5. Doomsayer

The Dragon had given up.

The Dragon hadn’t given up because of what the Tiger had said, but because the voting screen before us had changed.

PICK A PLAYER

Two bright red Xs had slashed through any last hope for life. But though the Goat’s time had run out, we still had thirty minutes left for ourselves, or rather twenty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds… twenty-nine minutes and fifty-eight.

The tall, handsome boy holds his head in his hands, fingers laced through his hair. Then he runs his palm across his face, dragging it over his remorseful look and until it rests underneath his chin.

“I’d usually take the lead in a situation like this, but I’d rather not discuss voting for someone to ‘die’ at the moment. I’m sorry.”

29:30

29:29

29:28

Eleven people in a room together, and all of them are silent. But the reason everyone fails to speak is different.

The Dragon struggles just to keep his head aloft. The Tiger, on the other hand, keeps nodding as if to some invisible music; her eyes are narrowed and her smirk is gone, but her manic energy has returned.

My classmate Lily leans forward, listening for fresh speakers, eyes full of care. At least, so I assume her eyes look that way—I can’t quite bear to look at her directly. Meanwhile, the Rooster scritches notes with her back ramrod straight, automaton-like, until she’s finally finished.

The Dragon, the Tiger, the Rooster, and Lily. If the silence of those four had a voice—what a paradox that would be!—then it would be saying, “if someone else wants to lead the conversation, now’s your chance.”

Meanwhile the Rabbit, the Ox, the Horse and the Pig all wear clueless expressions and hold between them a full spectrum of anxious energy. The Rabbit anxiously dozes off, while the Pig is trembling with her arms around her crumpled chest and stomach. The Ox and the Horse wear looks of forced confidence. They might be used to stressful situations, as athletes… though this Werewolf Game is less a sports event and more a gladiator battle.

The Rat and Monkey are reticent.

When someone grins, their eyes crinkle and fold. The Monkey and the Rat are expressionless, and the Rat stays slouched, making himself seem small. But though this pair shows no outward sign of happiness, their smiling eyes give them away. Even in this situation they’re confident; their quiet chosen rather than helpless.

Then there’s me. I’m thinking about whether or not I should speak.

“I don’t mind if you vote for me.” I would say something like that. Or should I phrase it like this instead?

“If we have to vote for someone to check if this death game’s real, then that person should be me.”

Yes, that might be a better way to put it.

If everyone votes for me, there are two things that could happen. Either I stay alive, and I can happily watch this Mafia game unfold as a spectator. Or I die, efficiently and perhaps painlessly at the hands of whatever this organization’s “execution” method might be. Since I’m happy with both prospects, it’s the perfect way to “win” this game.

Yet I can’t bring myself to speak. Maybe it’s because Lily’s here too, tapping her pencil, twintails tumbling out of sight under the desk. In that moment, to me, she’s beautiful, because I can read her lips and “hear” what she’s muttering under her breath.

How to keep hope? How to keep everyone safe?

We lock eyes.

Face flushing, I desperately flick my gaze to the next chair over, where the Rooster’s paging again through her notebook. The glasses-wearing girl folds her hands.

“Before the day’s end each player must vote for someone other than themselves. The sole player who receives a plurality or majority of votes, dies. These are the rules of this…

‘Werewoof,’ the Rooster murmurs. “But multiple players can die if they fail to submit their vote before time’s up. How should we move forward? The game has officially started, so I’ll open up the floor.”

Coughing. I force my mouth to open, but only chokes and coughs emerge. It’s the faces that make me halt my speech, the judgment that will color their expressions once I am understood. But finally, by staring at the cold marble ceiling and letting that image fill my mind, I’m able to mumble some words.

“I have an idea. What if one person asks everyone to vote for her? We don’t fully understand yet what ‘execution’ means, right?” I say.

“That’d be fan fucking tastic,” the Tiger’s face lights up. “But who would be crazy enough to risk offing themselves? “

“I wouldn’t call myself ‘crazy’, but I think that I… I…”

24:30

24:29

24:28

Before I can finish, a clear voice cuts through mine. It’s diamond-like: sharp and filled with an unmatched clarity.

