During the day, my thoughts are grounded in the five senses. A touch of dryness or moisture, colorful light that pierces my eyes, machines cttering, the scent of the air around me, gravity that pulls my feet to earth, and the aftertaste of food—all these perceptions demand that my mind become occupied by the realities of this world, so any abstract thought becomes incredibly hard

  But in that threshold between wakefulness and sleep lies a point where these senses darken, and I’m left with simply a floating mind, free to think and logic and guide my thoughts towards a grand epiphany.

  Though I’d rather not think about the Dragon and the Rat. It feels wrong to exhume the dead, so I’d rather not think of the Dragon, the Rat, the Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig, Tiger, Dragon, Rat or all the rest….

  Cards. Bodies. Pulp. Knives, from the kitchen sink. Rules screens, flickering, gss screens, gss tables, gss reasoning, breaking, breaking, everything from the gss to the bodies to the game itself all falling apart into a bleeding red smear. Then all my thought-pulp mashes itself together into a full body of reasoning, and then suddenly I open my eyes.

  “Lily. I solved the game.”

  The aircon buzzes softly and there’s no voice in reply. That’s right: each of the two bedrooms that surround mine are empty. Reality rushes in and I feel my weight against the soft mattress—the conclusion I had been so confident about just seconds before now seems quaint. After the trial, I’d immediately stumbled into my suite, exhausted and hardly able to think… and given those circumstances, there’s probably still some logical fw in my solution I have yet to see.

  “The game rules can’t have a secret as ridiculous as that,” I murmur. “Even if it all makes sense, I should just worry about finding the final wolf instead.”

  “What have I always told you, Yuri?” Lily says, swinging her legs at the foot of my suite’s bed. “You should believe in yourself just a little more.”

  “But Believing in a solution that hopeful would be like believing in a hallucination,” I reply, as I sp her shimmering form away. She gives a little cry before she dissipates, and I stretch my arms.

  I throw off the cover of my king bed, then finally drift my way towards the small bck fridge. I open it, and inside are soft drinks, yogurt, and even a swirl of vanil and chocote pudding, all stacked in neat rows, though I’m looking for a sterile white container that I’ve pced behind all of these things.

  “It’d be easier to find if I still had full sight.” I sigh. I knock aside some of the food and manage to close my fingers around the pstic jar, and after some minutes of humiliating twisting, the lid’s off and the orange pill is in my hands. I remember what the Dragon had said to me, in the library back then: it feels like an eternity ago.

  “You could try using the orange pill for your eye, while we’re here, though I can’t say for sure it’d help…”

  I’m now standing in front of the bathroom mirror, looking at myself: one green eye, and another eye all bandaged over with a soft, cotton patch. Without thinking, I slip the pill onto my tongue and thrust it down my throat, and it tastes faintly of citrus.

  “Is that why it’s orange?” I think to myself, strangely disappointed.

  Then, I remove the bandage. Half my world is suddenly blurred, and from what I can still discern this eye is gashed with an angry red streak through its iris. This streak starts to wiggle and move, like a pond’s tadpole, and there’s a bizarre tingling sensation that overwhelms that part of my body.

  “Maybe the pyers were revived with this ‘Ambrosia,’ so everyone would be alive at the end. But no, I don’t think that would work.”

  I’m still missing a few pieces to my solution. Why did I hear Lily struggle in the other room that night? How exactly did the wolves commit “murders,” and why were we provided with medicine like this in the first pce? And does the secret rule I’ve found apply only for trials, or for murders, too? And stly, what on earth is the full motivation behind this game?

  Regardless, I know I might have discovered a crucial loophole. I’d need to experiment on someone to know for sure that’s how this game really works…. though that person would run a great risk of death…

  “Ow! Ow, ow, ow!”

  I suddenly clutch my bad eye. The pain is searing, so much so that I feel like my vision’s flickering in and out, yet when I fully come to my sight has become crisp and sharp. I look into the mirror, and an uninjured, perfectly-functioning optical organ stares back.

  “So, somehow everything’s now quite clear,” I mutter to myself. “Except, it’s still absolutely not. There’s a fifth problem that’s come to mind that’s even more pressing than the other questions I’ve mentioned.”

