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.

White Player: Duck! Stop Drop and Roll!

"AH!" The scream is torn from my throat before I can stifle it. It's followed by a Gunfire!

What the heck is going on here? I need to get out of here. Even as I dash through the nearest doorway, I'm still questioning this place, this clown, and myself. I need to get to cover. Someone is trying to kill me! These two thoughts hit me at the same time, my instinct for survival and my rational mind at odds.

Who was that guy hugging the wall? Did he know about the gun? Is HE trying to kill me?

I get through the doorway into the next room, and immediately scan for more threats. I need a place to catch my breath and calm my nerves, but I don't really expect to find that here.

Yellow Player: We turn instinctively towards the sound of gunfire

"Someone has a fucking machinegun. We should get out of this hallway." we mutter to ourselves.

We motion with our head for the man in red to follow as we step into the dining room. SEARCHING for traps or potential weapons, we walk cautiously around the perimeter of the room, intending to examining the safe we had glimpsed through the doorway.

Red and Yellow:

The outer panels fold in as the man in yellow intended depicting another image. An image of a disk like earth with all the forces of heavens and beyond pushing down upon creation. The silence of the man in yellow's speech is interrupted by the loud clashing of gunshot echoing though the halls. Somewhere, probably outside of a room there is the burst of machine gun fire.

Blue Player: Then The Man In White Appeared To Me

Around the corner ahead of you walks a man in white coveralls. His eyes are darting around him taking in nearly all that could be seen and maybe it is the light reflecting off his white coveralls more than your blue ones but he seems to have a glow about him. He stops just beyond the opened doorway and looks right at you slowly recognizing your form as you slowly come to eye-contact with him. Another player, the confirmation dawns on you with the immediacy of a gunshot. No wait, that’s real bullets being fired as your eyes dart beyond the man in white to the machine gun turret you spot a the end of the hallway, lighting up an array of bullets. You almost flinch, but something in you overrides the impulse. You think quickly.

White Player: Out Of Nowhere The Bullets Rip

You round the corner and pass an open door that appeared to be dimly lit by a fire place.

Then you see someone else. It takes a second to see him at first because he is flat against the wall but eventually the blue coveralls, much like your own save for color, come into perfect view. His posture and form is a near perfect way to hide and you can see why it is you have come this far down the hallway to notice him. He has used the odd shaped protrusion of the door to obscure his presence. His eyes draw to yours as he notices that you notice and you gaze briefly past him to perhaps determine what it is he might be hiding from. Beyond him is another open doorway into very dark room full of clutter but your perceptions are immediately interrupted. His eyes have darted past you into the hallway beyond you, perhaps even from whence you came. An icy chill runs up your spine as you turn your head attempting to keep the man in blue within your periphery.

Down the hallway the lights and ear-drum shattering booms of machine-gun fire startle you to attention. Bullets thump tearing holes into the wallpaper along the wall in your direction. Your reflexes drop you to a crouch against the wall and you have dodged the first volley of gunfire. But you certainly no longer feel safe where you are. The drumming of your heart makes rhythm with the machinegun and your body is pulsing with an almost electric charge.

YELLOW PLAYER: We take a deep breath...

Forcing our body to visibly relax, while remaining alert and ready, we look over the man in red coveralls, looking for strenghts and weaknesses.

He's big as a fucking ox, he'll make such a nice bloody corpse.

Yes, its always so much more satisfying to sacrifice an ox than a sheep. We must remain calm, put this potential prey at ease.

"We..." We must remember personal pronouns, act as though one of the herd, "I... taking it from your attire that your in this as deep as I am. Playing games for a damned clown."

We walk calmly to examine the painting on the opposite wall. "Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Some consider it his greatest work, his high water mark for complexity and meaning. It's too fucking cluttered." We close the outer panels of the triptych over the centre, revealing the image painted on their other side.

"Maybe we can help each other with this fucking mess," turning toward the man in red, a small crooked smile playing on our lips, "Could you direct us to our most gracious host? I would like to thank him for his... hospitality."

