Name by Name

[Frozen Smoke]

((Parker_Green - Day 3 - 08:55 Local Time - Entering from Applied Prisoners Dilemma))

By the time the morning came, Parker was ready.

The first thing he’d done was tear apart Aoi and Garren’s bags, removing the two circular faces that held it together, freeing the flat sheet of black fabric which wound around them to form a cylinder. This had been placed over the small windows to the room he’d secreted himself in, stopping the torchlight he was working by from bleeding out into the darkness, and letting people know he was there. The bed frame, flimsy and wooden as it was, had been pressed against the door, with a set of drawers laying on top of it. Not enough to stop someone determined enough to enter, but enough to slow them down, or at least give him a modicum of warning. The mattress had been spared, and was now nestled in a corner of the room, as far from the window and door as he could position it. A place to rest, once he had time.

The tasteful, off-white accent wall that offset the less tasteful cyan of the rest of the room now bore jagged marks in its paint, courtesy of the tip of his axe. It was an inelegant writing tool, but it had sufficed, as he marked down what he needed to remember. The first two letters of the first and last names of everyone who’d graced the last announcement, followed with a tally, that represented how many times they’d killed. Another tally of two marks stood above all of that, with “DAY” preceding it. It wasn’t something Parker was likely to forget, but it served as a reminder to update it.

One of his two maps lay on the floor below that, having served as a subject of study to keep him awake for the past few hours as he’d waited for the announcements, committing it to memory and looking for anything he might have missed. Beside that were his six empty bottles, his task for the following day. If the rain kept up, and it sounded like it was going to, then his job would be remarkably easy. If it didn’t, then the waterfall was most likely his best bet - assuming it was properly named - as that indicated a river flowing down from somewhere, which hopefully meant fresh water. If not, the Rice Paddies would make a good backup option, assuming their irrigation hadn’t failed.

The announcement echoed a little in the small room, but he paid close attention to all of it, absorbing it. Parker repeated the names of all of the killers to himself, excluding the two farces that bookended the day. There was no need to mark down people who were no longer in a position to impact him, or anyone else, for that matter.

Then came the process of marking it all down. Another few minutes spent scraping away at the wall, etching in a new column of abbreviated names, and adding to tallies, the process feeling decidedly wearisome. His eyelids felt as heavy as his head felt light. He stepped back, and looked at the wall again, as the yellow glow of the morning creeped in around the edges of his makeshift curtains to add to the sharp white light of his torch. He repeated the list a second time, just to make sure there wasn’t something he’d missed.

There wasn’t. Or, if there was, he couldn’t see it.

Parker brushed the paint flakes off of the axe, and placed it beside the mattress, his glasses and cap joining it on the floor.

For what felt like the first time in his life, he was asleep only a few seconds after lying down.

((Parker_Green - Day 3 - 09:13 Local Time - In Transit to Elsewhere))