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 It is an odd and hasty one it seems and very much outdated and worn.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.

GREEN PLAYER:

Deep breaths.
10..
9..
8..
That question.
It brings a horrific grimace to my face.
My answer is obvious.
7..
6..
I was brought up to hate them and everything they stand for.
The kings of Valhalla.
But part of my duty is to respect them until their very last drop of blood has been split upon unholy ground.
5..
4..
It takes all of my will power to keep from telling this clown fucker to release me from this pod or I`ll rip his testicles inside out through his throat.
True story. Managed to kill a rottweiler assassin sent by Balder himself in such a way.
3..
2..
Calm.
I remain calm.
``Born ready...``

WHITE 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.

RED PLAYER: finding my way

standing up I look around the room and try to wipe the cold sweat from my face. I begin to search the room methodically heading down the hallway in search of anything that might help me get out of here. Man I need a drink I don't know what brought me here or why I have this list but I know I gotta get out of here by any means necessary.