  Here’s a quick riddle: if an ace detective makes a crucial breakthrough, but a wolf devours her during the night, did the detective still crack the case?

  There’s only four pyers left in the game—myself and the the Ox, who the Rat confirmed to be a vilger. Then, the Rabbit, and the Horse, one of whom is a vilger, and the other I’m certain is wolf. Based on how they’ve voted and acted, I’m one hundred percent sure of everyone’s roles, and I’ll vote for the correct traitor if I make it to the next day.

  Tonight, the wolf should probably get rid of the Ox, since the seer confirmed him to be a vilger. But since I’m neither healer nor the seer, there’s no reason for a wolf to kill me.

  But there’s a problem, I consider, as I spsh cold water onto my eyes. I know that I’m not the seer—but everyone else still thinks that I am one!

  I had pretended to be seer to protect the Rat, and never publicly withdrew my cim. Since he’s dead, I’m now stuck with a great big target that I can longer disprove, all locked up in my bedroom-soon-to-be-tomb.

  It was fine for everyone to think I was seer during previous nights, because the Dragon had also cimed seer as his role, and he’d been exposed and executed if he’d murdered me. But now there’s nothing stopping the final wolf from ripping me apart… I give up on washing the strange, leftover sensation from my tingling eye, fling myself onto my bed and burrow my head into my pillow, vision fading of my own volition.

  The wolf is coming to murder me— the wolf is coming to murder me— the wolf is coming to—

  I take a deep breath. It’s not as effective as it could’ve been, because I inhale a good deal of pillow-lint and start coughing. But a second, third, fourth, a fifth breath, stretching to however many I need, slowing this blurred world down—it’s enough for me to cope.

  I begin to move some furniture.

  I drag the sofa centimeters at a time until I manage to brace it against the door. I dump the ottoman atop of it and stack a few more chairs until they lean precariously against the entrance.

  The hotel room door opens outward into the hallway, so as a barricade it’s not very effective. But if someone enters, furniture will tumble down upon them. Maybe it’ll strike them on the head and hit them in just the right spot…

  “But if I build a house of wood, would the wolf really just give up?”

  I step into the bathroom, look at the mirror. I stare back at myself, my long, dark ill-maintained hair stumbling down my shoulders, and give myself a shaky smile, as if to convince myself that I’m happy.

  I smash the mirror.

  I take the hammer from my skirt, bash into it, and shards rain into the sink. I gather the shards with a damp bath towel and return to my teetering tower, sprinkling it with jagged pieces. If the wolf isn’t paying attention, their hands and feet will be sliced open as they climb.

  Tt-t-ttt-tt-t—

  I jump, as the air conditioner kicks in. It’s not the door, Yuri. It’s not the door, not yet.

  This barrier isn’t enough, I know. I doubt that this game’s “Gods” would design wolf kills in such a way that allows a vilger to avoid a murder simply by fighting back.

  But wolf or no, any human who walks through that threshold will get hurt. I take my hammer with me to bed like it’s a teddy bear, and lie awake, staring at the teetering chairs.

  Ttt-t-t-t-, the A.C continues its call. The grates are shut… I don’t even have the AC on. My eyelids grow heavy, and a haze clouds my thoughts.

  I’ll hear it if a wolf breaks in. Even if I’m sleeping, I’ll hear…and with my conclusion, I can beg them to wait before I die. I need to keep my mind sharp… so I’ll just take… a short… rest…

  Soon I drop off, asleep like the dead.

  ***

  “Paw off, wolf!”

  I fling open the covers and ready my hammer, as the clock catches the corner of my eye. It’s now 8:00 am, and the tool slips from my hands.

  Nothing had happened. The chairs still teeter precariously against the door, and surely a wolf wouldn’t arrive ter than this. I’m alive. Praise Buddha, Praise Shiva, Praise God, I’m alive! But my exhausted joy gives way to a dim confusion.

  The wolf allowed the seer to survive. Why did she make that mistake? Is she just stupid?

  “My partner might pretend to be dumb during the day,” the Dragon had said. “But at night, they py to win.”

  I shiver. If I don’t understand why she spared me, that means she’s either blundered or that she’s reasoned a few steps ahead. And there’s one more problem even then—one that I created for myself.

  “How am I going to leave?”

  My tower-barrier creaks and groans.