Author Games: Circle

Finals | Saga Ström

By the sixth day, seventeen people had been freed.

Seventeen people had received mercy. They'd received it in the stoppage of their heartbeat, in the suspension of their breath, in the dissolving burden of what they'd done.

Living, on the other hand, was punishment. Perhaps these remaining three deserved it.

That morning, they woke at different times, careful not to disturb those who slumbered still. Mister Smith, as always, rose first. Each night, he'd stayed up far later than anyone else, posture within his inky circle rigid, spine contorted, hands folded atop his knees; each morning, Saga would wake to find him just the same.

Today, Saga rose next. Sometimes Robin had woken before her, beamed at a vulnerable Saga as she'd rubbed the sleep from her eyes, asked about her dreams in that deep, even tone. But on that sixth morning, Robin lay prone in her circle, and Saga could only avoid Mister Smith's gaze and stare stolidly ahead.

Barth's fragile body had vanished in the night, as they'd known it would. Lilia's and Camden's corpses had also disappeared, thankfully, though their absence left the metal dome a little more barren, a little more sterile. Saga would have begun consuming the food placed before her—the Circlemaster always set out food in the nights, cold astronaut meals on plastic trays—but none had been provided. Instead, a slip of paper rested within Saga's circle, black text small and plain:

Your voting period has ended. The final vote belongs to me. Speak and I will listen; only one leaves alive.

The words meant nothing to Saga. Part of her had hardened, over the past five days, the part that would have feared the loss of her own life by someone else's hand. Death was freedom here, and living had made her weary.

"One last memory," said Mister Smith. Saga glanced across the circle; unlike she and Robin, who had sat side by side the entire process, Mister Smith had been sequestered on the other side of the ring, between Barth and the fallen teacher, Shadi.

"I'm sorry?" said Saga. Her words rasped, and she cleared her throat with a jagged cough.

"You read the paper, right?" said Mister Smith, voice reedy and melancholy. "He's picking one of us to live. The others die."

Saga nodded. "I understand." She already knew who would be saved, who deserved to be saved, and it was neither of the people currently speaking.

"I propose we tell one last story. A memory that encapsulates us. Something he can latch onto—"

"—he or she—"

"—that'll make him say, 'Wow. I'd be friends with this person. I'd like to see this person very alive.'"

Saga groaned, letting her head drop into cupped hands. The stories worked against her, every single time. Six separate stories she'd told over five tenuous days, and she had watched that flicker of interest leave every listener's eyes without fail. People listened to a mass murderer; people listened to a madman, an alien, a lover. People would save the lost foster child, or the girl brave enough to shave her own head, or the literal dog. People did not care for a bland, middle-class white girl bereft of personality and awash in her own hyper-magnification of simple issues. She spoke well—this was why she'd been saved. She made sense; she asked other storytellers the necessary questions; she was a calming presence in voting rounds, yet any attempts to dive beneath Saga's surface layer yielded nothing. Utility alone had preserved her, but this final story would kill her.

Saga glanced to her right, noting that Robin had woken while she'd ruminated in silence. Robin's eyes were bleary with sleep ("caffeine debt", Robin had joked a few days ago; "I had it coming"), and she held an identical slip of paper to Saga's. Her hand was trembling, near imperceptibly.