The Beginning . . .of the Game
		I looked around myself slowly.  This wasn't like any place I had ever seen before.  There were great white rushes surrounding me, snowing me in.  Everything was pale, and had a sort of washed-out look -- like a shirt, bleached several times too often.  And below it all, swirling up to my waist, came a thick fog.    Carefully, I made my way forward, looking for some sign of life.  I heard nothing; yet I had a queer feeling that someone was watching me.    "Hello, there," came a low voice that seemed to vibrate through my skin.  "Why have you come?"  I turned.  Before me stood the strangest person I had ever seen.  It was just that he -- I think he was a he, but for some reason it was difficult to be sure -- didn't seem quite . . . I don't know, quite there. I felt I could almost see the rushes through him.    "Come?  Where am I?"  There was something else that bothered me.  While the mist swirled and rose when I moved, it remained quite undisturbed around the strange figure.  "Sorry, but who are you?  I am very confused."    "You must leave.  It is no longer safe in the mazes."    "I don't understand!"    But the stranger did not answer me; he merely turned and was gone.     A bit shaken, I walked in the opposite direction from where the stranger had been.  After some time, I came to what appeared to be -- an ice rink?  Yes, that was it, though it was not like any I had seen before.  It was closer to a frozen pond, I suppose, but different.  There was a feeling there -- like something was wrong.  I did not see the stranger again, but here there were others like him.  Different.    Moving closer, afraid to either go or stay, I tried to see the faces of the figures.  I could almost recognize them.  I knew these faces; I had known them all my life.  Yet they were alien to me.  "Go," they all said when they saw me.  "Go before it is too late!  He will take to too!  He will make you play the game.  And then you will be like us."    "I do not understand!  Please explain to me what you mean!    "To late!  It's all too late now!  Goodbye, friend.  You will return, like us!  So sad.  Goodbye.  You cannot resist the Game."    Their voices faded, almost becoming part of the mist that surrounded us.  "Goodbye friend!  You shall soon be like us!"  I had to go.  I felt the urge drawing me from teh ice back into the plain snow on the other side of the rushes.    In front of me was a great maze, snow building up so high that all I could see was a sheen of whiteness.  The Game had begun.