BLUE PLAYER: Perhaps You Had Better Start From the Begining...

I lean heavily against the wall, the tattered paper coarse against my fingertips, as though they're new to feeling. I take a ragged breath, heart racing.

(Steady.)

I close my eyes.

(In through the nose)
I inhale slowly.

(Out through the mouth)
A shuttering breath whistles emptily through my teeth.

(OK, better.)

I open my eyes, LOOKING around the hallway.

(So if this is a 'Game', there must be 'Players')

I turn and LOOK to the RASA TUBE.

(A new-hatched bird had everything it needed in its egg..maybe it's the same for me)
As I reach into the Tube to SEARCH, I look at my arms, the dark blue of my cover-alls catching my eye.

(He called me the 'Blue Player'..So maybe it's a colour thing)
(Let's see.. Colours..)
(Red)
(Orange)
(Yellow)
(Green)
(Blue, me)
(Indigo)
(Violet)

(Seven. Excluding me, six.)

(Unless there's Black and White too?)


"Fuck. Eight. Assume eight."

"Well that's just fucking perfect."

As I continue to SEARCH, the RASA TUBE, I find myself looking at the backs of my hands.

I study the rough calluses, veins standing out in the pale flesh, peppered with flecks of melanin, pink at the knuckles and nails. I have a few scars across the second knuckle of my left thumb, hair like copper wires standing out from the backs of my wrists. A man's hands; maybe late twenties, early thirties.

(Who the hell am I?)

I reach up, tentatively touching my face, trying to get a sense of what I look like.

(Sharp high cheekbones)
(Squared jaw with a pointed chin; some morning scruff)
(Deep-set eyes with a jutting brow ridge, contoured forehead)
(Straight nose with a high bridge, feels like it might have been broken at one point)

"Well.. Pleased to meet you, Blue Player."

TAKING what I can from the TUBE, I PROCEED down the HALLWAY, one hand grazing the wall; CROUCHED low, ALERT for the slightest change.

"One down, Eight to go..."