Casinos are bad for you

To avoid confusion, I have been living in Germany for a while now, where casinos can be compared to arcades, just with slot machines instead of actual games.

A few years ago, I accepted a job at a Casino in my hometown during my summer holidays. It was a very small, low-budget casino, with 8 slot machines in a neon-lit room. I was supposed to change money, watch the people who were playing in order to check whether they were manipulating the machines or not, while also serving snacks and drinks as well as filling up the machines whenever someone won a big amount of money. The job was great at first, due to my chef only assigning me to the night shift, I didnt need to set an alarm clock and whenever there were no customers, I was allowed to use my phone to my heart's content.
There werent many customers, but those who did end up in the Casino were mostly regulars. You wouldnt believe how different each of them was to one another.

While some of them were very social people, nice, talkative and all in all nice to be around, some others were rather grumpy, hateful even. Some would enter and immediately greet everyone by name; others would quietly come in, wave their Banknotes at me and impatiently look at me while I changed their money. And then there were the weird customers, the kind of weird that made me feel uneasy whenever they were around. To be more specific, They were 3 men, with incredibly dark Eye bags, dirty but weirdly expensive looking suits and extremely unattended, greasy hair.

They showed up together every night at 00:30 am, went to the counter and just stared at me, with two of them displaying no facial expression at all, while one of them ever so subtly smiled at me, with his lips just barely forming a smile. After about 5 minutes, the smiling one usually pulled out 5 Euros and slowly slid them over until they fell to the ground on my side of the counter.
At first, they scared the shit out of me, to the point where I wanted to throw them out, but out of fear they would "act up", I decided to just change their money and hope for them to go away as fast as possible. Whenever they received their change, they would go to the nearest unoccupied slot machine, have one of them play while the other 2 watched. They always played until there was no money left, no matter how much money they won with each round.

Whenever I left my counter to clean up machines that had just been left, they would immediately stop playing and resume looking at me, breathing heavier whenever I came closer. After a few days, however, I became used to it, and while they still made me feel uneasy, I wasnt necessarily scared of them anymore, they never really did anything and left as soon as their money was gone.
However, everything changed on the 22nd of July, my birthday. My boss had a rough time dealing with the shift schedule, as there were only 3 other employees, of which 2 were unable to work at the time, so I decided to work the nightshift on that day as well. Just like before, around 00:30 am, the 3 weird customers showed up, this time, however, all 3 of them were smiling at me, and for the first time since I took the job, I heard them speak. "Today is your birthday, friend. Isnt that right? It is right, is it? Brother is that right?" The far left one said with a raspy, deep voice and the one right next to him, who had been smiling at me every day before, answered with a very weak, almost whispering tone :" Oh yes, brother, it is his birthday, indeed! Its his birthday and we have a great gift, isnt that right, brother? ", and the one on the far right replied with a voice that could easily mistaken by that of an anchorman:" Oh of course, dear brother, our gift is great, a great gift for a great birthday, and a great birthday for a great man, isnt that right? ".
At this point, the other two were just nodding their heads, while the one on the far right went from a grin to an expressionless face again. He then walked to a nearby slot machine, leaving the other 2 at the counter. I was extremely unnerved at that point, I never expected them to ever break the pattern they had followed the days before, and the fact they somehow knew about my birthday didnt exactly make me feel better, either.

While I was still trying to comprehend the situation, I suddenly started to hear a blood curdling scream, and following that, a series of loud thuds. The 2 men at the counter started making sounds that, with a little bit of imagination, almost could be interpreted as laughter while I moved my head to the direction of whatever was making that noise. I couldnt do anything but scream when I saw a .."mass" of hands forming a tentacle of some sort by holding on to each other coming out of the slot machines coin-box grabbing one of the regulars and smashing their head onto the machine, each time producing a meaty sound coming from the masses` movements and the customers head. He was visibly terrified, trying to release himself from its grip by wildly moving around and finally biting it, which led the amalgam of hands to bleed a thick, gooey substance which then seeped into the poor guys ears, eyes, mouth and nose. In reaction to that, he simply started flailing around in panic, his attempts to scream where futile from then on as the liquid seemed to muffle his voice noticably.

The amalgam then simply held him upside down by his legs until he went limp and got dropped to the ground as the hands separated from each other and individually scurried into all directions as if they were spiders. I started to back off and cower in the corner as I heard more and more thuds, splashing, tapping and screaming while the 2 men were still peaking at me from the counter, with their goddamn smiles.

After a few moments, which passed by in what felt like an eternity, everything was silent. I was anticipating to end up just like the customers I had seen and heard before, but that didnt happen, instead, the third man came back to join his 2 brothers, faced me and said: " Dont worry, that wasnt all of it, theres still good things to come! You liked it so far, didnt you? Of course you did, everyone would, its amazing, its magnificent, its simply beautiful. You agree, right? Yes, you do."
I couldnt do anything but whimper, not even a scream could come out of me, as I looked into their faces. They kept looking, until the one in the middle said:" Well, come on, stand up, you cant see properly from there." In fear of being harmed, I complied with his demand and stood up. I almost threw up when I took a look behind the counter, mangled bodies were strewn all over the floor and the slot machines were dented and smeared with a disgusting mixture of chunky blood, black liquid and a dozen of fingers that had apparently been bitten off of that.. thing by its victims.

"You see, this kind of masterpiece is something only fine artists like us could ever hope to create." said the left one of the brothers. ,,Oh yes, yes, and we believe you might be of the same caliber! What am I saying, we might be Picassos in our expertise, but you could be a Da Vinci! Dont you want to be an artist as well? We think you could do amazing work! All you need to do is to accept our gift, and join our family!" Said the right one. "Of course he wants to be an artist. Theres no doubt, just look at him, hes made for this, oh hes so magnificent, surely hell be a good brother!" The one in the middle said, while the other 2 started nodding wildly. "What are you talking about? This... this isnt art, this is a nightmare." Was what I would have liked to say, but what instead came out was a sad attempt to even open my mouth in the first place. The 3 brothers suddenly went back to their usual, emotionless face expression and kept staring at me for a few seconds and finally left the casino. When I tried to grab my phone in order to call the police, I came to realize that the casino suddenly looked like nothing had happened before. No more corpses, no more blood, no black substance. I wouldnt have believed any of this had actually happened, had I not found a seperated fingerin my bag that night. I immediately quit the job the next day and didnt leave my apartment for as long as I could. The terrifying imagery I had been exposed to that day left me not only restless, but completely and utterly terrified.

There was noone I could have talked to, noone who could help me. Only one thought managed to keep me even remotely sane..."They believe I could be part of them.". In other words, if they were still looking out for me, I could join them and atleast survive.
I wasnt actually going to write about this in the first place, as I was finally starting to forget about it, but today, Ive met one of my ex co-workers, and when we started talking about my time there, she mentioned that my 3 brothers had visited and asked her for my whereabouts, as they wanted to bring me a gift that I had forgotten last time we met.
I dont know what I can or will do.