“There’s a way for everyone to survive today, isn’t there?” says Lily. “The rules say the sole person with a majority of votes dies. So we’ll just make it so that there’s no such single person. If we all vote for the person to our left, that would be a tie, 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. Then we’d end the day and survive to whatever they call night.”

“That’s brilliant, Dog!” The Dragon says. “We can postpone any deaths, if there must be deaths, until later. As long as everyone agrees we can work as a team and get through this crisis.”

“But what if someone lies and votes the ‘Tiger’, huh? Then I’d just fucking die!” the delinquent says, and at this the Rooster shakes her head.

“Votes are public. So if anyone strays from this plan, we can execute them tomorrow. We could just follow this voting chart…”

Tie Vote Plan (as written by the Rooster)

“The Dragon votes the Snake, the Snake votes for the Horse… so on and so forth in one big circle. That’s all,” Rooster concludes.

Eleven students share a sealed-off room. The door, heavy mahogany, is locked with its hinges on the other side. There are no windows and though the timer on screen says it’s daytime, the sun could have set and risen again and we never would have known. But despite the chamber’s closed-off nature, something had snuck in, ghost-like that wasn’t there before. I can just barely see the faint outline of Hope.

But with just a few words that spirit is swiftly exorcized. And that exorcist is a short, bespectacled, sweater-vested, slightly sweaty brunette boy with a voice that sounds like a trumpet.

“Um, I object.”

It’s what’s-his-face, the Monkey. “I’ve played a lot of Mafia before and going along with this plan would be absolutely incorrect. We’re ignoring a huge penalty for having a tied vote.”

“Nothing we’re doing is against the rules,” the Dragon objects, and as he peers down at his personal Card. I check mine. The rules are about three swipes long…

GAME RULES

1. The game begins after the host announces that the game has officially started.

2. Then, three living players will be assigned the roles of wolves. The rest will be villagers.

3. During the day, all players will vote for another player.

4. The sole player with the most votes will be terminated from the game.

5. At 2:00AM during the night, the wolves will vote for another player.

6. The sole player with the most wolf votes will be terminated.

7. The villagers win when all wolves are terminated.

8. The wolves win when they outnumber or equal the villagers

ROLE RULES

1a. After the first day, one surviving villager will be given the role of seer.

1b. The seer will select a player at 1:00AM every night, and learn whether they’re a wolf or a villager.

2a. One surviving villager will be given the role of healer.

2b. The healer will select a player at 1:30AM every night. If the wolves later select that player, that player will not be terminated.

CODE OF CONDUCT

1. Players who fail to vote before time is up will be punished with death.

2. Players who say their own name will be punished with death.

3. Players whose roles are shown will be punished with death.

4. Players who cause other players to be unable to vote will be punished with death.

5. Players who attempt to remove their collars will be punished with death.

6. Players who fail to abide by curfew or the schedule

6. Violence against the host will be punished with death.

6. Causing rule paradoxes or conflicts will be punished with death.

7. All other conduct is permitted during the game.

“As written,” the Dragon says. “A tie vote will likely just end the trial, with the wolves then choosing who to kill at night. So unless I’m reading a different set of rules, the Dog’s plan is perfectly sound.”

“But what I refer to isn’t a penalty from the Cat God, or the gamemakers,” the Monkey argues as he gazes up at the mural of Zodiac constellations overhead. “What I refer to is a penalty from the game itself.”

“Spit it out,” the Tiger says. “Tell these idiots why they’re wrong!”

“You can’t rush genius,” he declares, as the Tiger pouts. The silence in this council room becomes louder, somehow.

20:12

20:11

20:10

“...Here’s a puzzle. Let’s say that the villagers vote someone at every opportunity, killing another player every time they can. And let’s say that the wolves manage to kill someone every single night as well. How many times can the town vote incorrectly before they lose?” Monkey asks.

The Horse, the athletic girl in a ponytail, perks up unexpectedly. “Oh, I can do this one! It’s just a counting problem!

“Eleven to ten players during the first day with a village vote… then ten to nine on the first night, after the wolves kill. Nine to eight on the second day… Eight to seven on the second night. Then seven to six on the third day and we would lose! We’d vote three times in all.”

