WILLIAM AND WHITE

The T.V. screen blips and then cuts to black for a split second. This drastic change causes your body to spam and your mind to draw to immediate attention. Your vision is now consumed with the image of an entire audience of children screaming with excitement. The high-pitch of their fervor is enough to pierce your ears and cause your face to a grimace. Panning into the screen, in an unnaturally close close-up, you see a jubilant face painted like a clown brandishing a large and toothy smile.

“HI KIDDOS!! YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS??”

The children heighten the sharpness of their cheers.

“THAT’S RIGHT … PSYCHO BILLY’S HOUSE OF SLAUGHTER!!!”

As you brace yourself for more audible impact the children’s cheering is nearly unbearable for you.

“OKAY BOYS AND GIRLS; PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR THE WHITE PLAYER!!!”

The cheering continues its jarring drone and the clown waves the tops of his fingers at you in a coochy-coo manner.

“HI WHITE PLAYER!!! SORRY TO KEEP YOU WAITING ALL CRAMPED UP IN THERE!!!”

He rolls his eyes in an exaggerated way.

“BECAUSE YOU ARE MY GUEST ON THE BESTEST GAME-SHOW EVER TO GRACE GOD’S GREEN EARTH. Games games games, everything is a game ... yer gunna do your typical white-thing ‘cause that’s yer game … WELCOME WHITE PLAYER!!! WELCOME TO MY HOUSE OF SSSLAUGHTER!!!”

There is calliope music that begins to play in a wonky way as its exasperated and muted notes compete with the hellish high-pitched voices of the youthful audience. The camera pans back now and you can see that this clown is certainly middle-aged but has a certain limber quality to his movements. Around him lie large objects of primary colors set onto a white background.

He takes a great deep exaggerated breath while he makes time for a dramatic pause. Then rapidly leans back to his uncomfortable close up to mumble:

“When I say everything is a game I mean that EVERYTHING IS A GAME!! Your life is a game, my life is a game, and no matter what, NO MATTER FUCKING WHAT we play the GAME!! So my part of the game is that I got to give you rules and bull shit, blah, blah, BLAH!! All I really care about is that you gather those scavenger items, then I can meet the THORN IN MY SIDE, FOR THAT LAST TWO THOUSAND TIMES, WHITE PLAYER!! So … you gunna do this so we can do that and get yer shit together for our final fucking show down?”

“I SURE FUCKING HOPE SO!!! fer yer sssake. I am the one that not only brought you here but essentially created you, I am you’re alpha and I am gunna be your omega so you see you oughta just stick with me and trust me your gunna have a GRAND! OLD! TIME!!”

His face has busted into an intimidating excitement and he inhales again exageratively.

“So yer gunna be a good contestant and stick to the game and give us a good show right?? Yer gunna play this thing through like a fucking Shakespearean comi-tragedy right to the fucking last scene getting them all in stitches, huh?? Yer gunna sing and scream bloody murder all night long??”

It is during this brief pause that you notice the children have stopped their incessant drone but you are not certain for how long it has been dropped.

“ALRIGHT, WERE BACK!!”

The children’s chorus of pain begins sounding again assaulting your ears from either side.

“OKAY, WELL WE HAVE GONE OVER ALL THE RULES AND THERE IS ONLY ONE THING TO ASK …”

The children and the clown scream in an ear-drum battering unison

“ARE … YOU ... READY???”

The final word is left with a pause lasting longer than the previous pauses in this conversation. You have a sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach as you feel you are being watched.

The television has grown silent and motionless besides the clown’s subtle sway and blinks. The pneumatic tube hisses and continues to slide in its downward motion. Your pulse throbs from the center of your chest and outward pressing at the very things strapping you in.

What do you do?

RED PLAYER: CAUGHT RED HANDED

Suddenly, while thinking of what you should do, a voice speaks from around the corner towards where you saw the man in yellow.

"Hey mouth-breather, we can fucking hear you. Slowly step out where we can see you."

Wait?!? Did he just say we? Immediately, you hold your breath but realize quickly that it is too late. Your mind sighs for an answer of what to do.

YELLOW PLAYER: Who the fuck is that

Prey hides, lets fucking kill 'em!

Our heart is beating so we can feel it in our toes and our nature calls us to spill blood, but we must remain calm, striking when the moment is right.


We STAND, TURN TOWARD the CORNER, and PREPARE to COUNTER a possible attack. "Hey mouth-breather, we can fucking hear you. Slowly step out where we can see you."


If this shit comes at us, we'll fucking break its leg.

We should refrain from killing it for now, it might know something of use.

BLUE PLAYER: Blur The Technicolor

I take a steadying breath, willing my body to calm.

