Twas the night before Christmas—and the prison gates slammed shut behind him for the last time.
Freedom hit harder than the sentence ever did. The air felt too wide, too cold, too full of decisions he didn’t trust himself to make. He drifted through the streets in clothes that weren’t quite his, gripping a cheap phone and the $200 in gate money they’d pressed into his palm like an afterthought.
By nightfall, he sat alone in a narrow rented room. Snow whispered against the window. Somewhere out there, families were laughing, glasses clinking, heaters humming. In here—nothing. No calls to make. No tree. No gifts. Just silence… and the itch he knew too well.
He unlocked the phone.
Stake. Deposit. $200.
Dice loaded.
First rolls—careful. Respectful. Like he was knocking on an old friend’s door.
Then the rhythm crept back in.
Increase on loss.
Chase the streak.
Convince himself the next roll would clean the past.
Minutes bled into hours. The balance jumped to $800, his heart racing. Then it collapsed—$40. Panic. Sweat. One more push. Somehow, impossibly, it clawed back to $200.
He didn’t cash out. Not yet. Not on this night.
The room stayed dark except for the glow of the screen. Frost filmed the glass. When he finally looked up, the clock glared back:
11:30 p.m.
He stopped the auto-bet. Stared at the frozen numbers. The silence pressed in.
“First Christmas as a free man…” he whispered, voice cracking,
“…and I’m right back in a cell I built myself.”
For the first time in years, he closed the app.
No last roll.
No miracle bet.
The $200 stayed where it was—small, fragile, but alive.
Outside, church bells began to ring, slow and distant. He pulled the thin blanket tighter around his shoulders and listened. For once, he didn’t feel the need to escape the moment.
Tomorrow might feel different.
Maybe next Christmas there would be more than a balance on a screen.
Maybe.
Ankurj690