“Yes, that’s just about right,” the Monkey affirms. “More precisely, we’d be able to vote wrong twice before losing, because if we vote wrong a third time there would be three wolves, three villagers, and condition eight would be fulfilled. But Horse, have you thought about what happens if we decide to vote for no one today? How many times can we vote wrong afterwards before we lose?”

“Eleven to ten, first night. Ten to nine, second day. Nine to eight, second night. Eight to seven, second day. Seven to six, third night—oh! that’s one less time!”

The Monkey smirks. “You see? If we follow the tie plan, we give up a ‘free execution’ for the villagers. Voting for someone now gives us more opportunities to flush out the wolves, and with eleven people executing at every opportunity is 100 percent optimal.”

“We did it!” The Horse claps. “We solved the game!”

The smack resonates throughout the wide hall, bouncing off the ceilings and walls and the circular bar. But no one else joins her applause.

“Let’s say that we do follow your plan,” the Dragon says. “There’s one thing you’ve left missing. Who do we vote for?”

“Oh… that’s right. Who do we vote for?” the Horse repeats, finger on her chin. There are eleven players left alive—the Horse, the Monkey, the Rooster, Lily, the Pig, the Rat, the Ox, the Tiger, the Rabbit, the Dragon, and me. The Cat God is gone, but the timer continues to tick, and for me, the room’s details come sharply into focus.

The domed ceiling isn’t black—as I’ve said, it’s a mural, painted a dark color with white specks that are supposed to be stars. If one were to trace each constellation, perhaps there’d be the full Zodiac there, though I don’t have enough knowledge of astronomy to say. A “prop gun” also watches us from the heavens, but its laughably poor maintenance makes it seem more and more likely that it’s real.

The circle we’re sitting around is more like an oval, which I also find somehow irritating, and the 3D cat mascot “sleeps’” on one of the large screens surrounding us. The wood counter in front of me is polished to perfection, and I witness myself everywhere I look, the screens, the counter, the ceiling, reflections, reflections, reflections of my dark circled eyes and long frayed hair. The only place I don’t see myself is where the Rabbit’s seated, as she’s drooped and smushed herself over the countertop in front of her, completely ignoring her chair.

The chairs themselves are cushioned with wide armrests. They feel to me much more like thrones, but this small comfort can’t stop my rising panic. I don’t like this. I don’t like where this is going at all!

“Who to vote? The long answer is that in a normal parlor game of Mafia, we’d want to avoid killing the ‘cop’ or the ‘doctor’ roles, which is what they call the seer and the healer here. But unlike in Mafia, these roles are assigned only to survivors of the first day—there’s no need to be cautious,” the Monkey says. ‘So my short answer is anybody. We could decide to kill you—”

He points at the Horse, whose expression changes from smug to shocked.

“Or you—”

He points at the Pig who flinches even as her body trembles.

“Or you!”

At the other end of his index finger is Lily.

“Lily…? Kill Lily?” I mutter again. I don’t like him.

“I’m saying we need to kill an ‘animal,’ not a plant, Snake.” Monkey huffs.

“Are you saying to kill Lily—to kill the Dog?” I snap back.

“Mathematically it’s all the same, so absolutely yes.”

Mathematically it may be the same, but personally it’s not. I can’t have Lily die in this mock courtroom; I have to think. I could still always sacrifice myself, but—

“—But if we’re looking at things mathematically, then you could say my vote tying plan has the numbers on its side too! Though rather than being supported by logic, it’s supported by a majority of people.” Lily’s voice rings out clear and true.

Lily’s expression is the same as when we first met a year ago: self-satisfied, but hard to hate. Because what she’s so proud about is how she stands up for others, while holding much more courage than one could imagine lying within that slight frame.

“I’ll prove it to you! Raise your hand if you’re in favor of my tied-vote plan!”

Lily raises hers high in the air. The Horse puts her hand up, lowers it, and raises it again, and the Rabbit does a strange half flop before giving up. Only the Dragon votes steadily the whole time.