Well, things certainly seem to be heating up now.

I move down the hallway toward the sound of the breathing, one hand touching the wall just in case the lights go out again. I walk cautiously, hoping but not quite believing that I'll find an ally in this strange place.

What the hell does this clown want, anyway?

WELCOME BACK KIDDOS!!

Blue Player

Three doors have opened in your immediate vicinity as the lights click back on.  The one closest to you was not among them. One is flooding the light away from you down toward the hall on your left and it has light-up some mechanical device that is whirring into motion.  You can barely see into the room that opened closer to where you started but the room that opened in the hall ahead of you appears to have a large, chairless, table in the center of it.  It's like the games have begun, you can feel it.  Your mind goes briefly for a second back to the clown cackling at you and you cackling back.  Did i plan that?  Er, wait, are these 'my' thoughts, you think to yourself.

The gravitas of your situation snaps your mind back to attention.  What do you do?

Green Player

As you round the corner the lights flash briefly on-and-off as further ahead you can see a tacky colored wallpaper barely clinging to the walls interrupted by the opening of a metal door.  It clanks open and you hear the echoes of it down the other hallways hidden in darkness.  These must be the halls you seem to remember, despite your otherwise complete amnesia.

White Player

It did feel like you missed something.  It felt like you missed something for a long time.  But now it has come surging back to you.  You are here, now, again.  The lights come back on upon the realization of this thought.  You hear the buzzing of electricity humming around you once again confirming your suspicions of this being underground.  Also, during this brief pause, you noticed the temperature went up.  It was a subtle amount but it was enough for you to notice.  You are certain you are underground, or in a warmer than normal atmosphere.  You can see the light of the doorway to your right flood into the hall as you hear the clank of the submarine doors swing open.  They must be remotely automated as they all swung open at the same time.  This could be a big automated trap, you think to yourself.  You hear the sound of a machine firing up into motion not far from where you are and your guess is that it is on the hallway to your right but you also make out the faint sound of breathing the other way and off in the distance there was some talking. Hmmm.

Red Player & Yellow Player

As the lights abruptly flicker and surge back into power the doors of your immediate hallway swing open flooding light into the area around you.  The hallway seems increasingly an odd orange as your eyes adjust to the new light.  On one side of the hall there is a wood floored room with a large carpet in the middle as well as an arrangement of furniture facing a piano.  On the other side there is a large dining room table set with white table cloth and fine dinner wear.  Both rooms are otherwise cluttered with junk, riddled with bullet holes and splattered with the occasional glob of dried blood.

Red Player you see:

Yellow Player you see:

Purple Player

You are spit from a large cylindrical metal tube complete with flashing lights and high pressured hissing pipes encasing it like a cocoon of some sort.  The dank dark hallway lies before you as you crawl from your hands and knees to your feet upon the cold smooth surface floor.  The wallpaper looks old and outdated run with stains of perspiration.  The lights have flickered off and everything grew silently for what seemed like an eternity when the environment begins to hum again with activity.  The clanking of metal doors accompanies the crash of some of them swinging open.  Buzzing with the memories of that insidious clown in your mind from what seems years ago, you shake yourself to your feet and wonder what you will do.

You cannot see much ahead in the darkness other than one door appears to have opened just down the hall from you.  There is a soft warm reddish glow of light illuminating from this door way.  Other than that, you do not hear or see too much else.

Finger on the button

The clown puts his sweaty fingers to the switch and has a brief moment of pause, thinking to himself in a barely whisper; SOON MY PATIENT LITTLE SICK THINGS, SOON. 

Hmmm... Missed that.

Now that the light has resurged, I look back over the path I took in the darkness. It seems there was a doorway on the other side of the hall. I approach it cautiously and press my ear to the door, trying to hear any noises there may be on the other side.

It seems I'm in some sort of facility. I've seen doors like this on TV, and they're either in submarines, bunkers, or top-secret underground facilities. This one seems to be in the basement of some creepy clown-faced maniac.