(OK, take stock, quickly)

I QUIETLY CHECK the PAINTING, including the frame and back, looking for any series of numbers or hidden objects. Satisfied, I SNEAK down the hallway, trying to minimize my own shadow as I head to the far door. I take the left branch of the hallway,then turn right pressing my back against the wall, LOOKING back at the place I was, waiting for the shadowed shape, tensed for any action, making NO SOUND.

(Maybe they could help?)
(They also might be a complete psychopath)

I let my eyes adjust to the darkness

(I've got a screw.. I could cut, with it?)
(Now who's the psychopath?)

My fists clench spasmodically.
(NOT me)

I close my eyes for a moment, images flashing in my mind's eye.

(Crying)
(Held down)
(A knife)
(Over and Over)
(Blood Blood BLOOD!!!)

(...Not me..)
...
(Are you sure about that?)

I clench my jaw, hands at the ready.
(I'll defend myself, but I won't attack)

I meld with the darkness, allowing my breathing to move in time with the hisses of the RASA TUBE.

(If it's a god damned cat, I'm going to laugh 'til I puke)
I bite my lip to keep from smiling.

WHITE PLAYER: Carte Blanche

At first I stare blankly ahead of me. The feeling that I know something, but it won't surface in my mind fades as I try to solidify it. The more I grasp, the more it eludes me. Eventually, I loosen my mind and try to allow the images to come to me. Nothing does.

I stare at the words "Please Stand By" and I wonder what am I waiting for?

"HELLO!!! WHITE PLAYER!!! ARE YOU THERE!?!"

BLUE ON THE MOVE

As you look down the hallway toward the darkness your eyes cannot help but feel disgust at the crooked and tacky wallpaper. Walls sweating with condensation from the hot moisture spitting from the tubes behind you seem to clam, swell and box you in despite being ten feet apart. The wall to your left adorns a painting that contains odd and alarming subject matter. You are not sure you recognize it, but it seems like something from a medieval period work but this would have to be a well framed reprint, right?



The hall continues twenty or so feet before opening up into perhaps a perpendicular hallway. It is with the same gaudy wallpaper but there is a door that breaks its pattern. The door is metal and appears like one that would be found in an airlock. The stale air you breathe takes on more significance. The door would be opened by turning a wheel that is placed nearly dead center of it or at least you hope it is that easy.



Your attention now turns back toward the rasa tube. It is embedded in the wall and only the outer-end of its rounded corners is bulging out from the wall. Looking and admiring the crafty work of welding, riveting, and mechanics you cannot help but wonder if the entire mechanics cannot be jury-rigged in some way. Perhaps the elevation control could be re-routed manually to move back upward.

Upon closer searching of the inside of the tube you can see that there are a few screws that could be unscrewed. These could come in handy, and perhaps could be a good spot for any modifications you make for the tube. You obtain a handful of nuts and bolts.



Satisfied with your search you begin to sneak down the hall. As you reach its end along the hall to your right you can see that there is another source of light peaking around the corner of the end of the perpendicular hall on your right. You can see that the hall breaks into another direction and it is from here that you guess the source of this other light is coming from. Around the corner and just to your right, where the hall opens to its most extreme, you can see another door. Closer still you make out that the door has some sort of locking mechanism. Like the latch on a suitcase the lock culminates on the door with three dials. Each dial contains the number zero and an indicator above establishes that it is locked.

With sharp ears you establish that there are sounds of hissing from that hall too. Could it be another rasa tube? And wouldn’t that mean another player? It is then that you notice another sign. There is movement of some sort within the light causing shadows to kaleidoscope by in odd and abstract forms.

The very thought that you could be this close to another causes your heart to pound in an animalistic fashion. With a slow and pensive movement you realize that you still have the screws in your hand and carefully, without even the slightest sound, manage to place them in a side pocket. The palms of your hands feel cool and sweaty and your mind begins to race with options.

YELLOW LIGHT

As you make your way down the hallway the first thing brought to your attention is the wallpaper. It is an odd and hasty one it seems and very much outdated and worn. Although the walls and floors are swept spotless you cannot help but feel that this place is dirty. Stealthy, slow and observant you head toward the left most wall and creep along the shadows cast by the diodes intrusive lighting. You sneak along the wall making little sound.

It is at this moment that your eye catches something along the opposite wall. Briefly you examine its image as you see a painting that hangs. You nearly instantly identify it as The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch and continue with your movement.




As you approach the door you give one final scan and see nothing but as you turn and listen to what is beyond the door you can make out only a few muffled syllables of yelling, “ANT EAT”, before your ears notice something making sound behind you.