“Just four votes for it and eight votes against?!” Lily staggers, and the Monkey attacks:

“It seems that you have neither math nor the numbers on your side. Now, can we please choose someone to kill?”

“But, but if we can all survive together, I think we should—”

Lily trails off. She, of all people, looks like she’s almost in tears. And why?

She already has all the skills needed to survive this game. She’s smart, but not the smartest, she’s strong, but not the strongest, and that’s all she needs to lead this village and to avoid being killed by the wolves at night.

And when she wins, she’ll return home—to family, a circle of friends she herself created, a bright future, and a path that she forged herself.

So why should she start sobbing? And even though her eyes are still dry, why am I the one that still feels wounded most?

I’m sure that there are a few people you are close to in your life that you have never seen cry; can you imagine them now?

Then you’ll understand the anxious tension I have in my heart that forces me to speak, though I still think she’s dreaming nonsense.

“Wait, please. If you object to the tied-vote plan… please raise your hand.”

In any vote determined by a show of hands, everyone starts with their hands at their sides. It’s silly, but this means that there’s huge peer pressure for a person to keep their hands down in a group, so whoever asks the question will typically lose.

Sure enough, for this question… just the Monkey raises his hand.

“Shall we say then that it’s ten votes in favor and one vote against?” I smile, and then the Tiger huffs:

“Count me as against. But I’m not strongly against it. I just want to know who to vote for when the clock ticks down!”

14:01

14:00

13:59

Time seems to pass faster and faster, but the Dragon is calm and self-possessed. He has the poise of a president, I think—a class president of course, because he’s only around seventeen. Then he blinks his sea colored eyes and calmly folds his fingers into a loose fist.

“We haven’t made any progress. We need unanimous agreement for the tie plan to work—otherwise, The Monkey could just vote for someone like the Tiger in secret, and then she would die.”

At this the Tiger begins frothing.

“—so we’ll compromise,” Lily says then. “We’ll vote however we want. But we’ll just tell one another who we’re voting for first. If the Monkey wants to break our trust, he can do that right in front of us.”

10:20

10:19

10:18

10:17

Clap.

10:16

Clap.

10:15

“Hmm?”

10:14

Clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

Hoodie boy breaks into an easy grin, and speaks in a hoarse, smirking, voice. Like a pest that scuttles across a rug, while his speech is quiet it cannot be ignored.

“Going around in a circle one by one, with each player saying their vote. Heh, that’s quite a clever plan,” says the Rat.

“It’s an honest one,” Lily says.

“...Is that all? Well, I’ll go ahead and ‘help’ you. I’ll say my vote first and we’ll go clockwise from there. If we really are tying votes today, and the plan is that we all vote to our left, then that means I’ll be voting for the Ox. Next?”

The Ox flicks his fingers so one is shaped in an ‘L’ and the other an inverted ‘⅃.’ “I guess I’ll vote… the Tiger.”

“Huh!? Me!? But… I guess if it’s for the tied vote plan, I won’t take it personally.” She bares her teeth. “Then I’ll vote for the Rabbit.”

“Dragon,” the Rabbit murmurs.

“Snake,” says the Dragon.

“...Horse,” I say, and the Horse’s ponytail flips as she whips her head towards an empty chair.

“There, there’s no one to my left?”

“That would have been the Goat, but he’s resting on one of the columns now. Heh, heh, heh…” the Rat laughs at the Horse’s confusion.

“By a column? Oh!”

The Horse’s eyes widen and the blood drains from her face. The Rat had dragged the corpse into the shadows of the vast room, propping him against a marble pillar that’s also been carved with symbols of feral animals. While the Goat’s eyes are shut, his neck;s skewing at an unnatural angle that conveys anything but peaceful sleep.

The Horse speaks again brightly, in a voice, sun-like, that will never quite lose its luster. “Right! That! I’ll—I’ll vote the way I’m supposed to instead! The way—the vote—the tie, yes, we’ll do that! It’ll be great, yes, by that I will— I said, I’m saying that—

“I mean, in the case that—so we can all survive today, it would be great for me to pick the person who—in the plan, that’s right! Yes, the plan—everything will be okay. I’ll just, what I want to do, all I need to do is—”

“Shut up.”

