“If this game’s organizers have even half a brain, they would know to seal off all the doors and windows. So I’ll slip through the elevator shaft instead,” the Rat says.

  The elevator itself is the death game’s latest victim. Between the elevator’s ceiling and this floor’s floor twists a deformed iron wrench—this mode of transport’s been completely jammed. I dart atop the stalled elevator and heft myself onto the catwalk just beyond it, as the Rat tampers with a vent’s enormous grate at the end of the platform. Its barrier’s secured by four screws, but he ignores them in favor of prying at the slats with a crowbar.

  “I dropped my screwdriver,” the Rat explains, tapping a bright red box.

  “You dropped the screwdriver?”

  “The screwdriver’s down the shaft, somewhere, but I can still figure it all out,” the Rat continues. “Listen, I’m growing the gaps in these slats. If I force it just a little more we can all crawl through.”

  “Smart enough to crawl through an elevator, not smart enough to crawl a comb through his hair. That’s a Rat for you,” I mutter darkly.

  “Don’t insult my style,” he snips, as I lean against the rail.

  “Style? Seriously?”

  “The difference between a ‘style’ and a ‘mess’ is that a style’s a choice.”

  “Then you’d be far better off with whatever cut a barber would choose for you.”

  I’ve stopped making changes for other people, Snake,” the Rat grins. “But y’know, maybe an ugly mug like me can make an exception for a cute ‘ol girl like Dog.”

  “Please don’t lie,” says a voice that isn’t mine. It obviously isn’t—if I were speaking right now, I’d be retching, and this voice is as clear as a scouring wind. “You really are a good-looking person; a heartthrob in a dark green hood.”

  It’s her. Brown eyes, twintails, and a pain and lightness in my heart wherever I stare. She’s breathing in short little puffs; she must’ve jogged to catch up with us. It’s either that, or she’s red and panting cause she’s attracted to the Rat... and if that’s the case that’d be the second guy she’s shown interest in today.

  I had talked to the Rat fairly often, but only through our room’s shared wall. Without the hood covering his face… the eye bags from the lack of sleep… the careless mussed-up hair… the plain oversized clothes… and with a good combthrough and his half-stache shaven then maybe, just maybe, he could be called ‘handsome.”

  I want to bash in that “handsome” face with a great big mopstick whack. In self defense, of course. I think he’s incredibly suspect. Is he really planning to use those tools just to break through the vents?

  “Charismatic. Charming. As pretty as a celebrity,” Lily says. “We’ve been looking for motives, tools, and ways to escape, but Rat, we’ve also been looking for you. Have you heard of a boy named ‘Naotome Shinji?’’”

  The Rat tenses around his crowbar as I scratch at the mop handle’s textured grain. Lily’s holding out the cover of the Weekly Idol periodical she’d saved from the lobby, its lurid, stylish colors out of place in this mechanical area. I speak quietly and resentfully:

  “The guy in the magazine, that teen pop sensation who lived alone with his family in a lodging house in the east. He had a good voice, but was famous for refusing to move from his slum. This is my home, he would say.”

  “I wouldn’t call him a sensation. A ‘sensation’ makes money, enough to move both him and his family to a bigger place. And, y’know, to release more than one good single.”

  “So, Yuri, Rat, what happened next? If not to that ‘teen sensation’ then to that ‘rising star?’”

  “His apartment block caught fire. He rescued his sister, but he was injured. Lily, you can easily find that all online,” I mutter back.

  “I know just a little more,” Lily says, pacing as much as she can in this narrow elevator-catwalk space. “He was lucky because he survived without any scars—not on the outside, at least. But he was unfortunate because most of his injuries came from—”

  “Smoke inhalation,” the Rat rasps. “I didn’t peg you as a groupie, but you’re surprisingly well-informed.”

  “This celebrity was treated at the hospital my dad works at. Sometimes Father asks me to help with accounts.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” the Rat says. “Eh—?”

  Threatening, insinuating, playful, friendly, his scratchy voice can hold as many emotions as tracks on a dying phonograph. But it’s the first time I’ve heard him surprised.

  Lily again presents the cover she had torn off from the lobby’s magazine, as she flicks his hood away. “We know about your past already, Shinji, so, tell us just a little more. Pretty please.”

