Rules for Playing a Role: Page Thirteen

The old laboratory building is due to be demolished. The demolition crew went in three times and came out empty-handed each time.

The seven who went in the fourth time were students attending club activities on a Wednesday afternoon.

The club has only one activity: draw a role card from a chipped metal box and perform a scene according to a mimeographed copy of the Rules of Roleplay.

The first page of the rules says: The name you draw is your name until the curtain falls.

The role Jiang Chi draws is called "Audience Member Number Seven." There's no such role in the rules, no such person in the script, and no one in the club admits to having seen the card.

As they leave, the new club president calls out his real name in the stairwell.

He turns around. Rule Three says: If someone calls you by your real name, don't turn around.

The next day, the nurse records the time as 23:11, the exact moment the "martial artist" exits in the script.

From that day on, Jiang Chi understands two things:

First, every rule was bought with someone's life.

Second, the missing fourth page matters more than the thirteen pages that remain.