If the Horse’s tone is like the sun, the Monkey’s is like the ocean. Corrosive, salty, eroding at the edges of people’s patience.

“Shut up! I understand what you’re trying to say. You’ll be voting for me, right? Then the Rooster will say she’s voting for the Dog… the Dog will say she’s voting for the Pig… and so on and so forth, all down the chain. That’s what you’d want me to think, you Dog, you.”

“What do you mean, ‘want you to think?’” Lily furrows her brow.

“Hahaha,” the Rat says instead. “Guess he got us. We might have to kill someone today after all.”

“But there’s nothing to ‘get us for’ in the first place! Could you please tell me what you’re talking about? We just want everyone to survive?”

“Don’t play dumb. I bet you were thinking something like ‘if we just know who the Monkey is voting for, we can force a tie no matter what,’” Monkey continues. “But you’d change your vote depending on what I say. For example if I put a second vote on the Tiger, then you could just put a second vote on the Pig. That’d be a 2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 tie to ‘save the day.’

“Too bad I’m going to do what’s best for town even if they don’t deserve it. Here’s my vote: it’ll be one of the Rabbit, the Dragon, or the Dog. I’ll vote at random for one of those three, so feel free to join me.

“Oh, but if you collude openly to put two votes on someone else to stop me, then I might vote for that person instead. We will kill someone today. I refuse not to.”

8:46

8:45

8:44

Of course.

8:43

I’ve always felt…

8:42

…that something like this would happen to me.

8:41

It’s destiny, I think.

“If we have to vote for someone, then everyone should vote for me,” I declare.

“But Snake, would a wolf ever volunteer to be killed? No… it’s better to vote for someone who resists,” says the Monkey, and my head starts to ache.

Why is it that no matter the situation, I end up like this? Without control over how the future unfolds, without even a chance to decide how it ends? I talk and talk but it’s as if when I open my mouth I don’t make a sound.

“Since the Dog’s plan favors the wolves, it’s optimal to vote for her. If we all want to come to an agreement,” Monkey says.

“Hold on! We shouldn’t give up on my tie plan so easily.”

“Then feel free to make a suggestion if you have any thoughts on who to kill instead. This is an open forum and as long as someone dies, it’s a great start for the village,” The Monkey folds up his glasses, crosses his legs, and puts his dress shoes up on the table.

And everyone else—from the sleepy “Rabbit,” to the majestic “Dragon,” the scruffy “Rat,” the energetic “Horse,” the musclebound “Ox,” the studious “Rooster,” the nervous “Pig” and the loyal “Dog” eye one another with great suspicion. I look down.

Lily believes that all lives are equally valuable. The Monkey believes that all lives are equally worthless.

But what I’ve learned, what I believe right now, is that all lives are not the same, that some lives are as precious as stardust and others as common as sand. How can the Monkey be so arrogant, to throw away the stardust and keep all the sand?

How can he throw Lily away to keep me? Anger swallows my sadness and coils over my heart. Both in a classroom and outside it, I’m absolutely worthless. I know that!

But this isn’t real life. As the Monkey says, it’s Mafia now. And when it comes to Mafia, I can betray the world’s expectations. I can be smart, clever, fierce, effective, hard-working, and every other word that is normally denied to me.

Maybe I am a Snake, after all.

“I have a suggestion.”

“Go on, Snake,” says the smarmy boy.

“If we’re going to vote for the most suspicious person, then isn’t that persson you?”

The timer beeps, beeps, and nobody speaks. Then the Monkey puts on his tortoiseshell frames, fixes his feet to the floor, and sighs. “Touche. But since I engineered a plan that favors the village, it’s obvious that I’m part of it. If I were a wolf, I’d just have stayed silent instead.”

I clasp my hand over my mouth. “I see. Of course, I just had a feeling… maybe I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

I’m smirking behind that hand.

“Yes, yes,” the Monkey says, as I bite my palm. It tastes like salt and sweetmeats. I’m biting it because I have to stop myself from laughing, because based on the boy’s frame of mind I know that I’ve already won.