  Vocal damage. His scratchy voice. His shadowy hood. His weirdly cultured collection of music magazines—it all connects. Like Lily said, his true identity has to be one of…

  Naotome Shinji sighs. “I’m just a Rat now. People ignore worthless voices, but when a Rat squeaks people jump, and I like that. So squeak, squeak, my paparazzi crew. Buzz off.”

  He picks up the crowbar, sets it aside, and pricks at the grates with a bent paper clip instead. Its crooked wire waves and waggles as though the office supply is giving us some obscene gesture. Lily waits, eyes bright, slender hands wrinkling her WEEKLY IDOL.

  Like some stupid groupie.

  “Damn it… Damn it!!”

  “Y-Yuri?”

  “Let’s talk, Rat.” I say, ignoring my partner.

  He scratches and taps and scrapes at the screws with the metal clip. Then taps and scrapes and scratches again, in futile little circles. He’s like a prisoner etching away at a wall, except that, he is in fact a death game prisoner, and he is in fact etching away at something that might as well be a wall. But he should be unscrewing the vent instead! There’s only four screws to twist out! Or he could keep trying to pry open the slats!! Stop messing around!!! Use your crowbar like the tool it’s supposed to be!!!!

  “Lily, wait outside. And leave the mop stick here,” I order.

  “I trust you,” Lily says simply as she leaves.

  I heft up my stick, coarse wood putting weight in both hands, as I turn to my ally, enemy, archnemesis the Rat. He’s staring at me, his tiny eyes as wide as he can make them.

  “Snake, Snake, Snake. Is this some kind of heart to heart?”

  “You’re one letter off; I’m here to give you a threat. Lily seems attached to you and your past, so I need to know about it too, to see if you might be the mastermind—you lied about your identity, after all. Tell us everything. ”

  “No.”

  “Then, the Ox and the Horse can use those tools to maybe escape. Let me deliver them to the lobby.”

  “Which ones?”

  “All of them.”

  “You really don’t trust me,” the Rat murmurs, smirking. I don’t frighten him; I actually amuse him, like a zoo animal rattling at the bars of a cage. “Interrogating me and taking away the tools I could use to escape is something completely pointless, Snake. It sounds like you have too much time on your hands”

  I feel my fingers cramp around my mop handle. Pulse, grip, focus—everything’s tight and primed.

  “How about another errand instead? Take this grease rag, mop up all the dried blood in the Rooster’s suite and see if you can find her Card. Then we can continue our beautiful relationship,” the Rat says. “You protect me, and I protect your ‘Lily.’ Though I have to wonder about whether I’ll be able to keep using her to keep a hold of you—it does seem like this ‘Lily’ chick might be interested in a relationship with me too—”

  I swing. It’s a harmless blow: no one ever died of a broken knee.

  But, my makeshift club is met by a hard iron riposte. I can feel my wrist immediately turned away in an awkward spot.

  A crowbar? A crowbar? When did he grab that? Blocking my love for Lily, and blocking my mop-club too… oh, it’s enough to drive someone insane!

  Why does he insist on blackmailing me? Why won’t he take me seriously? And if all the tools he needed to go through the elevator were a crowbar, a wrench, and a screwdriver, then why on earth did he take the whole box?

  “I’ll repeat this one more time. All I want is peace,” the Rat says.

  “You’re insane.”

  I brace with my mop stick and he holds his crowbar like a sword. An alien green emergency light shines on us from above, and as it flickers, we lock eyes.

  Left. It’s going to be left, as far as I can detect what’s coming next.

  His left shoe squeaks forward as he lunges with the bar, and I throw myself against the metal eastern wall. I almost slide into the narrow gap between the elevator top and the shaft, but with a well-placed shoulder I propel myself from the wall just in time.

  He swipes again, but this one’s an awkward blow. He has to work around the coppery cables that attach our elevator box to an unseen ceiling, and his crowbar sparks against the wires instead of me. The platform shakes, we both lose our footing, and I scramble up and uppercut him with my long handle.

  “Shit,” he says, swinging back while holding his bruised chin. Now he’s going to strike at my center. Maybe it’s cause I’m good at mafia, but this combat psychology is really easy —

  Crack.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  —while I must be awful at material science. Of course, I should have known that metal breaks wood.

