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[attr="id","cerberuscol"]VINH (KEVIN) NGUYEN

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tiến lên. also known as thirteen, or killer. you shed your cards, strategically playing them until you have nothing left. sometimes you get a good hand; full of consecutive numbers, or a four in one.
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but sometimes you get a hand with only doubles, two of a kind. sometimes it puts you at a disadvantage. you and your brother, that's what you were. but that never stopped the two of you. it didn't stop you from sticking together, like peas in a pod. where you had made a mistake, your other half would pick it up. where your brother would need a favor, you would pick it up no problem. because that's how you were supposed to be.
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you knew that sometimes the doubles were good. sometimes everyone else would expend all their energy, and you could run laps around them while you played your two cards at a time, until you were done.
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it was fine. you guys were both fine, until they broke you apart.
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you were separated from your brother, and now you were alone in a sea of single cards. and in killer, that's the worst hand of them all.
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watching as people play their cards, they shed it all until there was no one left but you. you lost, in the end. without your brother, with a bad hand. your brother gets a better hand. in fact, he gets the four dragons; four of a kind of the highest cards. and he plays them in front of you, leaving you in the dust.
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you're put on a ship with a capable captain. but you're a single card, and you're floundering under the loss and pressure. you struggle. you lose.
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the ocean is a terrifying thing.
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finally, you get one last win. you lose yourself in the process.
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when you come back, you've...changed. for better or worse, you don't know. you feel bitter. the both of you now, you're part of a straight, a consecutive number. you're in a squad, together but separate. you don't know who's the higher number, and you don't really care.
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( all you know...is that you want to go back to being a pair. )