The Pig is a wide-eyed girl with wavy brown hair and chewed cuticles. She’s of average shape and build, though it’s hard to tell exactly because she’s always shaking, trembling, or wrapping her body between her arms. She squeezes out some words:

“I’m not saying we should vote for anyone, but… the Monkey is a little aggressive.”

“That’s true. I don’t like how he keeps pointing fingers,” says the Ox as he juts out his jaw.

“Let’s vote for him!” the Horse shouts.

That’s right. Even though the Monkey might understand how to play Mafia with veterans, he doesn’t understand how to play well amongst rookies like these.

Rather than a theory or a math problem, every name that’s passed his lips was seen as a violent personal attack, a dagger flung at someone else—an attempted murder. And if this is what it takes to protect Lily, I’m prepared to throw the final knife.

“Oh? It seems we’re almost out of time, so why don’t we make things simple? Let’s make this a vote between you and me… I have such a strong feeling you’re Wolf that I’m willing to put my life on the line.”

“Fine!” the Monkey says. He’s standing, pushing so hard on his glasses that the bridge of his nose is turning white. “I accept—if you insist on acting so erratically, you’re just a liability. Vote between the village leader and that mangy Snake girl.”

“NO!” Lily shouts. “Aren’t we friends? Didn’t we just try to escape together and save the Goat’s life? We have enough time to come up with something, anything…!”

3:50

3:55

3:54

“If we vote between the two of you, we can just split the vote evenly! Me, the Snake, the Dragon, the Horse, and then—”

“Lily, that’s just not possible. Not everyone can survive,” I say softly, and the timer ticks its last.

1:32

1:31

1:30

I’m shaking. I’m shaking so much I almost press the wrong button. This is what I wish for; this is who I want to perish.

PICK A PLAYER

“Remember to submit your votes,” the Rooster says. “You’ll be penalized if you forget.” She tucks her pen behind her ear; there’s nothing left for her to write.

The screen flickers and changes.

Votes processing… done!

Receiving 0 votes each…

Receiving 1 vote from the Pig…

“What the fuck? You got a death wish, Pig?!”

“But, but, when the Ox said he’d vote for you… you said you wouldn’t take it personally… so I thought I’d…”

“You thought you’d pick a fight? Is that it? Huh? Huh?”

The Tiger flashes her middle finger, but our eyes are glued on the screen.

Receiving 4 votes from the Dog, Monkey, the Rat and the Tiger…

“It can’t be…” says a breathless voice. Yet the results scroll mercilessly on.

Receiving 7 votes from the Dragon, Horse, Rooster, Rabbit, Ox, and Snake…

The Monkey blinks at the screen, then slams his desk. “Seriously? This is game throwing. Gamethrowing!

…Morons, idiots, imbeciles, dimwits, fools! If you guys won’t respect this game, then I won’t either!” He pulls something from his pocket with a flourish.

“Wait, Monkey—” the Dragon starts. “Quick, someone pull him down!”

What’s that shadow in his palm? A knife? A gun? No… it’s something square and bright and rectangular. Its screen shows a pulsing symbol of what appears to be a small house.

“You understand it now?” The Monkey grins, Card in hand. “My role is town!”

The Dragon shuts his eyes. For one shuddering moment, nothing happens, and then the Monkey explodes.

How many colors does a human being hold inside them? Putrid grays, repugnant reds and gaseous greens, sprayed out all over the floor.

“Code of conduct rule number one: Never, ever show someone your Card,” says the Rooster coolly.

“Explosives? When did they..? Where did they…?” The Horse clutches at the etching on her collar. The charge had torn the Monkey’s neck apart, but had been powerful enough to rip through skin farther below.

But I step carefully past the putty and walk to another person’s chair, laughter bubbling up in my heart. The girl turns towards me, questioning, and almost sobbing again.

“Yuri, I didn’t mean anything by voting for you. I just hoped the votes would tie. I didn’t want this to happen to you. I didn’t want this to happen to anyone at all.”

“It’s okay, Lily. Everything will be just fine.”

I’ll protect you. I look at the morass and hide a smile.

I’ll protect you, whatever it takes.