Gambling in Jail

“Come on, this isn't fair.” I pleaded, just before my jail cell door slammed shut in front of me.

The dice sheriff twirled his key ring around his index finger. “If you can't pay the time, don't do the crime, partner.”

The jail I was brought to, like everything else in this town, was half scale compared to me. The ceilings were too low to stand up without hunching over, so it was more comfortable to just kneel on the ground. Inside the cell, there was nothing except two sheetless begs which were also disproportionately small compared to me. If I were to lay down on one, I would have only been able to fit the top half of my body.

Directly outside of my cell, sat the sheriff at his desk, frantically scribbling away, as he filled out his notepad.

“How long am I going to be here for?” I wondered, grasping at the cell’s metal bars with my hands.

“You're in luck, partner. Your court date just so happens to be today at noon.” With a yellow slip paper in hand, he got up from his desk and reached through the bars, stucking it onto my forehead. “Well, I guess I'll be seeing you at noon. Thanks to you, I have to assess all the damage you caused… oh and put some clothes on you sick freak.” With that, he left through the exit.

How the heck am I supposed to get dressed if you don’t give me any clothes?

“Well pip! I never thought a gamblord would end up in here.” A voice spoke up the moment the sheriff was out of sight. Sharing my cell was a red dice man with black colored dots on each of his sides. He sat on the bed across from me.

“...” Not responding, I just stared at him.

“What? You got a problem with me or something, pip face?” He became defensive.

I scooched a bit closer to him. “You're just a figment of my imagination, right?”

“You tell me.” He flicked a tiny pebble toward me, which pelted my forehead.

“Ow! The heck is wrong with you?” I rubbed the red spot he left between my eyes.

“Could I have done that if I wasn't real?” He chuckled at my pain.

I took a deep breath as I tried to process everything. “So what you're telling me is that I've just been thrown into jail by a bunch of talking dice people and I'm not actually just tripping out in some alleyway in Vegas in my underwear?”

“I don't understand half of what you said, but yeah, probably.” He plainly responded.

As reality began to set in, I became light headed. I stared wide-eyed at the dice man.

“Man, you're a really strange gamblord.” He remarked.

I looked at him confused. “Why do you people keep calling me that?”

“What else would we call you?” He didn't seem to comprehend what I was asking.

“Do me a favor and explain that to me, but pretend that I'm a complete moron.”

“But I wouldn't be pretending?” He let out a laugh, as he roasted me, followed by a shrug. “I'm not really sure how else to explain it. A gamblord is just what your kind is called and always has been.”

“Wait a second, when you say ‘my kind’, are you referring to humans?”

“What the heck is a human? You're not from around here, are you?”

“Where is here?” I wondered.

“Dice Town.”

“And that is?...”

“In the Dicey desert of course.”

“What country is that in?...”

“The Kasino Kingdom.”

“...and that's on what continent?”

“Casinio.” The dice guy let out a final huff, out of breath from answering my barrage of questions.

“…” I became quiet.

I'm definitely not in Las Vegas anymore…

“You alright? You look a bit pale.” The dice man pointed out.

“This might be hard for you to believe, but I'm not from this world.”

“Sure you are." He chuckled with sarcasm. “What's your name anyways Mr. “Hu-man” or whatever that word you used earlier was.” It was obvious he didn't believe me.

“My name is Lucky and I’m serious.”

The dice man got up from his bed and held out his hand. “Name’s Rollnaldo. You know something, Lucky, You seem like an interesting guy.” Once again, he completely skimmed over my big revelation.

I let out a sigh as I shook his hand. “So Rollnaldo, how'd you end up here?”

He shook his head/torso, as his demeanor became much more serious. “I got caught in a sting operation selling bootleg merch.”

I tilted my head. “Bootleg merch?”

“Listen, I'm just a humble salesman trying to make a living in this town. In case you didn't know, Matthew the giant twine ball is a huge tourist attraction here. Unfortunately, our pip head mayor is really stingy about giving out licensing rights for Matthew merch.”

“I see…”

“So what about you? I'm surprised the sheriff arrested a gamblord like you. Your kind typically gets preferential treatment throughout the kingdom.”

I shrugged. “All I did was accidentally knock over that ball of twine and it might have damaged a building or two… oh and also public indecency.”

“YOU DID WHAT!?” Rollnaldo hollered way too close to my ear.

I stuck my finger in it, as I shouted back at him. “Geez, are you trying to burst my eardrum!?”

“I don't think you get the severity of what you've done… you do understand that the penalty for messing with Matthew is death, right?”

“Oh come on, that's redic-... Wait, did you just say death?”

“Yeah, the people around here don't joke around when it comes to Matthew. He's literally the life blood of this town. Without him, our tourism industry would completely die and Dice Town would cease to exist.”

Immediately upon hearing that, I spun around and attempted to pry at the metal bars of the cell. “I gotta get out of here, now!” I knew that I kept telling myself my luck couldn't get worse, but it definitely was getting worse.

“You're not going to escape like that.” Rollnaldo came up behind me and slipped something into my hand.

I held it up to my face, revealing a tall skinny file. “You're helping me break out?”

“I want out too. I'm facing life here for my crime.”

With my new accomplis having my back, we took turns filing away at the bars. After about an hour and a half, we managed to create an opening between the bars for us both to crawl through.

Rollnaldo placed his hand on the exit’s door handle. “Well, as soon as we get beyond this door, we make a break for it and skip tow-.” He was suddenly interrupted by the door handle rattling… The next thing we knew, we were standing face to face with the sheriff.

The sheriff shook his head/torso side to side with an unamused look on his face. “Nice try partners, but that's going to be another charge added for each of you.”

The two of us stood completely frozen, knowing there was nothing we could do. With apparently the death penalty looming over me, things were not looking great. Not to mention, I still had no answers as to why I was in another world surrounded by anthropomorphic dice. I know I kept telling myself this, but I really hoped my luck would turn around soon…