Just a few minutes earlier I had been pleasantly enmeshed in a king sized mattress. I wasn’t happy, but I was asleep, and to me that’s always been the next best thing.

  But now there’s a Rat that just won’t stop squeaking.

  “I don’t like you either, you know?” I murmur.

  “This isn’t a romcom. What’s important isn’t my affection, but the offer that I have for you.”

  “And after you make this ‘offer’, will you let me sleep?”

  “Perhaps. I can’t promise anything. Will you listen?”

  “Perhaps. I can’t promise anything,” I mock back.

  The Rat sighs, and the knolls on the wood headboard I’m talking to in his place suddenly seem an exasperated set of eyes. The boy falls silent, and for one full minute I get to drift blissfully away.

  Then I’m jolted right back.

  “As the seer, I’m in great danger. Instead of working off of pure intuition, I can make 100 percent sure whether someone is a wolf or a villager, and because of that—”

  “The wolves will always kill you the first chance they get. You should be glad I’m not one of them, because if I were you’d already be dead,” I reply.

  “Yep. I’m telling you this because I know you’re a villager. Since, you know, I’m the seer.”

  There’s a soft thwap from the other side… I think he just did a face palm. Either that, or he bonked his head and died. I hope he did!

  “If I tell everyone my role, the healer could protect me. But as soon as the healer dies, I’d be next,” the Rat unfortunately continues.

  Ahh, I feel so bad for you. Stuck with such a terrible, dangerous role, forced to vent your worries to a ‘nutty’ stranger in the absolute dead of the night.”

  “Thanks for the sympathy.”

  I get the feeling that sarcasm doesn’t translate very well with a whole wall between us. But maybe his thank you really is sincere, and maybe what I said isn’t entirely sarcastic either. My pity gradually becomes genuine despite the nettle of having been woken at 2:00 AM.

  “Yesterday you said you would be willing to sacrifice yourself for the village—”

  On the second thought—

  “I came up with a plan…”

  —I don’t think that he tapped on my wall just to complain.

  “It’s a good one,” the Rat finishes. “It really plays to your strengths.”

  “Out with it.”

  “Lie to everyone. Tell ‘em you’re the seer person. Report that you checked me tonight and figured out that I was a villager.

  “Then the wolves will target you, the imposter seer, instead of me, the real one. It’s like giving the seer an extra life—I can pass you info to tell the rest of the village while you’re alive, and I can still search for wolves when you die.”

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I click on the lamp, and stroke my hair, fidgeting. The Rat’s hair, I remember, is also a nest of stray ends. But it also has a grease to it… and I can just imagine his pillow having little stains where he rests his head. I can’t tell if that messy look is from calculation or pure carelessness.

  “Snake, I’m not asking this on a whim; I think aside from myself, the Monkey and the Dog, you have the greatest game sense of anyone here. If we work together, we’ll be absolutely crushing.”

  He really does want to work with me, I sense that in his voice. And truthfully, I don’t mind making plans at 2:00 AM: it’s a time where my thoughts swirl in creative ways that they don’t during the day.

  Tap. Tap, tap tap.

  “Heh. Come on, take my hand; as much as you can through this shitty drywall,” the Rat idly drawls.

  I wish I had someone else to talk to, and strangely enough, there’s a Bible resting inside the nightstand, along with a Book of Mormon. But I’m not interested in talking to a religious God; I’d like someone to talk with logically instead.

  I guess I could come up with some crazed inner voices to help me… but there might be just a few too many to choose from. As a matter of fact, most of them—

  “Come on.” “A one-two punch.” “We got this.”

  —seem to sound like a wispy voice of the Rat through the wall. Though there’s one that sounds like mine: “Not interested.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Not interested,” I repeat. “I have two reasons. One personal, one professional.”

  “Then, let’s start with professional. Why isn’t this a good game move? I’ve spent a lot of time thinking this through,” the Rat says.

  “It’s because I still don’t know whether you’re telling the truth. What would happen if you’re a wolf?

  “I’d pretend to everyone that I’m the seer, and report to them that you’re a villager. But if you’re a wolf, then a third person, the ‘real seer’, will object since they know there can only be one seer in the game. When I tell everyone you’ve put me up to this, you’ll pretend this conversation had never happened—and then I might be killed!”

  “That’s bullshit.” His voice is hushed yet forceful, a hiss of cold compressed air. “True, this plan has some risks. But yesterday, you didn’t mind throwing your life away at all!”

  “The second reason is that there’s someone I want to protect, and for me to protect them I have to stay alive. Maybe I’d be willing to sacrifice myself at the last moment, but not before then.”

  There’s a silence, but not a true one. Every shift, every fidget, every turn is accompanied by a creak from the bed and a shhhing from the sheets. The lamp bulb is buzzing too, I think—though its level of noise is just at the threshold where I can delude myself into its non-existence.

  And then the vents clatter and hiss, a quiet percussion that’s growing, growing, until it becomes uncomfortably loud. It’s as if an animal had become trapped inside the iron, wandering, writhing, struggling to escape, and until finally the sound dies out.

  “I kinda get it. There’s some causes I refuse to die for, and some which I’d happily lay down my lil ‘ole life. But Snake, wouldn’t protecting the village also protect her?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So then—”

  “Good night, rat boy.”

  1:53

  1:54

  1:55

  1:56

  1:57

  The best way to stop unwanted messages is to ignore them. I’m not sure if that applies when someone’s talking through my bedroom wall, but it’s worth trying nonetheless.

  “Snake…? Hey, Snake…? What are you thinking?”

  One sheep. Two sheep. Three sheep. Four sheep, bounding over a white picket fence.

  “You’d like to win too, right? You’re just thinking it through?” He wonders.

  Five sheep. Six sheep. Seven sheep. Eight.

  “Hey. I know you’re awake. Come on, let’s be friends. Like you are with that other person… wanna say who?”

  Nine sheep. Ten sheep. Eleven sheep—THUD.

  I flinch. The Rat had struck something in his room, whether by accident or in rage I don’t know. I bite back a sound, and it takes some time before my breathing slows and I can calm myself once more.

  But when I’m about to slip into sleep, I hear his voice, soft and low, as if it’s something I’m dreaming.

  “During today’s trial I thought you had the same drive to win as I did. But I was mistaken. You really are insane.

  “I tried to be nice, Snake. I tried talking. But there are other ways to persuade you… and tomorrow I’ll be sure to change your mind. Sleep tight, you heartsick witch.”