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Elijah Price shifted his weight off of his bum leg with a painful groan. It got worse the longer he stayed awake, but that particular day had stretched on through the night into the morning. He had found a gambling house that operated 24/7 and as such, it was always lit up inside like it was midday. The girls fed him drinks and food, he never had to ask. Somehow Eli hadn't managed to go broke yet. It was his third night of staying out far too late at that casino. He fumbled the small winnings in his hand as he stepped out into the streets illuminated by flickering lamps and the threat of sunrise along the horizon.
He walked slowly, warming up that shit leg in his denim jeans as he went, pocketing his cash, all except for one token he must have received by mistake. He'd have to bring it back— but first, he needed sleep. He flipped that large coin in his hand. It was gold with a riveted edge, and had a duplicate emblem on either side of a sun peeking over a horizon. Sunrise, sunset? He grunted through closed lips, wondering if he'd accidentally made off with a trick coin or a token from an entirely different house. Though there were always other explanations for trinkets such as those, he was too tired and drunk to recall any building that it might belong to that morning.
He held the coin, twisting it closer to his straining face, curious about the quality of gold, but as he did, the rising sun caught him just right and he turned with tired, bloodshot eyes to avoid the bright burst of red-orange ripping through the dark. The coin in his hand caught the light, too, and as it did, Eli thought for a moment he was hallucinating. He'd had a lot to drink, of course his vision was going to be untrustworthy. But there was a beam of light shining off the damned coin and a street ripping through a set of houses the man was sure hadn't existed a mere ten seconds earlier.
He couldn't ignore such a thing, drunken vision or not. If he walked right into a wall, at least no one would be around to see him do it. But sure enough, he felt no impact as his old boots carried him forward into the mysterious alleyway. The sun continued to shine that tangerine light up into the sky as he wandered down, eyeing the plain brick walls that hugged both sides of the road, too narrow for anything with a motor unless it had two wheels. Even so, there were no intersecting streets he could find, just a straight path down to one lonely building. It was unsurprisingly claustrophobic.
There was a house, centered at the end of the road, nestled right under the sunrise. Eli ran a sweaty palm through greasy brown hair as he looked up to the three story beast of a building. It stuck out like a sore thumb, this thing didn't belong where it was, and yet, the slight creaking sway of a sign that hung near the door had the same emblem as the coin in his hand. He'd been gripping it so tightly by that point that his palm was also marked with the image. Part of him wanted to turn away, told him to head back to his motel room where his suitcase and trunk waited for him. It was an odd coincidence, though, he thought, coming upon the very thing he'd been pondering when he discovered the coin. Maybe it was a dream. He laughed, lowering his head with realization as he surmised he must be unconscious at the casino, head on the table, drool creeping out of his mouth. Nothing else made sense.
The door of the house opened, the hinges barely whining enough to make Eli look up again. A warm yellow light poured out from the entrance and a shadow of slender legs was cast out along the porch, sharpening as a slender yet curvaceous woman stood in the doorway, heels dressing her feet, bringing proper attention to her bare calves and knees, thighs only half covered by a crimson dress that hugged her every inch the rest of the way up. Eli only realized as he found her face that he'd spent too long looking at the rest of the woman.
"Are you going to come inside?" Her voice was a soft velvet to his ears, smoky like the casinos, but not at all unpleasant. He wondered for a moment (a moment he didn't seem to have) if she might be a jazz singer. Her hair looked the part, dolled up in exaggerated curls around her face with bright red lipstick on her plump (almost naturally puckered) lips. "Well?" The volume in which she spoke to him had risen, but only enough to pull his attention back to her previous question.
"I— Uh," Eli wasn't sure what to do, but the woman was beautiful, so he nodded, unwilling to turn away from an attractive set of legs in a red dress and heels, especially when it was his dream, hallucination, or whatever else was actually happening to him. "Yeah, okay."
She waved him inside with a delicate swing of her hand and flash of her red fingernails. Eli tipped his head to her, eyeing her chest as discreetly as a drunken man such as himself could do (which he thought was pretty damn good) as he walked by then whistled as he took in his surroundings. "Is this a bed and breakfast?" he asked, muttering a second question to himself which wasn't as quiet as he believed, though the woman seemed to ignore the questions of a brothel as she walked forward to a small podium that housed a thick book, opened close to the center.
"It's something like that, won't you sign the guest log? You have our coin, don't you?" There was a soft brush of her hand against his as she lifted it up, uncurling his fingers with a satisfied grin. "You wouldn't have found us without this, someone must find you very special." There was a glint in her eyes that hinted at mischievous intentions, and Eli might have noticed had his attention not been everywhere except her face.
He stepped closer to the book, the top of the page titled The Rising Sun, which earned a small chuckle. "I'll sign," he said with wandering thoughts of the motel and his belongings. He could always go back for his stuff if this place was reasonable, or if the company was right. Pen in hand, Eli scrawled his name in script on the next line without a name, then dropped the pen onto the book hastily, looking up in search of the woman, but she was gone. His bum leg felt odd, then, worse than normal, but before Eli could stop to look, his hand burned red hot from the coin still in his grasp.
With a painful shout, Eli opened his fingers, trying to drop the coin, but the gold bubbled and pressed into his flesh until there was nothing left but massive scarring on his hand and the same image of the rising sun indented there where it once had been. He stumbled backwards, ready to bolt for the door but tripped instead. His bad leg was shackled, attached to a ball and chain that lay on the floor. How? He sat upon the ground dumbfounded, one good hand trying to loosen the cuff that bound him to the ground, listening to the sound of heels clicking toward him from behind.
"Welcome, Elijah Price, to The House of the Rising Sun."
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