Day 60 – Hour 014
Title: The Ledger
The silence in my room was loud.
It sat against my chest and coiled around my ribs like the aftermath of a slow mistake. I had spent the last hour lying on the floor beside my bed—not because I was tired, but because everything in me demanded stillness. The kind that comes when you've touched something too powerful, too close, and now need time to understand the weight of it.
The question had already left me: Do you care who I become?
And just like that, it was gone. My only chance to ask something with consequence. Something sharp, tactical. Instead, I asked a question I wasn't sure I wanted the answer to. And the worst part? I got no real answer at all. Only silence after the one statement. Which might've been louder than a yes or no.
A quiet rejection.
I rolled onto my side and pulled out the ledger.
It wasn't fancy. A small, matte black notebook with creases forming along the spine. The pages were thin, but the ink hadn't bled through. It had been provided after the second task and now served as my official record. The Club never told me to log anything, but I did. Out of instinct, or paranoia, or maybe both.
Task One: The Phone
Objective: Buy a phone using only change received from Polito's shop. Text "The $100 Club" to 3334444.
Resources Used: Favor from France, $7 spent total.
Scored: 93%
Notes:
First introduction to Club protocols.
Change provided was almost exact; no overage.
Task simplicity disguised deeper test of obedience and initiative.
All other participants scored higher—indicating something I missed.
I flipped to the next section.
Task Two: Photo Challenge
Objective: Memorize five locations. Visit each at the specified hour within a 48-hour window. Photograph each.
Resources Used: Cheap phone. No additional purchases.
Scored: Disqualified
Notes:
Bought map and markers with personal funds. Rule broken.
Locations were seemingly random but likely selected to monitor my resourcefulness, movement patterns, or risk tolerance.
Reward was learning: failure leads to mentorship.
That last point felt truer now than ever. Marco had sharpened my skills in three weeks. What I thought was casual photography had become a tool—one I could wield with surprising precision. And the Club? They rewarded not success, but potential.
Then came the page that still felt warm.
Task Three: The Socks
Objective: Find an unknown subject. Determine their identity without help. Remove and deliver both socks.
Resources Used: Zero money spent. Food from home. No favors pulled.
Scored:
Speed: 10/10
Tactics: 4/10
Conviction: 10/10
Money Saved: 10/10
Hired Help: 10/10
Investigative Skills: 7/10
Percentile: 99%
Bonus: One question answered. Reward pending.
Notes:
Located subject within first hour.
Let thugs remove obstacle; no action required.
Took socks post-conflict, left subject unconscious.
Felt a moral pull—but made the efficient choice.
That last bullet sat there like a stain.
The rulebook they'd given me detailed restrictions placed on the subject. I hadn't read them thoroughly at first. Skimming led me to miss strategic insight. Now that I revisited them, three clear advantages had been granted:
The subject could not be indoors for more than 2 hours daily.
The subject was male, over 15.
The subject was not allowed to eat.
That meant I had three precise windows to trap him. Three direct advantages the Club gave me—and I'd used none of them. I had lucked out. The thugs did the heavy lifting.
Tactics: 4/10.
The score haunted me, even with everything else maxed. Even with the 99th percentile. Because that 4 wasn't just a number. It was a mirror. And it showed me that when tested, I leaned on fate rather than action.
I sat with that for a long time.
Then I looked at something I hadn't written into the ledger yet. A final entry at the back, something I'd scribbled an hours ago when I was still riding the high of completing the task. It simply read:
"Do you care who I become?"
I stared at the words.
Had I been trying to get a glimpse into their endgame? Or was it more desperate than that—me, begging to know if any of this had meaning beyond tasks and instructions? Was I hoping to find out if I was just a tool, or something more?
But the Club said nothing. The message had been read, but no real reply came.
And somehow, that was more painful than being denied.
I shut the ledger and stared at the ceiling. My house was still filled with supplies. New clothes hung on the wall, shoes tucked into their box, unopened snacks still waiting to be rationed. I had tried to prepare for the unknown—but there was no way to predict the Club.
Three tasks. Three completions. One mark of failure. One close call.
And now, no more questions.
All I could do now… was wait.