In the third shower stall from the left in the bathroom on the Inner Arm of Tier 2 of the third floor, Tim found the Cloak of Great Reward. Jay had warned him that the Cloak wasn't necessarily something you wanted to find - "doesn't help you at all in the game, might fuck you over later" - but Tim still had enough of the Batman-obsessed adolescent in him to get a thrill out of tying the Cloak around his neck. He took a few long strides down the hall, and the heavy purple fabric swept dramatically behind him. So cool.

The Cloak of Great Reward – A purple cloak, to be worn around the neck. Has no effect during the game. At the end of the game, the wearer of the cloak is entitled to the contents of the Box of Mystery, which is sealed prior to the game by the Head Referee. The Box of Mystery is the same size as the Mausoleums, and may contain anything the Head Referee chooses that fits inside. The contents may be useful in the next game (an extra Sniper gun or Delmonico's Shield), they may be punitive (a card with the message "Give the other team a fifth of your territory"), or they may have no relation to the game at all (an old sweater the Head Referee wishes to get rid of). The cloak wearer may give up the cloak any time prior to the 12-hour deadline or the declaration of a winner. If the wearer is tagged, he goes to Gaol, and the cloak becomes the property of the player who tagged him. After time is called, or a winner is declared, there will be a five-minute period during which the cloak may be traded.

The Cloak was gravy, as far as Tim was concerned. He was just happy to be playing the game, and not stuck wandering the tunnels draped in a half-dozen hula skirts, or trying to officiate arguments over whether a suction-cup dart grazing a shirt counted as a hit. According to the byzantine rules of MiloBall he found in his Handbook, new players were expected to undergo a sort of mild institutional hazing before being allowed to join the official Red and Blue teams.

2a. The Red and Blue teams have largely constant memberships. Up to two first-time players and two second-time players are allowed in each game. The two first-timers serve as Assistant Referees. The two second-timers serve as Head Referee and Shambling Horror. In a player's third game, he may rotate into the Red or Blue team if a space is available; otherwise, he remains as Head Referee or Shambling Horror. No new players are allowed until a current player leaves.

Luckily for Tim, Crab Crunch had made a shocking return to the Weston Hall wall of cereal, and it had claimed five brave but foolhardy MiloBall regulars. "It'll be coming out both ends twice an hour for the next two days," was Jay's amateur diagnosis. In such an emergency, Rule 2c superseded Rule 2a, so four new players were rounded up, and Tim, by virtue of having already been in the lobby for the game's official 8:00 start time (at 7:44 exactly, to be precise), got to tie on the red armband of his new team.

"Thank the fucking lord," said Reese, hurling the Shambling Horror costume at the hapless freshman who'd drawn the short straw.

Besides Tim, the Red team included team captain Jay, former referees Roland and Rosa, and eleven other players – all potential new best friends, as far as Tim was concerned. His freshman experience so far had not been the cool-new-friend free-for-all he had been led to expect by the UNWG brochure, not to mention movies, TV and well-meaning but bitter guidance counselor Mr. Hancock ("Kids like you, Tim, we – you find your real friends in college. Trust me. Forg...fuck high school, Tim. Fuck it"). Though he had three times as many roommates as expected, they were all exactly what he had feared – merely bodies to fill a room, as indifferent to him as the furniture.

MiloBall was a way to change all that, or at least the Handbook told him it was, and the Handbook had not lied once yet. He let the St. Crispin's Day speech bounce pleasantly around his head as Jay outlined the Red team's strategy and decided on locations for the Gaol and Mausoleum.

It was 11:32. Three and a half hours into the game. So far no contact with the Blue team. Tim staked a lonely claim to Tier 2 of the third floor. If the MiloBall was here, he would find it. There were 18 bedrooms, one bathroom, a study lounge and a locked room of indeterminate purpose on F3T2, arranged along a hallway that resembled four sides of a nonagon. One end of the hallway – the western end, Tim thought, but he wasn't sure - were the stairs to the second floor (Tier 3, to be exact). At the other end, a set of swinging double doors revealed a three-step stairway leading to Tier 1 of the third floor. F3T1, F2T3 and the stairwell were Blue territory, which made Tim's chosen beat, F3T2, a prime location for ambushing Blue players trying to take the short way back to their home territories. He'd searched the hall and the bathroom and the study lounge for the MiloBall and poked around the walls for secret entrances, but the Ball remained elusive. He figured he'd stay here for another thirty minutes and try to capture a Blue or two before moving on and continuing the search.

Tim paused in his patrol. He heard something, perhaps coming from the stairs to F3T1. He shut off the voice in his brain – a voice that was starting to take on the tone and mannerisms of the Handbook – and focused on the immediate atmosphere, listening for any noise, any sign of a wayward Blue. He heard the noise again – a faint moan with just enough personality behind it that he knew it wasn't a breeze or a piece of the building settling. It was coming from possibly-west end of the hall. The moans got louder as he approached room 248.

