Day 000 Hour 14 Of Plans and Paranoia
As I sat cross-legged on the apartment floor, chewing on the last bite of pita, I considered whether this moment could be classified as peace. Full stomach. Phone acquired. Task completed. Still alive. Not bad. But peace? No. The silence was too loud and the walls too thin for that word to ever apply.
I laid the foil wrappers next to my leg and stared at the old list again—the parchment of dreams now updated with the 15th idea crossed out. A separate line below it read, "Club task #1 complete. $7 spent. Suspiciously efficient."
A hundred dollars might seem trivial to someone on the outside, but when every cent feels like borrowed time, you learn to observe even how your breath costs you. And with this club, nothing was free. Not really.
I remembered the flinch in Polito's eye when I pulled out the bill. That wasn't surprise. That was fear. Someone like her, sitting behind a makeshift counter day in and day out, likely didn't flinch at much anymore. Which meant that envelope had weight—symbolic, or worse, dangerous.
So what exactly had I inherited? A club? A game? A trap? My apartment still held the heat of summer even with all the windows open, but my skin prickled like winter had entered.
I sat against the wall and stared at the phone.
No new messages. No buzz. No error. Just that blinking cursor in the text box where I had tried to ask follow-ups. The Club didn't do conversations. They did instructions.
I tucked the phone behind a loose tile in the wall. If it rang, I'd hear it. But I didn't want to look at it anymore.
Day 002 Hour 06 – Routine
Days passed. I didn't spend a cent.
Not because of discipline — I just didn't trust the bills. Every morning I'd wake, do stretches, inventory my money, and run mental math. I wasn't paranoid. I was learning. Every bill they handed me might as well be inked with GPS.
Still, I needed food outside of the ones I had preserved.
So I returned to the food truck uncle, rotating my requests between small items.
Day 006 Hour 18 – The Knock That Wasn't
For three nights, I dreamed of knocks.
The fourth night, I didn't.
That was worse.
I shot up in the dark, drenched in sweat, staring at the door. No knock. No envelope. No Club. Just me and the creaking walls. I hated that I missed the rhythm of their rituals already.
The silence was unnerving.
I knew the rules: monthly tasks, nothing early, nothing late. Still, the void was loud. My hands reached for the phone before my brain approved the movement. Nothing.