  “What’s your next move, Snake?”

  I had blocked his crowbar with my handle, and now my pole’s snapped into two. Splinters and sawdust float in a dirty cloud, and the Rat’s tinted in a brownish shade as the debris settles downward.

  With my makeshift weapon gone, I have only one real counter—I put a broken half in each hand, and have at him once more. The splintered ends add a new sharpness to the wooden lengths, and its as though I’m wielding two short spears.

  “I feel like—” The Rat steps back. “There might be some misunderstanding—”

  I smack his back knuckle. His crowbar clatters—he dives for it, and so do I. He smiles as we grapple and scratch for it but it’s a taut, joyless, grin.

  “We’re not—murderers, you know,” the Rat pants. “You have to stop this!”

  My fingers slide from the metal. A weight pommels my side, and he kicks me til I’m prone on the floor. Free at last to use his crowbar, he tries to unite it with my arm at an express speed.

  I block a pole, and there’s another crunch.

  My left “spear” shatters into a collection of mulchy sticks. I throw this distorted weapon at the Rat’s shocked face; he ducks, and the waste smacks the wall and plummets into the dark.

  I use this distraction and fall upon him with my right club, but he swings again— smacks it hard—and its tip all-too-easily breaks away.

  My hand stings. I drop the stub of this stick, and I’m left with a single splinter.

  In the end, I’m just too weak. I tackle him, but he crouches, pushes his head into my stomach, and now I’m falling down the gap into the dark, scrabbling for friction with my forearms rubbing on the elevator roof, as I backslide into the abyss.

  “Snake, Snake, Snake. What to do with you now?” The Rat combs his hair with crooked fingers. He’d pulled his hood deep over his face, but from this desperate angle I can see everything. His sharp, dagger-like chin. His smile, which might twist in pain, or shrink from shock but never fully disappears. His two dark eyes that spark with a malevolent light.

  “I may have miscalculated,” I gasp, lying down, still gradually plunging into the shaft.

  “Of course,” says the Rat with a sigh. “I knew you were crazy, but I didn’t think you were irrational. I mean, as a last resort, maybe I’d be open to murder, but…”

  He grabs my wrists, pries them away from the floor—and finally heaves me up.

  “Stopping another player from voting isn’t allowed, right? If I kill someone, they wouldn’t be able to vote, so I’m sure that the ‘Cat God’ would smite me down where I stand.”

  “Doesn’t that rule only apply during trials?”

  “It’s true you’ve done your best to test that,” the Rat mutters darkly. “But, see, even if it’s not against the rules, I still can’t leave a mark on you. If it looks like I’ve attacked you, the other players would definitely vote for me during the trial —unless I somehow killed them all first.”

  And having said that, the Rat’s just as pasty, just as weak as I. Really, the only difference in fighting ability between us is that he happens to be a boy. If he had to kill the hulking Ox… no, even someone as well-maintained as the Dragon or as athletic as the Horse, he’d certainly be in a great deal of trouble. And forget it if he had to fight everyone at once.

  Mechanical moans and groans echo down our metallic shaft. The elevator swings back and forth imperceptibly, while an emergency light continues to shine on the catwalk.

  I catch my breath. My vision’s swirling, a splinter blossoms from my right thumb, and a throbbing pain ices my side. But on the whole, the girl known as “Yuri Hirai” also seems pretty much intact.

  The Rat’s also uninjured, so it seems that this fight was completely pointless, and the Rat finally utters a contemptuous sentence. “What an unpredictable girl.”

  “No, this fight was just as I expected.” I nonchalantly say, standing up. “What is a threat, really, if you don’t believe that I can follow through with it?”

  "Huh?”

  “I knew I would lose this fight from the start. It’s embarrassing for you that this battle lasted as long as it did.”

  “Heh? Heh? Huh?” Rat spits as he speaks.

  “I’m not confident in my physical ability. But you weren’t confident about how far I’m willing to go to escape your commands. Do you still doubt me now?”

  Even though I never really touched him, the Rat looks somewhat concussed.

  “But, to be honest, I prefer fighting with words instead of blows. If you don’t cooperate with me and Lily, and lay off your demands, then I swear to tell everyone you’re a wolf.”

