Archive of Our Own

"Ohhh for sure! Don't you worry at all!" she placated as her supervisor left the office to report the spontaneous Darkness manifestation.

He should definitely worry.

After all, even if it was a Darkness, there was no way she was leaving all these instant scratch-offs on everyone's desks untouched.

They were hers. This chance was just too juicy to pass up completely!

She snatched the scratch-off that had appeared at her desk as soon the Supervisor turned the corner and patted her pockets for a coin or something to use it with. Of course, being Kang Yihak, she had no shortage of coins on her person at all time and so found one very quickly.

Yes! She fist-pumped alone in their shared office and pressed the scratch-off sheet to the desk.

She was pretty sure that there were some dangerous outcomes to scratching off the wrong sections, but whoever heard of losing your first time around? There was no way she's lose to a little gamble without winning — a lot — first!

She stuck her tongue out and prayed to the gods of financial gain very briefly before pressing the rim of the coin firmly to the sparkly foil layer and rubbing. Hard.

Okayyyyy….! First one!

She squinted and tilted the ticket. Was that… a stand mixer?

As soon as that thought formed, so too did the actually surprisingly and inconveniently large stand mixer. It stood almost two metres tall and was painted a bright red and — after some further inspection — had some very strange settings.

• Whip: Fairly normal, if a little disquieting given the other options.

• Pulverise: A little concerning but still plausible.

• De-skin: Alarming to be sure

• Defenestrate: How was that even possible???

Whatever it wasn't immediately valuable, so — to Yihak only ever — that made it a problem for later.

She scratched off another foiled dot.

Annnnd…! A dud? Damn, so they had that kind of outcome in Ghost Story scratch-offs too huh…

Again she scratched the next bit of foil and again there was only blankness staring back at her.

Ohhhh… These were the kind where you could only win one thing per card.

That made sense! After all, how were the Darkness lottery runners supposed to make any money themselves if they gave things away willy-nilly?

Her mind made-up, she moved to her Supervisor's desk and confiscated — yeah, confiscated! — that card for safekeeping. And then immediately started debating which circle to scratch-off.

Left-top or left-middle? Hmm….

Ah, fuck it!

She scratched off the bottom right circle on impulse instead and within seconds, the card had caught alight, sending the rest of the foil curling in the white-hot flames.

Argh- shit!

She almost dropped the card on instinct, but managed to chuck it into the giant stand mixer bowl instead of letting it ignite the office carpet.

…

It didn't seem to be melting through the bowl, but it also didn't seem to be going out any time soon…

Okay. So some better precautions should be taken before scratching her teammates ones next. She could do that!

She went around to the other three desks and repossessed the poor cards lying there — lonely and neglected cards — and brought them back to her desk. It was the closest one to the mixer, but… was that close enough to help?

After the spontaneous immolation from the last one, she decided probably it wasn't and climbed up the dials on the side of the mixer to sit on top of the arm above the bowl. That way all she had to do was let go of the card if it was dangerous and it'd fall into the bowl below! Much safer.

And don't get her wrong, safety was one of her biggest concerns! You can't be stinking rich if you're dead, you know?

But you can't be stinking rich if you're slow either, so…

She scratches of the central foil sticker on the first of her three new cards.

…

Nothing happens for a long moment and then some kind of blue… churro(???) pops out followed by what must be something like 10 kilolitres of aquamarine water like you'd see in the Bahamas. The pressure from the gush almost knocks her off her perch, but her desire to hold onto her new (but probably useless) bounty keeps her strong enough to stay secured.

Eventually the gushing abates, leaving the stand mixer bowl full and overflowing onto the office floor, the bright magnesium flame still burning happily at the bottom of the bowl. Curious. Could she sell that….? Hmm... A thought to explore later.

For now, she has two cards left and they're itching for a scratching, she can feel it!

A coin to the second one gives her a jade tablet engraved with some kind of mysterious pattern that hurts to look at for more than five seconds. But jade, jade is pretty valuable, so she might've just hit the jackpot! She slides the tablet into her suit pocket alongside the packaged churro thing and considers the final card.

She did say earlier that she would win at least once before encountering something truly dangerous. And while this latest prize does seem quite valuable, she only has one card left… surely it can't be too bad, right? She'd survived until now after all…

She regards the last scratch-off with wistful suspicion. That one could very well be her demise. One run of bad luck and she'd be sublimated into little particles of airborne Yihak without further fanfare.

But… she could also win big! It was entirely possible that this last scratch off was THE ONE that would make her billions all at once!

She had to try.

With renewed determination and a mind focused on money, she rubbed the foil off of the top-middle circle. A picture!! That was good! That meant it wasn't another dud!

… But what was that…? Some kind of… long-necked horse? Or perhaps…

Yihak turned the card upside down, but that gave no more clarity than she'd had before. She'd only just turned it right way up again when the truth was revealed.

Her supervisor, Ms. Giraffe, fell out from the ticket and into the deep pool of slowly boiling water.

Ah.

Well… You can't win 'em all!

Kang Yihak climbed off the mixer in record time and dashed out of the room before Giraffe could notice her up on her perch. At least she had the Jade!