This is WOE.BEGONE (quotes!)

But if she doesn’t kill me and someone surpasses her in the game, then I die. And if she kills me, I die. People die when they are killed. Did WOE.BEGONE just kill me?

Arms are heavy when they aren’t being used, and the surreal feeling of the dead arm was almost as horrible as the sensation of amputation.

I spent hours thinking through, writing out, charting, erasing, and starting over again, trying to create foolproof situations and absolutely rocking out to my favorite tune for getting work done: “Smoothed Brown Noise 12 Hours Black Screen For Sleeping/Working/Studying.” Greatest piece of music ever written. Bar none. Come at me, Mozart.

The ticking clock got wound backwards, but it’s impossible to say how far and also now the clock is ticking even louder and the clock also has the face of my father and keeps saying how disappointed he is that I didn’t become a scientist. I’ve had this nightmare so many times before. We all have.

MW: Don’t get me wrong, I like those folks at the Base, but they’re getting cabin fever, just as bad as we are. And I think that Shadow’s gonna get violent if Marissa keeps cheating at Monopoly. MICHAEL: Everyone cheats at Monopoly. MIKEY: That’s what people who cheat at Monopoly say.

Fine, Hunter. I don’t know why I’m playing coy about it. I’m playing a dangerous game. The Most Dangerous Game. Hunting man for sport has nothing on this. This is hunting man for sport bonus edition. The consequences are extreme.

It sounded decent in theory to just talk to him, but this was a game about murder. This was the guy who made the game about murder and my plan was to tell him forcefully that I was going to make him stay.

“One cool shit, coming up,” Marissa said and pumped the gas on the cart. We sped off into adventure.

You were my Mikey Bear and I was your Panther. Most of our friends thought that we were the worst kind of couple, too in love with each other. Marissa said we were gross. You were originally using me to get tier 2 door codes, but you ended up falling in love with the cute gluten-free twink. One time, we were walking to the O.V.E.R. cafeteria together and it was pouring down rain and we only had one umbrella. You were holding it over my head and getting soaked. Hunter ran out of his cabin and offered you a second umbrella and you refused because you said it was more romantic that way. So, yeah, admittedly pretty gross.

I am much more interested in lurking in the shadows, biding my time to take what I can when I can. Like a cockroach.

It completely broke me when you died. I held it together in public decently well, but any time I was alone I would just burst into tears. I became completely non-functional any time I thought about it and when I had time to think I was always thinking about it.

MIKEY: Talk. If you're going to die anyway, then what does it matter? MICHAEL: Fine. I’ll talk. It'll help pass the time till the Reaper comes to get me. I think I'll let that slip on purpose. But I’m, warning you, the cat's going to be out of the bag. Ain't no way to get it back in. MIKEY: That's fine with me. Cats shouldn't be in bags, it's inhumane.

“You’re going to find the bottom of an unmarked grave,” he said. He was still pinning me to the wall with considerable force. “Have you tried being careful? Ever? In your whole fucking life?” “No, not really,” I said. “Usually someone bails me out.”

It’s the same way it’s always been since Mike and I showed up here. Base needs to shed some blood, but don’t want to get their pretty little hands dirty. So they sent the cowboy out there to do what’s got to be done.

TY: Mikey, we are taking the utmost precaution to ensure that– MIKEY: You don’t even know what the word “precaution” means. There is no such thing. You’re making me watch you kill him. You’re making me participate in killing him. Do you not understand what you are doing to me?

“I love it when the good guys win,” he said through a mouth full of donut. There was a full box of donuts in his hands. "Want one? They’re not poisoned or nothin’. I didn’t know what your favorite was, so I got a jelly-filled one. Jelly was as close as I could get to Jam."

“Ugh, you have two sets of handcuffs.” I groaned. “Yep, just in case. I've never had to actually use two sets at the same time, though.” Charlie said I could hear her smiling. “Did you think that you were being sneaky, dipshit?” Marissa asked. “I did think that, actually. Yeah,” I said.