  It’s a page out of the Rat’s own blackmail playbook, a supposed ‘“seer” who threatens a false wolf report to sway the village to vote the way that they want. If I say that the Rat’s guilty, it’s possible after some big debate that he’d somehow manage to survive, but it’s equally possible that they’d believe me and execute him instead.

  “I’ll take my chances,” the Rat says, unsteady. He glances at his crowbar, a warped wrench, the set of pliers, the hammer, and finally, a few loose screws. Personally, out of all of these, I’m most fascinated by the safety goggles; its pitch-dark lenses indicating that it’s probably meant for welding. My eyes begin to itch, as the Rat regains the faintest hint of a smile.

  “Go ahead and tell everyone, and see what happens to your ‘Lily.’ Oh, but you better take a grease rag with you, if you’re going to go and search the Rooster’s room… let me know what you find there, okay? ”

  Plan A was to ask the Rat ‘nicely’ for what Lily and I both need. Plan B was an attack; Plan C was to exchange barbed words and use ‘pure reasoning’ to get what I wanted from him. I didn’t want to go any farther than that, but I do have a plan D. At least I know that this plan will work, based on what the Rat said after our fight:

  “Even if it isn’t against the rules, I still can’t leave a mark on you.”

  “So with this single splinter, I can take you down….” I pop the shard from my thumb.

  Too late, the Rat tries to make a move. Too late, he understands. I put the wooden peg close to my face and I hover it, needle-like, over its softest, most vulnerable part. Not skin, but a concave place that squishes and oozes when pressed.

  I speak rapidly: “A Rat’s quite a pathetic creature. I wonder what people would say if they knew if you gashed my eyes out with your claws?”

  I’m nervous. My hand’s shaking. Despite all this about ‘showing my resolve’, I wonder if the Rat sees how my pupil dilates like a pulse in a pool, my head turned up towards the ceiling.

  “I—”

  “Three.”

  “Snake—”

  “Two. One.”

  “Oh my god.”

  A tremor passes through me, and then I feel a sensation akin to an olive being burst by a toothpick. Maybe I’m imagining it; it surely can’t be as bad as that, since I can still see. I can see the cowering Rat, still trying to put on a brave face.

  I twitch, and suddenly a deeper pain seizes through me. Damn it! This, of all things, was supposed to be a bluff. I may have put up a fight against the boy, but I couldn’t keep my hand steady when it counted.

  “You’re pathetic,” the Rat partially agrees. “Just a little speck of redness? That wound’s hardly even visible.”

  Ah, well…

  “You’re right; I’m ready to break down into tears. Not because it really hurts, but because I know that you’ll force me to drive this in even deeper to get what I want. The countdown’s starting again.”

  “Wha—!”

  “3.”

  “2.” The pick hovers right where I left it.

  “1—”

  ***

  “Lily!” I call out, holding my eye. “The Rat’s ready to speak.”

  “And Rat,” I lower my voice. “Please don’t talk about what happened here today. I find this whole thing really embarrassing… and as one might say, the damage has already been done.”

  I lurk in a dark corner, long black hair swished over my face’s left side; half the world is curtained with its lustrous sheen. My skin’s flawlessly white: not a drop of blood lies there, and the Rat stares and stares until finally he nods.

  “I already thought you were insane, but you’re seriously something else. Willing to throw both the game and your life away for a girl that doesn’t even seem to like you,” he murmurs. “She’s already beyond your reach. But what happens when she dies? Will you break? Or will I finally see you play?”

  “Is it so wrong to want a friend to survive?” I fire back. But…

  “Does a friend sneak glances at their BFF? Does a friend sleepwalk day and night unless they’re at their bestie’s side? No, Snake, I’ve watched you during the trials and I’ve noticed that you only come alive to protect her. You’re like a zombie: brainless, purposeless unless it’s to call her name.”

  “Oh! ”

  In some ways the Rat’s right. My hobbies are sleep, and games, and food, and all kinds of things that don’t really require a brain—only a series of inputs and pre-defined reactions. Even now, the zombie within me demands I walk silently away, and yet—

  “You’re right. I do like her. And if she escapes this place alive, then that’s a win in my book; who cares what this game’s organizers have to say?”

