The next day the [Tiger] is dead.

It isn’t surprising. She was the only one everyone knew to be Town and now there's no Healer to protect her. I walk into her room and ignoring the red stains and organ-sludge smeared on the floor, it’s surprisingly tranquil.

She had taken some picture books from the library and piled them next to the nightstand. In the minifridge she’d preserved some leftover pancakes from another breakfast, scavenging tupperware from who-knows-where.

There’s nothing ‘useful’ in her room; no divine revelations or secret diary as I had hoped. But looking through her belongings, getting to know her by the objects with which she’d surrounded herself, the search also served as a kind of memorial service.

I say a silent prayer. If I had the time, and courage, I’d return to Lily’s room to do the same. When I finally let her go.

Left adrift in my thoughts, a hoarse voice drags me back down to the ground.

[Rat]: I’m surprised you came. Everyone else can no longer stomach the bodies.

He sits next to me on the bed, looking upwards.

[Yuri]: But there are no bodies. Only guts and blood.

[Rat]: Believe me, if we put all the pieces together they’d make a body. Maybe two.

We stare together at the stained ceiling. Since it’s painted black, I can pretend that the faded spots are galaxies and the little holes and pinpricks are stars.

[Rat]: So you do want to win this game, [Snake]. I almost didn’t believe it.

[Rat]: How you pressed the [Dragon] yesterday was nothing short of magnificent. If people were just a little more perceptive-

He runs a finger across his throat.

[Rat]: We’d have gotten him.

[Yuri]: But you’re wrong. Wanting to ‘win’ the game? I'd use another word to describe how I feel.

It’s the [Rat]’s turn to be confused.

[Rat]: Then what is the right word?

[Yuri]: I want to live in this game. I don’t like the blood and the bodies. But I’ll snatch any happiness or victory I can find even here.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I used to think that many people in life are delusionally joyful. I still think that: objectively most lives are the stuff of corporate planning rather than dreams.

But rather than try to stop being sad, I think I’ll allow myself to be happy. Even if my regrets will always overshadow everything else, even if everything I hate about myself is true, there are still little things that I like and I can acknowledge that. I can hold those two emotions at once no matter what their size, the despair and the joy.

[Rat]: I don’t get you… I just don’t get you… whenever I think I understand you, you say something truly bizarre.

[Rat]: Listen [Snake]. I don’t care about your moral philosophy or your psychological health. I care about winning.

[Rat]: Are we gonna get this done?

[Yuri]: You were going to kill me yesterday.

[Rat]: That’s cause you were being a loser.

[Yuri]: No, I was just being myself.

He shakes his head, and offers a hand.

[Yuri]: I still don’t like you. But…

I take it, and then I feel the [Rat] pass something to me, his Card. It has an image that I’d never seen in this game til now.

[https://i.imgur.com/lAJENUt.png]

[Yuri]: A Wolf!?

Why is he telling me this? Even worse, why is he showing me this?

I wince, but the [Rat] doesn’t explode, burst into pieces, or fall over dead. Cautiously I touch him, and withdraw that touch just as quick.

[Rat]: That’s not my Card. That was the [Goat]’s.

[Rat]: Yesterday, the [Tiger] showed us that you could force others to reveal their role without penalty. I scrounged this from his body.

[Yuri]: That explains why the game isn’t over already… if there were three Wolves alive the town would already be outnumbered. So then there’s only two.

[Rat]: And one of those two is the [Dragon].

He smiles. Even though he’s not a Wolf, he looks just as predatory and vicious.

[Rat]: Well? Should we finally hunt him down?

[Rat]: [Ox], [Rabbit], [Horse]. Let’s find them first. Talk to them, make them part of our party. Persuade them one by one.

[Rat]: We’ll use their votes to kill him. Then we’ll find the other Wolf, and win, simple as that.

The best plans are the simplest. When there’s less to a plan, there’s less to go wrong. But…

[Yuri]: You’re jinxing us.

[Rat]: I’m not.

[Yuri]: You are.

[Rat]: I’m not.

[Yuri]: You are.

[Rat]: I’m-