Everyone Gets a Turn

The Guess Who? board had been turned face down when Noah found it.

It sat beneath the guest bed, half-buried in dust and spiderwebs, its red plastic warped as if it had been left near heat. When Noah flipped it over, the board opened by itself with a soft, eager clack. Rows of yellow doors stared up at him.

Some were empty.

The faces that remained were wrong. Their smiles were stretched, eyes printed slightly off-center. A few looked familiar in a way Noah couldn’t place.

That night, his aunt insisted they play.

“It was your cousin’s favorite,” she said, setting the board between them. Her voice was flat, tired. “He loved guessing.”

Noah remembered his cousin. Or tried to. The memory slipped away whenever he reached for it. He continued anyway.

They played.

“Does your person have black hair?” Noah asked.

“Yes,” his aunt replied, folding down a row of doors.

Click click click.

The sound echoed longer than it should have.

When it was her turn, she didn’t ask about hair or hats.

“Does your person want to leave?” she asked.

Noah frowned. “That’s not a question...”

“Yes,” she answered herself.

She folded down a door.

Noah’s stomach twisted. “You can’t do that.”

She finally looked at him. Her eyes were rimmed red, and she smiled a creepy, Cheshire smile. All teeth. “The game doesn’t care.”

The second night, Noah noticed something new.

The empty slots were filling back in.

Not with new faces, but with familiar ones. There were neighbors, kids from school, people he recognized from half-remembered dreams and random memories he couldn't quite place.

Their eyes followed him when he moved. Their smiles were too wide. Their facial expressions were too excited.

One face was still blurry, like it hadn’t finished printing.

“Who’s that?” Noah asked, pointing.

His aunt’s hand trembled. “It will be clearer tomorrow.”

That night, Noah dreamed he was inside the board.

Yellow doors towered over him. When he touched one, it folded down, and the space behind it opened into a dark room. Something breathed inside.

On the third night, his aunt was gone.

The board waited on the kitchen table, already open.

A note lay beside it in shaking handwriting:

You don’t win. You just last longer.

Noah tried to leave the house. The front door wouldn’t open. Neither would the windows. It was all suffocating and clearly not normal.

The board made a sound behind him. The doors were flipping themselves, one by one.

A voice spoke, using his aunt’s voice, his cousin’s voice, voices stacked together.

“Your turn.”

Noah sat.

The board faced him. Only three doors remained standing.

One was his cousin.

One was his aunt.

The last was the blurry face.

Noah swallowed. “Is your person… alive?”

The board answered for him.

Click.

His aunt folded down.

Noah’s breath shook. “Is your person someone I love?”

Click.

His cousin disappeared.

Only one door remained.

The blurry face sharpened.

It was Noah. But he was older, thinner, eyes hollowed by waiting. They were like mini black holes drilled into his skull.

“No,” Noah whispered. “I haven’t been guessed yet.”

The board tilted forward.

“You have,” it said gently. “You just didn’t notice.”

His picture smiled. Too wide and too excited. It was all teeth. Black coming from his eyes.

The door fell.

Darkness rushed out.

In the morning, a realtor unlocked the house. Dust coated everything. The air smelled old, abandoned.

On the kitchen table sat a Guess Who? board, neatly closed.

Every face was present.

All smiling.

Except one, in the bottom corner. It was still blinking. Still smiling.