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!”

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.

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."

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:

THEY CALL THEM RED AND YELLOW, QUITE RIGHTLY

You two are currently staring at one another ... the silence is broken as the hum of your pneumatic tubes begin to give a soft glow of light again

"LET THERE BE NO LIGHT!!!"

... AND WITH THAT THE LIGHTS FROM THE DIODES ON THE PNEUMATIC TUBES ALL AROUND YOU SHUT-OFF. THERE IS A LOUD ECHOING CLICK WHEN THIS HAPPENS. ALL OF YOUR EYES TAKE A MOMENT TO ADJUST IN THE INTERRUPTING SILENCE.

YELLOW MEETS ANOTHER FELLOW

From the darkness you hear a commanding and slightly calming voice.

"Alright just who the hell are you and watch your mouth no need for that language we're in it deep enough as it is. now what is it that you want? maybe we can help each other."

His voice is not unlike a late night classical music radio host, deep and soulful yet not alarming. With this, a large square-jawed man rounds the corner. His eyebrows give you the currently harmless first impression while his rather large and athletic build imply a much different thing. He wears, like you, a set of coveralls. They are, unlike you, coloured red. This must be your mouth-breather.

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.

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.

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.

GEE YELLOW, I DON'T THINK WE ARE IN KANSAS ANY MORE!!

“THEN WE ARE ALL READY THEN, RIGHT KIDDOS!?!”

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, however, a brief pause before your answer got a response. It was difficult to notice but you are going to gather that this ‘broadcast’ is not without delay but the signal all must be 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 YELLOW PLAYER, GOOD FUCKING LUCK!!”

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 its 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 thing to cling on 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 instant 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 that 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. If you had to guess by the floor, wallpaper and general structure you would say that this ‘house’ is probably more like a ‘mansion’ from the early fifties. But with the tubes and stale air you are most definitely underground. So, could this be some sort of ritzy bunker built during the early Cold War era?



The lights from the pneumatic tube light a hallway ahead of you that is roughly fifteen feet apart and they stretch thirty feet away from the base of the tube and further into darkness. Just at the darkest edge of each wall you can see a door of sorts. It looks large, rounded and metal something like what you would have seen in a submarine movie. Yes, you remember DAS BOOT, if for only a second. It is hard to make out any details about them from this distance but these doors are certainly shut.

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

YELLOW PLAYER: Where are we

Our fucking head is throbbing, and all that noise isn't helping. We fucking hate kids. Strange, we know that we hate children, and The Eagles, fucking Don Henley, but we can't remember our name.

We should be worm food.

Yes, that stands out as well, not the how or why, but that we should be fucking dead. Maybe this is Hell.

Could be, could be. Never thought the afterlife would have television though. So what if this is Hell?

Then fucking game over. No more hunt, looming over the city, waiting for the prey to show itself then cutting through the night to snip their fucking strings.

Leaving behind a beautiful, broken marionette upon a stage of blood. but even if we are in The Pit it doesn't mean an end to our fun. Hell may hold the greatest quarry of all, can The Devil be killed?

Fuck, that's fucking brilliant, lets find out. First we need to get out of this fucking tin can.

Wait, wait, this isn't just some television show, that clown is talking to us!?!



We listen intently, a grin slowly spreading across our face. As the clown finishes, muscles straining against whatever is holding us down, we yell "YES, WE ARE READY!"



A scavenger hunt, this might be fun. Could that fucking clown be The Devil?

We better kill him just to make sure.

HELLO YELLOW!!

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 YELLOW PLAYER!!!”

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

“HI YELLOW PLAYER … HEYA … HOWS MY YELLOW PLAYER HOLDING UP?? I HOPE YOUR NOT CLAUSTROPHOBIC!!”

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. We got guns, knives, grenades … we got robbers, jocks and fighter pilots … we got so much for you to play with … WELCOME YELLOW PLAYER!!! WELCOME TO MY HOUSE OF SSSLAUGHTER!!!”

There is calliope music that begins to play in a wonky way as its exaperated 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 uncomortable close up to mumble:

“this is a game show where you are a contestant and so in order to make it to the final round all you gotta do I collect the six items on your scavenger list that are hidden somewhere on the playing field below… should be easy right, should be a walk in the park?? Well you gotta ask yerself if you have what it takes… go ahead ASK, DO I the FUCKING YELLOW PLAYER have what it takes to see THIS THROUGH??”

“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 bursted 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 shakesperean 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?

YELLOW 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.