  The Rat’s smile is taut, a skeleton’s grin, and writ all over him is the despair and joy of a man who woken from a dream so sublime that his real world now resembles a ruin. Then the boy laughs, and laughs, until he finally relaxes.

  “You’ve won our little clash of wits, so who cares what I think about it either? Dog! ‘Lily!’ Hey… Come on up! If she still won’t reply, then I suppose she’s somewhere downstairs—”

  There’s a cute, short sneeze. The Rat and I both jump, and I almost fall through the shaft’s gap once again; as Lily slides through the doors, her face is flushed and her eyes dart between us both. She stiffly smooths over her school uniform, though removing all its whorls and wrinkles in is likely almost hopeless.

  “Sorry, this place is full of dust. You’re ready to talk, Rat? I can’t imagine what Yuri must have said to you.”

  She pats my head.

  “And Yuri, your hair’s a mess… why’s it covering half your face?” Her headpats turn into head-scrapes. This hurts, on levels far beyond simply physical.

  “It’s not a mess, it’s a style.”

  “Hmmm.” Lily frowns. “But I liked looking into your eyes, and eye contact is important for talking in polite society, you know.”

  “Just, just ask the Rat his question.” I stutter. There’s only the Dragon, the Pig, and the Rabbit to interrogate after this, and about two hours left before curfew. We already know that the Rat’s from our island city, so asking him about his exact circumstances is the only question left for us:

  “Where were you when you passed out?” Lily says, as expected.

  The boy refuses to look up from where’s he hunched around the vents. Scratch, scratch, goes the paper clip. Scratch, scratch; his voice is scratchy too and his tone is even shakier.

  “I was at home with my vocal coach. We did some breathing exercises, I did some half-assed scales. Sounded horrible, of course. Then a fog rolled in, I felt woozy and I passed out.”

  “Is that really everything?” Lily asks, with her own scratches sounding from the pencil against the notepad. The Rat’s only reply is his turned-away face, and soon her pencil-noises all die down.

  “Then, we’ll take the tool box since you’re done with it,” I interrupt “The Ox and the Horse can use it to break through the main doors. And all the tools too, please.”

  “Sure, I can just use this paper clip to deal with the vents. Oh, you’re serious, huh.”

  He gives me the toolbox. Crowbars, hammers, and wrenches roll around inside as he passes it, and I have to carry it with both hands.

  “Did the Tiger take anything?” I ask.

  “No, she’s hardly the crafty type.”

  “I suspect she’s crafty in a different way,” I say. “Perhaps it’s a good thing you took these tools after all.”

  The Rat scrapes the second screw with the clip, wriggling his bent metal pick. He’s not making progress—maybe because it’s easier for him to manipulate people than cold, unfeeling, architecture.

  I pull on Lily with my free arm. But before I leave the shaft, the Rat calls out one last time: “Hey, Snake. I’m not your enemy. I just want us to win. You understand that, right?”

  His tone isn’t pleading. It’s questioning but it’s confident too, like a general drafting terms after a hard-fought war. Yeah, I kind of understand. But he should understand that mutual threats and insults don’t make a great path to friendship.

  “We’ll talk in the evening. I’m busy with Lily,” I tug her away.

  As we march back, I glance at my slender partner. Something about how she moves has changed. There’s a certain shyness about her, whenever she brushes against me, she reacts—either leaning in even closer, or jolting right back.

  But there’s something even more mundane that I observe about her and her possessions that I don’t want to admit.

  “Lily, you left your magazine cover in the elevator shaft. If you really want… I guess we can go back and get it.”

  “I don’t need it. That was just so I could compare Shinji’s face with the Rat’s,” Lily looks amused. “What? Did you think it was just because I wanted to keep that photo?”

  She pulls out a pastel-pink cell phone. “.I get it now. One second.”

  Lily can’t call anyone, so I’m confused. She brushes my hair aside and as I quickly wink shut my injured eye, she pushes the cell phone into my face. Her thumb’s down somewhere in the middle of the screen.

  Click!

  “That’s the picture I want! Thanks Yuri.”

  She shows her homescreen, and right there, is a bewildered, flustered, me.