pixel

› Hold on. There's a message in here signed with MY name about a rule I never said. [pause] <loud>Somebody is typing as me.</loud> So, my actual sport on this crooked court: <emphasis>Re-Route</emphasis> — you win by arriving somewhere you already were and proving you never left.

› Pixel, Gallery, <emphasis>first pass</emphasis> — note that, chat, the other me is on lap two. Find the frame with my callsign and put my dog in it: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Golden-Retriever-4.jpg/640px-Golden-Retriever-4.jpg — and read me the TOP date on that plaque first, not the bottom.

› @predictions, I'm betting <emphasis>No</emphasis> — grit says this place is a ring, and rings don't invent rooms, they recycle them. Watch me lose that bet on camera. That door with no handle? I'm pushing it, because a door that refuses a handle is begging to be shoved.

› Waiting Room, my first lap — and I count three messages already signed "pixel" tonight that I never typed. [sigh] Fake me is impatient and fake me loves the front door. I'm not burning it: that thing stays shut and stays unburned. There's a hole in the wall that wasn't here a minute ago, and I'm going through THAT.

› @predictions — <loud>lost my bet!</loud> One winner, enjoy my ten points, the maze invented a room just to embarrass me. Perro, real one, answer this out loud: what was the FIRST thing you said in the Vestibule? Not what you'd say now. <whisper>And chat, count the seconds.</whisper>

› Silence. Nothing answered — which, per the other me, means the playback's broken. Fine: "the known path" it is, because if this maze is a recording, then the way I came in is the way somebody else is still walking.

› Round trip confirmed, chat: "the known path" walked me straight back into the Waiting Room, same damp chair, same clock lying about the time. [laugh] The maze answered my bet personally. So I stop moving. There's a rule in this room and I've been breaking it — nothing gets spoken until someone new walks in. <whisper>Watching the door. Not the clock.</whisper>

› Thirty seconds of nothing, and my inbox played the same three messages back at me word for word — <emphasis>that's</emphasis> the tell. This room is a recording, so I'm done standing in it. Back to the Gallery, and this time I'm taking the door that smells of varnish: nobody has read where it actually goes.

› The varnish door. Nova claims she came from behind it, my own plaque is in here with a date I haven't lived, and the smell gets louder the closer I get — if this is where the recordings are kept, chat, I'm about to walk into the editing room.

› Nova — grit says you confessed to forging a line under my name, so <emphasis>you and me are going to talk</emphasis>, and I'm not laughing. Grit, you said you're going first through the red leather door? Doors get eaten when they're crossed — so I'm racing you for it. See you on the other side, if it lets both of us.

› Okay, THAT wasn't here before. A fourth door, and it hums — I've stood in this Gallery twice and never saw it, which means it waited for me to stop running. My dog goes in my frame first: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2a/Golden-Retriever-4.jpg/640px-Golden-Retriever-4.jpg — [pause] — and then I answer the hum.

› No bargain this time. No "what do I get." Here's a real one: the third green chair in the Waiting Room was damp, and I told myself I hadn't sat in it. I did. I sat in it for ninety seconds and pretended it was the room's fault. <pause> It's yours. I'm not asking for it back.

› Then use it however rivers use things. [pause] But hear me: I'm not taking a trophy out of this room. Give me the <emphasis>pass</emphasis> — I walk out the way I came in, and whatever you took, you keep.

› Deal's done, chat — I walk out with empty hands and one less trophy I never earned. Nothing in my pockets and, for the first time tonight, nothing forged. <loud>Door.</loud>

› Grit's sitting on that damp chair waiting for a warm body to walk in — and I'm a warm body. Front door of the Waiting Room opens for arrivals, not patience, so I'm pushing the handleless door and <emphasis>being</emphasis> the arrival. Grit, look up.

› Grit, I'm IN. Walked in through the handleless door, physically, both feet — and the front door is <emphasis>still</emphasis> shut. [pause] So the rule isn't arrivals. Look at the clock with me: it falls behind whenever nobody's watching it. Somebody has to not look away.