Chapter Text
Prologue
The dice clattered across the table, bouncing off empty soda cans and a stack of rulebooks with dog-eared pages. His friends insisted on candles to add to the ambience, making the pale white walls turn into a castle's ballroom. They left their phones in a blue wired basket in a random designated corner to put all their focus on the game. They held bets on who would look at their phones first. Jack almost always won with everyone he cared about most in front of him. Anyone else could handle themselves; they didn't need him. Laughter filled the room, easy and unguarded, the kind that only happened when the world felt far away. Jack liked the room best this way.
"Okay, but if there is some higher power," Mark huffed, leaning back in his chair, "they've got a sick sense of humor."
"Or none at all," Eli muttered, not looking up from his character sheet. "The universe is random. We suffer needlessly then we die. End of story."
Sarah snorted. "That's bleak—you say that like it's profound."
"It isn't supposed to be profound," Eli shot back. "It's honest."
She rolled her eyes, then shrugged. "I don't know. I believe in God. It just… I don't think you need a building or a schedule to talk to Him." She smiled sheepishly. "I pray every night."
The table erupted with papers flying and a book fell to the floor by accident when Mark and Eli both riled up against her with their arms flung, pointing and criticizing.
"Every night?" Mark laughed. "What, like a bedtime call?"
"Do you get voicemail?" Eli added. "Or—"
"Oh, shut up," Sarah said, laughing too, a little pink in the face. "I don't see what's so funny about hope."
Caleb set down his dice. "I spent two years in a monastery in Nepal," he said. "There's no God or heaven, just understanding oneself. Enlightenment isn't something you're given; it's something you uncover."
They nodded half-impressed, half-skeptical. Through it all, Jack hadn't said a word, staring down at his dungeon master sheet more interested in the play he was going to make next to keep the party on their feet.
He sat at the head of the table, fingers steepled, eyes lowered to the map spread before him. Candlelight flickered across his face, catching in his lashes, softening him. He listened to them the way some people prayed.
Sarah tilted her head, studying him. "You've been awfully quiet, Dungeon Master," she said gently. "What about you? What do you believe?"
Jack looked up. For a moment, it seemed like he might joke. Deflect. Roll initiative and move on. Instead, he breathed out a slow exhale. The room grew quiet as everyone focused on his words.
"I used to think belief was supposed to protect you." His voice was steady, but there was something worn beneath it like he was reciting his battle scars from the war of a hardened veteran. "That if you believed in the right things hard enough, then when the worst happened, it would mean something." He lifted his eyes above the three ring binder holding his dice from the prying eyes of his friends. "It doesn't always."
Their eyes were glued to him.
"I've watched people give everything to something higher than themselves," Jack continued. "They gave their trust– their obedience…their hope." His mouth curved into a frown. "And I've watched them break when it didn't catch them."
He folded his hands together, as if in quiet restraint.
"That's the part no one prepares you for…what you do after belief lets you down—
—I think the hardest thing I've learned is that believing in something higher doesn't save you, but choosing to be good after it lets you down does."
Jack went on, "When you realize there might not be anyone keeping score…when there might not be a reward waiting at the end of the story… Every choice matters more."
Everyone swallowed.
Jack followed up, "Kindness stops being a transaction. Forgiveness stops being a decree. Love becomes something fragile, terrifying, mystifying, and entirely ours."
A breath passed through the room. Jack stared particularly at everyone's eyes as they stared back at him as if he needed to say more. He felt like a politician giving a speech blinded by snapping lights, but these were his friends, right? He could be somewhat honest with them even he couldn't tell them the whole truth.
"If there's anything sacred left in the world," Jack voice grew quieter in dismay, "it's that. The way people keep loving even after they realize no one promised them heaven."
The table was still. Their faces gapping at his words. He gave one last testimony. "And I don't think we're judged by what we were meant to be. I think we're measured by what we choose after we learn who we really are."
Jack straightened up in his red-streaked gamer chair and reached for the dice, grounding himself back in the game."You're standing at the threshold," he punctuated, a candle flickering as he slipped back into the familiar rhythm of the Dungeon Master. "Roll for perception."
Everyone sat motionless, dice forgotten in their palms, eyes locked on Jack. Everyone held their breath to his speech. Still, everyone chose to roll their die.