Lady in Grey.

Who is this?

"Who are you? You know there are guns out there? How can you be so calm?" I ask. My eyes dart around the room taking in all of the details while I talk. I can't afford to drop my guard for even a second, now that I know what this place has in store. I take in the previous violence of the room, unsurprised now. Not much seems shocking after automatic fire from an embedded turret.

I need to find that clown.

This woman doesn't seem concerned with what's going on around here. She also doesn't seem to want to hurt me, but I know I can't trust anything anymore.

I keep scanning the room. A safe. My hand moves to the pocket with the paper in it. I remember that the words 'SCAVENGER LIST' are printed across the top of it. Maybe that's a way out. I've always hated the word scavenger. Sounds like a scab, or revenge. It's always sounded somehow unclean and mean-spirited to me. I avoided scavenger hunts as a kid. I know it's just word sounds, but my mind likes to make these connections, usually against my better reason. I push the thoughts away. Maybe it's a way out.

I smile at the woman. I know it's a fake smile. She probably does too. I move toward the record player, without taking my eyes off of the hand in her bag. "Let me get this," I say.

BLUE PLAYER: I Want More Life, Fucker I Ain't Done...

My eyes snap to the man in White, trying to get the measure of him. I guess this might be one of the other "Players".

(Fuck. White. That means eight others for sure.)

(Friend or foe.. better decide quickly)

He's looking around, but he doesn't seem to-

(He sees you!)

I take a deep slow breath.

(Alright, just tell him you mean no-)

I feel a sudden gust of wind; a whizzing sound buzzes past my head, followed by a deafening "CRACK!" I instinctively flatten myself more against the wall.

(What the fu-?)

The small explosion is followed by more; a hail of bullets screaming down the hall. My heart keeping pace with the rattle of gun-fire.

(RUN!)

My body tenses to spring toward the nearest door.
I see the man in White turn toward the sound.

(No. No! Get down!)

I see tiny puff of red mist spray the air around his arm; his shoulder knocked back by the force of the bullet-graze. He seems dazed; unaware.

(He's going to die.)
(SAVE HIM!)

I take a half-step toward him.
The whine of the gun spinning, a keening counterpoint to the jackhammer concussions.

(NO! Save yourself.)
(Help!)
(RUN!)

(HELP!)
(RUUUNN!)

My body torn as I try to obey both commands. My eyes close for what must be only an instant, but feels like months. When they open the man's no longer in the doorway.

(-where'd he go?)
(FUCKING RUN YOU STUPID SONOFABITCH!!)

My body springs toward the closest doorway, tensed to feel holes rip through me. I dive under the table with no chairs, rolling out the other side in a defensive crouch; senses searching wildly around me.


(I need a weapon.)

I start to SEARCH.

PURPLE PLAYER: TUBULAR RASA

At first, your mind is blank. You don’t remember anything about your past but you know that you don’t know about your past. It is as if you are aware of something you cannot comprehend. It feels like you are being reborn from the womb of some alien mother. You know nothing of this new world save a vague feeling of familiarity. Everything has a surreal quality to it now as your eyes begin to function.

It is as if you were the chrysalis and now you cannot remember ever being the catapiller. You feel rather like something forged from previous material. Yet in all this you feel brand new. There is nothing beyond your base material assigning you as who you are other than the ever elusive situations of here and now. Both of these you are certain are happening for the first time and thus through some intuitive thinking you conclude, that you must be conscious for the first time. Like aroused from some fictitious dream, the sleeper awakens.

From a milky white wet-eyed blur you begin to pull your visual surroundings into focus. You can hear hissing all around you and you know that you are enclosed in cold metal. You can only tilt your head a few degrees in each direction and your arms and legs are strapped into place as if you were standing up straight. You feel as though you are vertical but that you had been horizontal for a long duration previous.

A small television screen sits uncomfortably close to your face. It is about half-a-foot squared with rounded edges and it is jammed up so close to your face it takes up nearly all of your immediate view. It has the intrusive quality of an aggravating conversationalist yet displays the simple phrase: “Please Stand By …”

A light static of elevator music is barely audible from its single speaker. You practically have to hold your breath to hear it. The melody is strangely recognizable and almost primordial as if it were the tune your mother would hum when you were a child. You know you were a child, but again as you try and recall your childhood, you draw a blank. There were words to this song, you remember that much. The part coming up, this is the part that you remember. The words come hauntingly each one the harbinger of the next.

“Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!”

The speaker is playing musack of The Eagles song Hotel California. How odd, you think but the truth is you really have no idea why.

The Yellow Distinction

With eyes-peeled you make your way into the fireplace lit DINING ROOM and are immediately struck by how much the hardwood floors and wood paneled walls have been riddled with bullets. Bloodstains have soaked into the wood to give it a blotchy look in parts but you focus your attention for any threats as you circle the perimeter of the room. Piles of stuff along the walls, junk mainly keep you from sticking terribly close to the walls but as you reach the second corner you come across three things of interest. A TOP HAT, CANE and full box of MAC N CHEESE have been discovered by you to which you think that maybe the CANE could be a reliable weapon considering how sturdy it looks. The DINING ROOM is walled with junk and cupboards overflowing with junk and the center table overflowing with junk, you might be able to find a bunch of good stuff in here. There seems to be a considerable amount of mould that has grown through the bottom of the table to the floor preserving an odd smell and shape.

You notice a door on the wall you are closest to now and it is closed still. You are inspecting this when you can hear the sounds of chewing. Startled you spin around to make out that one the opposite end of the giant wooden eight seat table dripping with mould there is a man hunched over his meal. The window behind him lets in no light but only draws it out. The sound of his masticating gives you temporary chills.

The large man has white hair and a moustache and a thick blushed face complete with a large body that demonstrates not only a bon-vivant but a man of tall stature. His white tie matches how his hair contrasts to his pink shirt and black suspenders. He finishes his chewing to speak.
“Wot’s dat boey? I say, I say, who the fuck are you?”, wiping the white residual food from around his mouth and taking a puff from a nearly extinguished cigar. He now proceeds to put-out his cigar into his place of INSTA-MASH while speaking more. “Now I see dat it’s anotha of y’all contestants” he continues while his arm slowly creeps under the table “Apparently of the yellow distinction.” and as he speaks his pulls out a shotgun to place an exclamation point on his sentence which would be followed by an awkward pause.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

White Player: Ballroom Blitz

Pulsating with fear you dive into the room through the door-space and find yourself in a BALLROOM that is echoing the remaining clatter from the gunfire in the hallway behind you. There is a moment of sweet relief as you note no more immediate danger. Your mind is almost angry at itself for not seeing that deathtrap machinegun and wonder still upon its source as you begin to scan the room.

The room is lit with the warm reddish light of a fire place amplified by the cold white light of a lamp in the far corner. The corner opposite that you note a safe imbedded in the wall. It is a dial safe that is currently shut and locked. The walls are a blank and dull lustre grey that ache with scratches and stains demonstrating an apparently bloody past. Bullet holes and blood stains break-up what might have been a truly beautiful room. The walls are lined with piles of cardboard boxes and junk making for a general mess. You can make out the shape of a grand piano but it is so covered in stuff you cannot see any of its physical manifestation. There is another opened door to this room and you can even make out that through the hallway beyond it there is yet another door.

Then the shape of a sofa clear of stuff has contrasted the cluttered view of the room. On the far wall before a window lies a smooth piece of furniture and what you can now make out to be a woman lying upon it. Her sleek, thin, silk-smooth skin has matched her greyish dress so precisely that if it were not for her crimpled locks of dark hair she might have been presumed part of the furniture. She is wearing long black arm length gloves that trickle down her body towards her equally as black purse with an involuntary motion that confirms her as startled from her sleep. She lazily rises up from the sofa and wipes her hair back into perfect shape. The silence aftermath of the turret gun is now apparent to you and with it you begin to hear another sound. A faint static with a rhythmic “whumping” sound that repeats every few seconds.

In a voice as smooth as jazz itself and with a tone so harmless it seems to harmonize you to her, she speaks. “Ah, I must have dozed off”, she says with a no real consequence, “I didn’t realize it had started.”
And now she has placed a long cigarette into her ruby red lips and clenched between her pearly white teeth while her other hand has reached into her purse in pursuit of something tangible.
“Be a sweetheart and turn the record over dear” she utters matter-of-factly.