The Long March

[Dogs231]

One step. Two steps. Three steps. More. At some point or another, the girl lost count.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED FROM "A Conspiracy of Silence"

Claire may have forgotten the number of her steps, but she did not forget the more important fact at play in this scenario: this was a death march. Eventually, sooner or later, her story would end, and it would end here. She had spent this terrible game attempting to come to grips with that in the silent moments where nothing else happened to occupy her mind. And yet she was still so afraid. Death was a scary thing to face alone.

And she had never felt more alone in her life than she did at that very moment.

Part of it was the news that she had heard earlier that day, same time as always. The announcements were hard to take at the start, but after a while, she was numb to their creeping dread. Lists of names didn't mean a lot anymore—not when she'd been making one herself. This extraordinary situation had begun to feel rather ordinary. It was as if there had never been anything else in her short life but this horrible island. She hated it.

She sighed. A cloud of white streamed out as she did. Then, her gloved hands pawed at her coat pockets until they found its mark. In the left pocket, the list of the dead and damned. Bound in blood like a grimoire. She drew it out slowly and read it over again, trying to commit to mind the many names that would lay alongside hers on their memorial. One stood out. It always had. Her eyes narrowed on it. Her breath hitched up.

CHLOÉ DELACROIX

KYLE EMERSON

MAYA PRESS

LÚCIO OLIVEIRA

COLM FORSYTH

FRED HOBBES

PRZEMYSLAW ZIEMIAK

CHIARA MASINA

DEREK CALDWELL

DANIEL OZANNE

JULIA GUERCIO

KAI ROSADO-PRINCE

MOLLY OLIVEIRA

JUANITA REID •

The list did not end there; she wished, she wished, she wished it had, but it didn't. At the bottom of the center of the page, just above where the crossed-out remains of the name 'ALEX' lay, was another name like it—a name that, before that, she would have never expected to hear from the twisted mouths of their captors. A prophecy made in the span of four little letters. Like four stabs right at the heart as she looked at it again.

EVIE

Why?

Claire's heart sank into her shoes. She didn't understand. A few days ago, the two of them had been traveling companions. And now, she had killed someone. Chloé. A person who wanted to break the game, not play it. She wasn't sure what could have compelled Evie. Had she given in to the pressure, like so many others? Did Chloé? She could only guess. A part of her tried to put herself into Evie's shoes. Would she kill to survive?

"I can't allow myself to think like that," she thought. And she was afraid.

She feared the question because, after everything, she had no answer.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED IN "The Weight of the Ice"