security and construction team around the Rising Red had been heightened as of recently. When I pressed him a bit further, he noted that something unexpected happened and that they were trying to cover it up.”

“What happened?” Eliot asked.

“He didn’t directly tell me, but he said that he wasn’t too sure. He thought that he heard that it had something to do with a new monument that was apparently being constructed there. He didn’t know that there was something being built and he believes that the whole ordeal was about someone leaking what was being built.”

Zander and Eliot then looked at each other and then back at Cowol.

“Now, I’m not the most technically advanced person, but I do regularly keep up to date with what’s going on around the internet. This whole ordeal reminds me of all the buzz about some obelisk that suddenly appeared in America. So when you, who I can obviously tell are American, mentioned something about an obelisk, I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence.”

“Well tell me this,” Zander began, “why are you being so mysterious and secretive about this? Surely if it’s just about a building being built, it can’t be that serious. This whole thing could be a worldwide message about some stupid environmental thing or some art project, both of which don’t warrant this type of reaction.”

“That’s what I thought at first, but my mind has been on edge about this, lately.” Cowol’s expression got even more serious and his eyes showed serious contemplation in them. “My stance on this changed yesterday when that politician I mentioned before was found dead in his bedroom.”

A silence fell over the entire group. No one said a thing for a lingering 30 seconds or so. The silence hung there for so long that the everyday sounds of the bustling streets that Vincent had naturally blocked out started to sound almost foreign and strange.

“W-well, then why are you telling us about this?” Eliot asked, his hands shaking.

Vincent saw Cowol’s left eye twitch for but a second. Cowol then sat back on his chair and let out a quiet, but firm sigh.

“As you know, I am a believer and practitioner of fate,” Cowol said, motioning towards the sign in front of his table. “And I believe that our meeting today was no accident, rather, it was fated to happen. The fact that you are the only other people I’ve heard even talk about the possibility of an obelisk being here and the fact that you’re from America—the only other place that there seems to be another one—is too much of a coincidence for me to ignore. I have faith that what I am doing is what is supposed to happen.”

“So do I,” Vincent agreed. “I know I’m supposed to look for these things.”

“I didn’t take you for a person who believes in fate,” Cowol responded, his left eyebrow raising.

“I believe in whatever I feel like.”

“Interesting.”

Zander then pushed past Vincent and leaned in close to Cowol. “Well, now that that’s out of the way, I have a question. What is the Rising Red? I’m assuming that’s where the obelisk is.”

Cowol then looked Zander in the eyes for a few seconds before speaking. “Why yes, yes it is. The Rising Red is a rather special place in Cairo.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Well…” Cowol pondered, “...there’s a reason it’s called the House of the Setting Sun—only people whose sun has set on their life go there, never to be seen from again.”

Visibly annoyed, Zander huffed and asked, “Enough with the cinematics. What is this place, actually?”

Not breaking his solemn composure, Cowol replied, “It is the largest, most powerful, and most importantly, the most wealthy casino in the entire world.”

“Casino? How can something like that be so powerful? Gambling is illegal for Egyptian citizens, so it can’t be all that.”

Impressed and oddly excited, Vincent jumped into the conversation. “But we can still gamble right? This sounds like it’s gonna be a fun time.”

“While I don’t disagree with you, Vince,” Zander interrupted, “I still need an answer to my question.”

“Normally, you would be right, but that changed as of recently,” Cowol answered. Vincent could see that his muscles tensed as he said that, almost as if what he said or what he was about to say hurt him in some way.

“Our President,” he continued, “has recently made it legal for all citizens to gamble—a move that has been very divisive in this country. Because of that, there have been a lot of rumors online spread about him being a gambling addict.”

“I see,” Zander replied.

Impatient, Vincent hopped back into the conversation, feeling as though he was being ignored. “I’ve heard enough,” he proudly proclaimed. “We’re leaving for this place, right now!”

“Now Vince,” Zander said, speaking down to him like a parent to a child, “we need to get more information about this place. We can’t just—”

“No!” Vincent interrupted. “I’m tired of talking, I just want to go do something.”

“And we can do something after—”

“I said no talking.”

There was a sharp inhale sound coming from Zander’s nostrils and Vincent could see that his head was as red as a sunburnt face, but he didn’t really care about that and chose to ignore Zander.

“So, where is this casino?” Vincent asked, solely focusing on Cowol.

A slight grin crawled across Cowol’s face as he brought up a map from beneath his table. “Why don’t I show you?”

***

After Vincent and his friends were long gone, making their way towards where he pointed them too, Cowol Jarr Wan reclined back into his chair. His feet were comfortably resting on top of the table and his hands were casually folded behind his head.

He pondered about many things, but every time his thoughts wandered too far, his mind would bring him right back to Vincent. It was a feeling that he had only felt one time before, when he looked into her fate. That being said, even this was different from that time. There was a sense of depth that he had never seen before—it was as if he stared into a void, full of nothing and endless possibility at the same time.

After a long, drawn-out sigh, Cowol spoke to himself. “Out of everything I was expecting, I did not expect his threads to be like that. Perhaps there’s still more to this world’s fate than I thought. Maybe there’s even…” He shook his head, dismissing the thought before he could even fully think it. “I guess we’ll just have to see.”