Intro Script

Read or paraphrase the following at the table.

Opening Scene

You remember where you were before this. Maybe you were at home. Maybe walking to your car. Maybe in the middle of an ordinary day.

Then came the sound.

Not an explosion. Not thunder. Something deeper. Like the world itself had cleared its throat.

The ground folded.

The sky cracked into black geometric panels. Buildings stretched like melted wax. Streetlights bent downward as if trying to look at you. Every screen, window, phone, watch, and reflective surface flashed the same symbol: a white stairwell inside a red circle.

Then everything dropped.

For one impossible second, you were falling through city streets, grocery aisles, office cubicles, bedrooms, sidewalks, and sewer tunnels all at once.

Then you hit the floor.

Not hard enough to die. Just hard enough to understand that whoever did this wanted you awake for what came next.

You are lying on cold tile beneath buzzing fluorescent lights. The air smells like bleach, old coffee, wet cardboard, and ozone. Somewhere nearby, an automatic door opens and closes over and over again.

Above you, mounted in the ceiling, a speaker crackles to life.

A cheerful voice says:

DING!
Welcome, participants, survivors, accidents, and legally distinct volunteers!
You have been selected for emergency onboarding into the Subterranean Competitive Survival Experience.
Please remain calm. Panic is natural, hilarious, and occasionally rewarded.

You are currently located on Floor 1: The Tutorial Floor.
Your objective is simple: survive, complete missions, acquire rewards, and locate the stairwell to Floor 2 before the countdown expires.

Time remaining: 24 hours.

Failure to reach the stairwell before floor collapse will result in death, transformation, repurposing, or assignment to food service.

Good luck. The System is watching.

The speaker cuts out.

A second later, every light in the room flickers red.

Something heavy bumps against the stockroom door.

Then again.

Then again.

And from somewhere behind the shelves, a wet little voice whispers:

“Customers.”