PICK A PLAYER

  180:00

  179:59

  179:58

  We’ve returned to the trial room, with a voting panel by my knees and set within the long wooden bar that circles the inner part of the chamber. One larger monitor displays the ticking clock, while the one across from it depicts a sleeping cat.

  The Goat, meanwhile, still “sleeps” by the column, but the rest of the room has been inexplicably cleaned. The Monkey’s corpse has vanished altogether, the circular bar is glistening with polish, and there’s only a few hints of brown coloring where the carnage took place on the floor.

  It takes another moment for the nine of us to process what’s happening; that we truly must repeat this until the game is done. The Dragon is the first to speak, judiciously raising a spiral notebook like some sort of gavel—I have to squint to see the name written on the label in swirling ink, but I discern that it’s Nozomi Tenku.

  ”The Rat found the Rooster’s notebook, the one she kept in her room. She wrote down every word, every rule, that the Cat God gave us on the broadcast and on our Cards too. And based on those written rules, today’s trial will be just as yesterday’s; we must seek the wolves who murdered the Rooster, and we must cast someone out.”

  `“But Dragon, how can we vote for someone when we don’t have any evidence?” says the Ox, scratching his head.

  “There was a lot of blood in that suite even if we didn’t find a body. Maybe if we search her room again…?” Lily murmurs. “But, no, we’re not allowed to leave the trial chamber until we all cast a vote—did anyone else see something?”

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  “I saw some blood!” the Tiger volunteers.

  “But all our clothes are clean.” I say. “And I’m not sure if someone really used a weapon to kill her, either. She might have died from an exploding collar… but that shouldn’t have eviscerated her body like that.”

  “The vents kept on clacking last night, making some kind of evil robot-like sound. Maybe they committed the murder—let’s ask if we can vote for the vents!” suggests the Horse.

  There’s stunned silence. It’s the kind of quiet that takes place when someone suggests either a brilliant idea, or something profoundly stupid. And then…

  “It’s all meaningless! We’re all going to die!” The Pig calls, clutching her keychain as if it were some Shinto charm. Her wincing posture shrivels into a full defensive shell.

  It’s true that we don’t have any real clues, so it’s hard to choose someone to vote for. But that’s a common mistake people make when playing Werewolf for the first time; they look for certainties rather than probabilities.

  The Rabbit stretches. Despite the cool air flowing through the room, she’s sweating, cream colored cotton sticking to skin. “Good morning… everyone.

  “Wolves. Are always thinking, ‘what would a villager think?’ ‘How do I get the villagers to like me?’ ‘How can I avoid getting caught?’ Villagers can just say what they want. Do what they want. Wolves hesitate. Wolves talk weird. We can find them both. If we just stop and think ”

  Then she collapses again, for a well-deserved nap.

  The Rabbit’s absolutely correct. Wolves have a different perspective on the game, so as time passes, they either reveal themselves through strange statements or exaggerated manners while struggling to camouflage themselves.

  As for the most unnatural person up until now…

  If someone had asked me yesterday, I would have said it was the Horse, who sits directly on my left hand side. She’s always smiling, always bouncing on her heels—a high-energy, ponytailed sunbeam in a tracksuit who is completely incongruous to a grimdark “Mafia Death Game” like this one.

  But today… of the nine students hunched at the wooden bar—

  “There’s only one answer!” the Tiger interrupts. She jumps from her chair onto the table, pat-pat-patting as she steps there—she’s not even wearing socks!

  “Y’know who’s sketchy as hell? That nerd dork the Pig!” the Tiger points and stabs. “Her vote for me kept me awake all night! I was tossing, turning, thinking about how she wanted to see my guts splattered all over the stage just like those two corpses!”

  “B-but you said that you wouldn’t take the game personally. So I thought, I might, as a way to vote for no one —”

  “I don’t take it personally. I don’t take it personally at all,” interrupts the other, fiercer girl. There’s a kindness on her face, like a teacher giving a lesson to a troublesome student. “Anyone who takes shots at the Tiger no matter who they are—gets fucking shot!”

  The Pig flinches and cowers, as if the finger the Tiger jabs at her really is a gun.

  “Please wait! We don’t have to vote based on intuition, alone. The village has a role that gathers information too! The seer can lead the village and tell us who the wolves are.”

  Lily calls out and looks around the circle, waiting to see if someone will speak. With just three people dead, already this room to me feels empty, with a big gap between Lily and the Horse. Even the body of the Monkey and the blood Goat have themselves disappeared.

  Moreover, just a handful of players have the strong presence and self-possession required to take control of the room. The Dragon is always prepared to take the lead, while Lily speaks her conscience. But of the others, the Tiger exudes more rage than reason, the Pig seems a nervous wreck, the Rabbit’s always snoozing and the two athletes somehow seem to struggle with the rules of this new game.

  That sums up just about everyone important, I think to myself, as the Rat rises up from his chair. That suspicious, shifty-eyed brat answers Lily’s request.

  “That’s right, Dog—the Seer should say their role. Do you have any idea who the seer could be, Snake? Might it be you?”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “I just had a feeling that you could be one. Then… I’m guessing you’re not seer?”

  While the Rat’s face is dry, dull, and blemished, his green eyes hold a malevolent spark. He shows his teeth as both a threat and a smile.

  I am not! Though the Rat wants me to pretend that I am, to confound the wolves and trick them into targeting a useless villager.

  I glance at Lily, who is fidgeting with her hair-tie. The trouble with his plan is that I don’t consider myself a useless villager, not anymore; it’s not my place yet to die.

  After my long silence, the Rat sighs, then presses his palm to his face so that I just barely see his eyes through the gaps in his fingers. “I’m happy you answered that way because, everybody, I’m actually the seer guy.”

  “That’s wonderful! Can you share what you learned last night? It’ll help us make some deductions,” says Lily, and then—

  “Heh.”

  “Rat…?”

  “Heh, heh, heh. It’s interesting you would say that, because I don’t have any news that’d be new to you.” He flicks off his hood, long hair sticking out everywhere; the screen’s snoozing Cat God is groomed far better than he. And yet. And yet.

  The Ox tenses, neck bulging. The Horse stops bouncing her leg. The Pig exhales in a long whispery sigh. The Tiger claws more lines into her place at the table, the Rabbit rouses herself, flopping up instead of down. And the Dragon opens the Rooster’s book, armed with a ballpoint pen and ready to write.

  The Zodiac mural painted into the ceiling’s high dome almost seems to glow. The trial chamber becomes the hall of a church, with the Rat as the preacher, the pastor, the fiery parishioner condemning a sinner to hell with just a few curt words.

  “Last night I checked the Dog. She’s sided with the wolves.”