“We don’t have time for this!” stabs another girl’s coarse voice, and snap, snap, snap, her fingers pop together like firecrackers. “Wakey wakey! Wake up time!”
Tk!
“Ow!” My eyes shoot open as I rub a stinging cheek. I’m in a wide room that sprawls into a fuzzy darkness.
A lively blonde-haired girl looms over me, hands on her knees and face right up against mine. She fiddles with a silver piercing, wears a uniform with a long navy skirt, and sports a fashionable metal band around her neck; where a jeweler’s logo might have been engraved in silver is the etching of a simple tiger.
“Welcome to the world of the living. Do I need to slap the daylight into the other eight sleepyheads or what?”
“It won’t help if they’re drugged. I understand your impatience, but we just need to wait.” The boy who stands besides her, Mr. Soft Voice, is tall, dark-haired, and frowning. He wears a prim school uniform, and another one of those iron neckbands, with a dragon symbol instead. Did I miss some kind of trend?
“You’re the Snake!” the Tiger shouts, as I touch my own neck to discover a cold, serpentine indent. “So sit over by the Snake chair!”
“Huh? I’m a Snake? But I don’t want to be a Snake!”
I’m a dashing young maiden from Celestia Academy, in the full flowering of youth! Okay, so my hair might be a mess from time to time… and there might be dark bags under my eyes, too. My nails might be long and chewed on, and there might be more spots and marks on my arm than my checkered record of attendance. Maybe it’d be more apt to call myself an unsightly weed than a flower. But even so!
Snakes are scaly and gross. They’re like snails who decided to be long, hard, and suspicious. And if one of those creepy low-bellied creatures touched me, it wouldn’t be from affection—I’m sure it’d be to swallow me whole. Besides, if someone were to call me a “Snake” in Mafia, whether in the parlor game or in a chatroom online, that’d be the same as calling me a “traitor.”
The Tiger wears a smug, paranoid, narrow-eyed look, and I don’t trust that coiled smile. She should be the Snake, not me! But whether she’s a “Snake” or a “Tiger,” her words certainly have a bite to them, and I finally rub the drugged sleep fully away from my eyes.
We’re in a chamber with the gravitas of a courtroom, or one of those fantasy council rooms that one sees on million dollar prestige TV. Twelve chairs are arranged in a circle, and a long continuous wooden bar creates an inner ring. If someone were to sit down in one of those chairs, there’d be a small monitor etched into the bar right in front of them, angled up at their knees.
Each displays’ currently dim: WAITING FOR PLAYERS…
…are the words the pixels form. On the back of each chair is carved a Zodiac animal—is it the Zodiac?—and already, a pale white-haired boy sits in the Goat Chair, wearing what appears to be a long, green gown. A series of sleek columns brace the chamber’s high ceiling in all directions, while a set of double doors dominate the room’s far side. On the other end is a pile of eight slumbering students, and there are two more screens by the other walls, so large that they run from floor to ceiling.
The west monitor bears another simple sentence. PLEASE BE SEATED TO BEGIN THE GAME. The Tiger’s eyes dart back and forth between the east screen, the timer and me.
72:01
72:00
71:59
Bright red numbers tick down carelessly, without a thought for their pressure or weight. Is this just a dream? I can feel the snake from my imagination wrap its cold scales around me, squeezing my throat into speechlessness.
“Hm?”
I find myself clasping my hands around a cold metal band, and I finally understand the collars’ full meaning. I touch the back of my neck, and it melds into a seamless ring—I rattle it up and down against my skin til the discomfort turns into pain.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Hey, Tiger… you can’t just ask me to sit there without giving a reason. Who’re you? Why’s there a giant countdown screen? Why’s there a snake choking my neck!?”
“Around your neck…?” She tilts her head.
Side effects, the Dragon mouths, before he turns towards me. “Remain calm. If we just follow the instructions, an explanation is sure to come.”
“You know what’s going on, then?” I ask.
Absolutely,” the Dragon says. “There’s no need to be afraid.”
I study his expression—a noble face, chin thrust out and lips narrowed to form the slightest hint of a smile. His green eyes stay wide the whole time.
“I’m not drugged, or scared, or dumb; I just want to know what’s expected of me,” I mumble, as I lower myself into my chair. “Whether I’m supposed to act like a “Snake,” or something else entirely… I just don’t think I’ll measure up.”
While my thoughts are in a tumult, what’s weighing me down has nothing to do with the strange events that are taking place in this room. The darkness, the strangers, this strangled feeling: I might as well be in my classroom, my cafeteria, or my student dorms instead, where the only person who’s willing to talk to me is the one who marches out to enforce school rules. And of course, the Dragon doesn’t seem to know how to respond to my grim statement either. Even so…
“Thanks Snake!” the Tiger says cheerily, and the clock ticks mercilessly on. Each slumbering student in the pile gradually rises, and the Dragon manages to greet each and every abductee as they stretch and yawn.
“Don’t worry… this is just some kind of prank.” He says, to a bookish, trembling, girl with wide cheeks, a pixie-cut, and a collar bearing an emblem of a Pig.
“Where are we? Some TV set, I think.” He remarks to the Ox, a well-built young man who’s holding his head between his hands.
If the first thing that they saw had been anything other than that well-groomed boy, they’d’ve surely fallen into a panic. Yet his smooth assurances lead us right to our seats, prepared at any moment for the cameras to pop up, or a winking, knowing adult to enter through the doors.
Each of these students also bears a leash with a fresh tag. That’s a Rat. A Horse. And now a Rabbit, a Rooster, a Monkey, and a Pig. Taking into account the fact that I was cursed with the Snake, then this last one should be… what was it again? The final Zodiac animal; it was either a Dog or a Cat.
But when the last student wakes, I recognize them as neither the Cat nor the Dog, but rather someone else entirely.
“Ah…” mutters the twin-tailed girl. Her eyes widen when she sees me. The red band wrapped around her arm says DISCIPLINE, but I ignore the word—I want to wrap my own arms around the Disciplinary Committee Chairman’s own cute little frame!
““You!”” We say, pointing.
“You two are friends?” The Dragon asks.
“No.” “Yes!” I refute her.
Lily’s rejection hurts me. But her smile goes a long way to remove its sting.
60:29
60:28
60:27
“We’re running out of time… we’re running out of time!” Tiger mutters, gesturing towards the circle. Though we all speak the same language and are roughly all the same age, I don’t recognize anybody else. Lily is the only person familiar to me, and she speaks in the same sharp, reliable voice that I’m used to:
“Don’t worry—I’m not someone who's proud of being late. “
Lily glances at me. And lowers herself into the Dog-marked chair.
Twelve students, teenagers, are arranged in a circle, each with a Zodiac Sign.
Starting from the top is the Dragon, then the Snake, and then—rather than observe them all in order, it’s far faster for me to sketch it.
_____________________________________________________________________________
DOUBLE DOORS
DRAGON
RABBIT SNAKE (me!)
TIGER HORSE
OX GOAT
RAT MONKEY
PIG ROOSTER
DOG
FAR WALL
______________________________________________________________________________
Every seat is filled. Lies, half-truths, and pleas will later echo through this room, but right now it is silent, the same kind of quiet that takes place right before a hurricane.
The screen changes.
GAME START.
And a giant “Cat” pops up on the TV.