She sees a door. Running, trying to catch it, she stumbles and falls. Loses sight of her goal.
When she looks up, The Door is gone. Only a blank wall stares her in the face. She turns and runs back the way she came, aware that her time is running out.
Round a corner, almost falls. Picks herself up and keeps on going, anywhere, everywhere, searching for the door. The Door, she knows, will set her free. Free from this terrible emptiness.
Left Turn, Right Turn, Left then Left again. Dead end.
Turns around, blank wall. Turns again - opening. Has to turn sideways to squeeze through. Keeps moving, running from a fear she knows but cannot name.
Hears a breath, slows to a walk. Heart beating too fast, breath coming too quickly, her body moving fast, her brain moving slow, peicing together the puzzle she has entered into. First question, "Why me?"
That's always the first question. Usually the last, too.
I watch all this through a lens, unseen to the woman below me. The lens is foggy, indistinct. It mirrors the womans thoughts, displays them like a television screen. I want to help her, but I am not allowed. I have no choice. Such is the way of her predicament.
She stops as if to contemplate - I watch her brain tick over like a grandfather clock, still puzzling, still peicing, but creating an image that has never been seen before. I almost reach out to touch her, but stop myself just in time. Pity begins to overrun my mind, and perhaps she feels this. Perhaps not. Either way, she keeps moving.
The nature of this "Game" - Oh, it has been called many a thing . . . - Is simple. The "Player" (Victim) Has to escape. Through a door in their own mind.
The way to do that, is FAR more complex.
But oh, here she comes. Rounding a corner, fork in the road. Which way will she turn? She can see the door in front of her. Through the glass. SHe reaches out, tentatively touching what she can see ahead.
I think she may have worked it out.
She squeezes her eyes shut - Now I cannot see. But I can! This woman, this GENIUS, has memorised the route, and is holding an image of it in her head. The last point of her imaginative mindmap? The Door.
She eases towards it, coming closer and closer. I begin to feel the excitement, she knows what she has done. She opens the door, and then her eyes. Clever.
Looking back once, she almost spots me. I have joined her in the game. She does not see me, or pretends not to, and leaves.
She walks out The Door. Perhaps I will see her again. Perhaps not.
