[ WP ] A mysterious collectible trading card game grants people different super powers for each card owned . You have just recieved your first booster pack .

Billboards and flashing lights. Traffic sits at a standstill while moms rush from department store to department store. Every corner has a company man smoking a cigarette and a group of bored teens shuffling idly with their cellphones. If no one told you, you'd never see this place as a hub of the technologically advanced and of the occult. In this downtown district, between every alley there was some strange and unusual store. 
 
 You could buy a life sized giant squid blow up doll, if you wanted. That's what I came down for. I have a thing for squids. Although, today, like any other day, I was lost. Fishing out which particular store held niche good you wanted was n't easy. These shops did n't do enough business to afford niceties like signs or websites. I was too ashamed to ask any of the bored teenagers where to go. 
 
 So I made my through corridor and entryway, to each unmarked building as I strolled through the arcade. A store selling urns for crickets. A store selling used dishrags. A store selling unmarked trading cards. 
 
 A fan blew out into the street from the entry way. As I ducked around it I noticed this store had actually managed to draw an audience. An audience far more colorful than the people who stand on the street corners. There was business men, moms, and slackjawed teenages, but there was also children, street punks, and the elderly. All tearing savagery into boxes of these unmarked trading cards, like wolves to a carcass. 
 
 Each pack they opened caused immediate reaction in their faces. Some went pale as if they had seen death itself. For some their eyes rolled back in ecstasy. 
 
 I wandered over to the bar where the shop keep stood. Beneath the glass lay hundreds of these cards. I was n't familiar with any of them, but I did n't really play any card games anyway. However they all seemed to be from the same set. The shopkeepers' skin was withered and stretched tightly over his bones. Yet his face did n't match. His eyes were soft. His cheeks were gentle. He smiled with only the edges of his lips. 
 
 `` Are you looking for something?'' he inquired. 
 `` I'm just looking around'' having forgotten about the squid I was hunting for. 
 `` Do you play?'' he suggested more than he asked. 
 `` No, I do n't really know anything about it'' 
 
 His eyes went white. The curl at the edge of his lips exaggerated. He pushed a pack of ten cards towards me and nodded. I started sweating. I pushed the edges of the booster pack together and pull apart the glue in the middle, sliding the cards out gently through the hole. 
 
 The first card was holographic. Gold edges. It's title was `` Volcanic Heat''. As I read the title I could feel my body burning, although It did not hurt. I shuffled it to the back of the pack. The second card had silver edges. If the first one was rare then this must be one step down, I guessed. `` Quick Reflexes''. It was then I noticed the cards had no points, no damage or defense. 
 
 `` Is this one of those art games?'' I asked the shopkeep. 
 
 He just kept smiling and staring blankly. 
 
 I flipped quickly through the remaining cards. `` Extra arm'' `` Never spill'' `` Unbreakable toenails'' `` TV Channel Omniscience'' `` Talk to Sheep'' `` Permanent Buy One Get One Coupons'' `` Ambidextrous'' I guess that'll combo with my extra arm. With my newly grown arm, I held up the last card. `` Control over squids'' 
 
 I joyously skipped to the ocean. 
 
 

