"Hello. This is your local game store. How can I help you today?" came the voice through the receiver in a cheerful, almost gregarious tone. "Hey Karl! It's Joel! How are you today?" was the response on the other end. For most people, this would be a typical exchange, however, in this singular place it was not. "Sorry. No. This is Jack. Karl isn't in. Want me to take a message?"

"Oh, well. Naw. You guys all sound the same! So weird. Well, I was just seeing if my order came in." Jack, smiled in the game store as he sort of hopped around from foot to foot. It was empty, as usual, on a tuesday afternoon. His eyes bounced around, trying to figure out what to read as he attended the phone call. "Totally Joel! Got it set aside and everything for your leisure." Jack always wondered where it went wrong with them all. He was distinctly different than Dan and Karl. Irish accent, tattoos, piercings, and a massive drive to do something unlike Dan. Dan was in between Karl and Jackson, doing a whole lot nothing with his life except for playing board games and living with his mother at 35. Click. The phone call was over and Jack went about reading more gaming books as he waited for the eventual phone call or customer. Mindfully, Karl was the oldest of the three. He had a wonderful wife, a son, and was the most like Jack of the other two. Same red and blonde hair with blue eyes. No tattoos nor piercings though. He always wondered where those went given his time in Japan and what they meant to him.

People always are curious about their future and where they would go, but what do you do when you have an unknown future and two distinct futures right in front of you? This was the question that plagued Jack's mind every day. Two routes he couldn't understand which made them just as horrifying as the third option before him. Jack read in these times to keep his mind off such things. There was no point in worrying when all three of them got to where they were through totally different circumstances all to be put into the same place. Karl always joked that he "never hired anyone unless they sounded like him" which was far too true in this particular world.

With a sigh, Jack sat in his high backed chair near the computer. The screen flickered here and there and was awful on the eyes, but when you were done reading and had little to do it could keep you entertained with the internet. It was sad though. Jack and Dan really didn't get along half the time. Their priorities were in totally different spectrums. It made him upset at times that they all couldn't get along. I mean, what was the purpose of knowing your past, present, and future if you couldn't be happy with it? Flipping through the manual of some roleplaying game, ideas flooded Jack's mind. What about this, that, or the other thing? It was non-stop.

Hours later it was time for all three of them to get together and talk while playing board games with several regulars. It was a game of intrigue. Some worked against the rest, pretending to be friends and comrades. Pretending to be that which they never were. Some, along the way, would inadvertantly switch sides or be accused of things they never did. Idly, Jack watched his counterparts. They all knew how eachother would play. They all knew their roles. It wasn't any different from one to the other. The goal was to survive and not get found out. Getting found out meant that you died and that the game you were playing was over. It meant no second chances.