The moans stopped. Tim froze just outside the door, drawing the clock tighter around himself. "Fuck me daddy harder daddy fuck me fuck me" said a voice inside the room. The moans started up again.

Someone inside was watching porn. Outside of the MiloBall crew, it was the first sign of life Tim had seen in Wintertree all night. He figured most residents took the weekend either as an opportunity to retreat home to Mom and Dad or to venture downtown to try out their fake IDs, still smelling of fresh laminate, but he still expected to find more than just one person spending their Friday night in the dorm. Even the lobby movie crew was missing. Tim imagined them venturing forth into the night like one many-headed Hydra draped in smelly blankets, shouting "Ni!" at unsuspecting passersby.

You're worried if this is the normal state of affairs – and if so, what that says about you. Last Friday you told yourself that being left alone in your room was a gift – a night away from roommates who don't even like you, a night to unwind and get reacquainted with yourself after the hectic first week of school. But you saw that for the lie it was almost immediately – a violation of the unwritten, unspoken contract you made with yourself as your mom's Crown Vic pulled away from Wintertree. And yes, this is the normal state of affairs. You will never again have what you have now. You will never again live in such close proximity to so many other people of the same age, in an environment where mistakes and bad behavior are not only not discouraged, but are in fact sometimes rewarded. The bulk of your fellow students have already figured this out, and have acted accordingly. We surmise from your lonely Friday night that you are familiar with the X-Men; think of college as a Danger Room for adulthood. You can't really be hurt, as long as you participate. Experimentation is rewarded. But for this experience to be what you want it to be, you must embrace chaos, at least a little bit. You must be able to start a journey without knowing exactly where it will end.

We can already feel you pulling away. We can hear the excuses you're formulating right now. A Friday night is a formless, terrifying, infinitely-branching tree of possibilities. You need something whose edges you can see. You need a code of conduct, a clear beginning and end, a goal. You work best when you have limits placed upon you. When you are constrained but free. At least you tell yourself that. You need rules.

Here are the rules.

Tim checked his watch – 11:36. A deeper moan from inside room 248 reminded Tim that he'd been standing here for four minutes listening to a guy jerk off. He moved down to the other end of the hall, back into silence.

The thing is, if this is supposed to help you make friends, where are those friends? You've been alone for three and a half hours now. You could have been alone in your room for three and a half hours and achieved the same result. At least there you have a TV, and internet access if Neal's not there. You could pull out that Penthouse you've had for three years, the one you've practically memorized, and you could be the one jerking off, not knowing or caring if some creep in a purple cape is listening just outside your door. Or maybe you don't need the magazine. Maybe when you close your eyes you picture Joanie and you get hard, even though you shouldn't – even though, in the limited time you've interacted with her, she was semi-conscious at best. Maybe you should think of Lisa instead, or Christy, or just use the magazine, though no matter which route you take there's always guilt involved.

A thin, echoing sound somewhere to Tim's left seized his attention. No porno moans this time. It sounded like a rubber sole squeaking on a floor, like someone was in the stairwell, sneaking up from the second floor. Tim crept toward the door at the end of the hall, pressing his back against the wall, as he'd seen cops do in movies, and pulling the Cloak tighter around him, as he'd seen Batman do. He passed the bathroom, the study lounge and the locked room, the footsteps – definitely footsteps in the stairwell – getting louder. He crouched to the right of the door to the stairwell, ready to tag the enemy and take him prisoner.

The footsteps stopped. Tim tensed, his tagging hand at the ready. Behind him, a previously locked door swung open on creakless hinges. The interloper was already to the first bend in the hall when Tim realized no one was coming up the stairwell.

Tim turned and gave chase. It was Stacy, the Blue team's captain, and she had a purple volleyball tucked under her left arm. The MiloBall. She looked over her shoulder at Tim and smiled, the smile of someone who knows that her pursuer cannot and will not catch her. She ran down the hall, curving to the right, Tim fifteen steps behind her. She Heismaned it through the double doors to F3T1, and by the time Tim reached them they had already swung back into place. He pushed through them and she was gone. With the MiloBall in the Blue team's possession, they were all but guaranteed victory. He'd already let down his team.

Tim slunk back down to the other end of the hall, the Cloak dragging on the carpet behind him. The previously locked door next to the stairwell was still open. A hand-lettered sign was taped to the inside of the door. An arrow pointed into the room, and underneath the arrow, in big block letters, was one word: "HEAVEN."

Tim peered into the dark of the room beyond the door, which he had assumed a custodial closet. But there was no mop, no sink, and he couldn't tell how big or small the room was. As he stood there, trying to decide what to do, a voice spoke from the darkness.

"Are you here for your reward?"

To be continued...