You turn your head again to hear the sounds of hissing from around a corner that ends the hallway wall that is opposite you. And when you hold your breath and squint your eyes to really listen, you make out heavy breaths from around that corner too.

Reflexively you give your neck one last stretch.

GREEN LIGHT

“HOO HOO, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS GUY, COOL AS A CUCUMBER?!?!?”

The overzealous screams of the children fills your tubular confines with sound forcing your face to squint. You flex at what is strapping you in with great strength and there is not the slightest of a bend. There was, how-ever, a brief pause before your answer gets response. It was difficult to notice but you are going to gather that this ‘broadcast’ is not without delay but all must contained relatively close in proximity. Again you wonder how it is you know any of this.

The face of the clown presses close to the screen which imposes a forced closeness to you.

“WELL THEN GREEN PLAYER, THIS IS WHAT YOU WERE BORN FOR!!!”

And with that you feel your encasement shudder and you feel of a sickly light weight as you feel your blood shift upward.

The T.V. switches back to ‘please stand by…’ and in this moment you feel a great come-down. Like the removal of some awakening force from your body. Perhaps it’s that the clown is gone, maybe those god-awful children, or maybe it’s because for this moment you feel like you are back in some sort of limbo between two worlds.

The quiet returns but this time your mind races with thoughts. It’s as if each moment is the only to cling to so your mind is actively sweeping it till the point of familiarity. The tube around you still shuddering and hissing your ears can barely pick up new music on the radio of this small but imposing television.

Anticipation rises again as you feel new sounds coming from ahead of you and with the television lifting upwards you feel as if you are about be brought out of your confines. There is an instantaneous and overwhelming excitement for the return of your free-will that builds up in your stomach until the rest of your body tingles.

The door ahead of you comes into form with the auto-mechanical rearrangement of objects ahead of you and with a hiss this door too begins to open. And with a sudden violent motion the tube shifts forward slightly and drops you onto the marble floor that stands before you. Lumbering up from your newly assumed fetal position you begin to feel a sudden newness to your being.

The large tube embedded into the wall behind you looks not unlike the décor, which surrounds it. Faded wallpaper and plastered ceiling imply that you are in some sort of building, maybe even a house. Although the stank stale air and general feeling of unease would suggest that this house is not intended for comfortable living

The hall that lies before you seems very cramped and its wallpaper hangs kind of crooked. The walls are not but five feet apart and its immediate appearance is that of an apartment. But what apartment has marble floors? The hall before you turns sharply to your left and continues fifteen or so feet before breaking off right and into the darkness. The lights of the diodes in your pneumatic tube flash a silhouette of your figure on the wall before you. You are a shadow on the wall. You admire your size, only magnified in a black shape contrasting the wallpaper.

You are not quite sure where you are but it is certain that you feel a long way from home.

RED LIGHT ... YELLOW LIGHT

You walk along the hall scanning left and right and waiting for your eyes to adjust to the darkness. You walk slowly as to give yourself time to scan for even the smallest of objects that could provide help. The ugly wallpaper seems to sweat with the moisture spattered from the pneumatic tube behind you.

Along the wall to your right you see a large painting hanging centered and stiff. Its frame is of wood and its contents seem strange, outdated and bewildering. You wonder what kind of person would hang such a thing. But you know that it is old and it is probably worth some money. But it’s not something that is going to help here, you think, so you continue towards the end of the hall and can hear more sounds of hissing ahead of you.



As you reach the end of the hall you can see that there is another hall running perpendicular towards you. It is a considerable bit wider than the hall from whence you came but at its end, much like yours, there is a source of light from the diodes that rivet the exterior machinery of the pneumatic tube.

Along a wall across from the newly found hall there is a large metal door. This door is something like what would be on a large ship with a large wheel that seals the door in place. Around the corner, steps inside this larger hall, there is another door.

Finally, creeping along the wall you see a man in yellow coveralls and as he nervously turns his head your way you peek your head back around the corner. With exhilarated breaths you ponder your next move.

YELLOW PLAYER: We flex our fingers...

That god damned clown can't be too far away, we'll kill him with our bare fucking hands.

While that would hold a certain primal charm, it lacks the precision and beauty of a blade, and there may be other predators in this hunt.

Other damned souls? Fuck these hypothetical hyenas, we're a fucking lion.

Even so we should be cautious, look for something we can use as a weapon. We also don't have the appropriate tools; gloves, coveralls, garbage bags, or a bone saw.

Fine, we'll burn this fucking place down when we are done, lets fucking go.


We strech stiff muscles, glance at our list of scavenger hunt items, then SNEAK down the hall towards the DOOR on the left, we EXAMINE THE DOOR and LISTEN for any sounds on the other side.