Excerpt: That One Door That Leads to Places

They all stared blankly down at the things they held in their hands. Everything seemed hopeless, and they already knew the outcome, and it was extremely bleak. This couldn’t go right, this could never go right. This was horrible, terrible, downright dreadful.
Mercury threw down her cards in disgust. “God damnit.”
Ryan shook his head. “Psh. Pass.”
Amanda just glared and muttered to herself.
Wolfram grinned maniacally. “Zat means zat I vin!”
“You kidding me? Again?” Amanda sighed and dropped her cards as well.
Ryan let out something in between a growl and a whine, picking up all the cards and shuffling.
“Vone more game?”
“Wolfram,” Mercury grumbled. “We’ve been playing for ‘n hour ‘nd you’ve won ev’ry game. The answer’s no.”
Wolfram hung his head, looking sorely disappointed. “Not like zere’s anything else to do. Zis town is as lively as a graveyard.”
“I disagree,” Amanda chimed in. “I think the graveyard is livelier.”
“Betcha they’re partyin’.” Mercury nodded knowingly, as if she’d seen the skeletons down at the end of the town having a dance off and drinking until their nonexistent livers failed and they died again, only to come back the next night and repeat the process. She smiled to herself. “Well, there’s always going on ‘n ‘dventure.”
“Well, we haven’t checked for new worlds in a while…” Ryan put the deck of cards away, brow ruffled in thought. “Feh, why not?”
Wolfram jumped up dramatically from the diner table. The workers there were used to it by that time—with next to nothing to do in that town (after years of traveling to different worlds, it gets a bit old), they oft went there. Moe’s Diner was inexpensive, welcoming, and half the workers were people they know from school anyways. Even Amanda worked there when she was running low on cash.
Ryan stood, and Mercury hopped onto his back. Getting comfortable, she pointed towards the exit. “Onwards!”