Hide & Seek

Klaus WayKlaus Way, Promo

When I was a young boy, my mother thought I was lonely, and she tried to get me to make friends with a bunch of loud, brash and annoying children best left in a padded cell if you ask me. But as I had not yet figured out friendship, I thought I should at least give it a go, if only for her sake.

So I made acquaintances with these people, and I stayed quiet, and I watched intently. I wanted to figure out what made people tick. Even then I was trying to understand what my audience wanted. 

So these children, obnoxious as they were, came up to me and said “Klaus! Klaus! Have you ever played Hide & Seek?”. Of course, I had never heard of this past time, so they started to explain it to me. 

“The point of the game,” one young girl started. “Is that one person closes their eyes, counts to twenty, and everyone else finds somewhere to hide. The winner is the last person to be found.”

I furrowed my brow, confused, and she asked me what I didn’t understand.

“I don’t understand why the hiders need to hide, or why the seeker needs to seek,” I said, honestly. “What do they get out of it?”

Now she was confused.

“They don’t need to,” she said. “It’s only a game.”

And that right there was the problem. It was just a game, it wasn’t real.

I never joined in with that game, and nobody had ever asked me to again.

Until two weeks ago, when suddenly I was being asked to join both sides of the game. On one side, Jasper Redgrave asking me to join the hiders, hellbent on ensuring nobody found the final hider – whatever is behind that door. And on the other side, Attano, hoping I’d join the seekers, looking so hard for the truth that evades them.

I say to them what I said to that girl all those years ago. “Why bother? I’d much rather just stay here and do something that makes me happy.”

I don’t care what’s on the other side of that door. Why should I? I’ve got everything I need right here. I have my circus and my freaks, I have enough credits to make a living. I have a captive audience. I could walk out of that door into whatever is beyond it to find a desolate wasteland, with nobody to fill a big top, and no way back to Arcadia.

NO WAY!

But on the flip side, do I really give a shit if a bunch of jumped up vigilantes want to storm the door and take that risk? Fuck ’em, they can do whatever they like, so long as it doesn’t affect me.

I’m more than happy staying here, doing whatever makes me happy, and ignoring all the hiders and the seekers of Arcadia, because all of that is just a GAME.

And games are only there to distract you from reality. There is no truth to find. Nothing to be gained.

That’s why the Wild Card knows the Way!