The first rule of the game is Texas is a giant pit from which nothing escapes. There are jail beasts and bloodhoundbabies and great bizarre hands that will pursue any escapee and drag them back. If you are now in Texas, you will be buried in Texas, as the saying goes. And you can always bury something more, as the jail beasts are fond of saying in their rancid dialect of the Pit Speak. Imagine if depression fucked a hole in the United States. Then you’ll start to picture what this game is about. All of the elevators only go down. Physicists can’t get close enough to draw any conclusions. My hands are calloused red spiders from all of the climbing. The bats beneath the bridge squeak little fanged rumors about what I eat. I am a frail meat twig climbing 20,000 leagues above the floor and to err is human. I wrap my hand on a rock and drag myself up looking like a Diet Rambo. This is the game. Look down at yourself. Look at your lap. Look at your hands. This is the game. I don’t care if you’re climbing. Spell it out and keep moving. T-H-I-S-I-S-T-H-E-G-A-M-E. This is not an exaggeration it will take you 10 years to get that thing you want. The walls of Texas. The walls of Texas. My God, the walls of Texas. There are handholds and footholds and it’s easy enough to start because the walls win through infinite miles. How much more is there to go? The answer is keep going. This is the game. The keep going is the game. The butterfly effect is the dice. And I know it without question that I will not slip because the second rule of the game is the game always starts with me escaping from Texas. And you should know that you are going to survive. I know it might seem like that ruins the suspense, but it doesn’t because nobody every says that. Nobody ever says you’re going to survive. Because they don’t know for sure if you will. But I do. So I’m saying it. You are going to survive. This is the game. You are going to survive. These are not commandments. They are statements of fact.

Lying face down flat on the floor The cable cuts and screams It says some words I haven’t heard Since my ears were seventeen Standing up and feeling sick But fighting the feeling off Sometimes it’s like the gravity’s gone But this is one of those times it’s not And I climb up the walls And I say 10 prayers There’s a spiral of birds at the top of this thing That I’m gonna climb like stairs Setting out on 35 Squinting with the sun shining right in our eyes You said this terrible star will guide us home Finally have what I need Some friends the road and some kerosene To flick against some flint and failure modes With marlboro reds and a pocket of blood Yoho my dears yoho And we drive all night And pray the headlights don’t fade Cause there’s a jailbeast from the shaft that caught my scent He’s only half a mile away Sleep with the windows closed Until we catch its dead scent on our nose We know it’s time to rise it’s right outside Grab the weapons we have A windshield wiper, a broken pen, A fake little promise of love we know won’t work We kick open the door, snarl back at the beast And we fucking beat the odds Sun finally rises on the scene It finds out heroes strong and mean, Bloodsoaked in the bright yellow fog Try to shower at the Loves The pretty attendant locks eyes with us And Woof-Woof winks like the darkness before the drug There will be times when your Charisma score Has sudden fever-like spikes I have told him before that he is beautiful And I know myself to be right The attendant hits the silent 9-1-1 And we run for our lives

You can train inside a centrifuge for your whole life You can clench every muscle when the weight arrives But the sturdiest kung-fu master could be brought to his knees With the force of your head’s Gs Eyeballs in in the pilot’s chair Crushed to the tiles of the dormitory stairs Like Batista grabbing the ropes in his prime an animal roar silent and unmic'ed You make no turns You are forward cursed The laws of physics keep you on the course Even the slightest turn Could mean your death Mach 5 has rules that the ground doesn’t have Experts such as yourself Know to fear atmospheres Because at the speed you could be torn apart By the thin air I remember when you told me that you wanted to live The unexpected light inside of your helmet Sometimes in the suffocating tubes of the cock pit There’s a tiny button with eject written on it The decent is oddly nice under the parachute The curvature of the Earth is revealed to you Clouds in a pillow dog fight kiss your face Smiling as the goosebumps ripple across your frame And you touch the ground You throw your flight suit down You were the sweetest G-monster that I ever found And when the weight comes back As sometimes it does You hold it like an infant in your careful arms You set it down in its crib And you sing to it Baby we fall apart by the end of some nights But we don’t hurt other people even if we want to sometimes Alright I’m gonna say it you’re my hero I try to be more like you when I can Because when my vision greys out And I’m at 40 thou More payload than pilot Ripping people with my mouth Shoving black brown shit into my best friend’s souls Making 9/11 level critical rolls And I G-lock out inside the blackbird’s hold I picture you in the kitchen on the ground going slow One breath in, chopping apples near the stove You won the war but you don’t keep your medals at home You are a cold fountain cesium atomic clock Your precision in goodness it shaketh not You won the war and now you cook with a veteran’s soul You give quiet advice that has saved more lives than you know

Dig a hole in the ground by Amy’s house Roll in the mud with the snakes Somebody thinks of making predator jokes But then they remember the stakes Black tape over the windows Hiroshima glow from the pit Pulses outside in the dirt we touched Some things make the whole world cringe And the teenagers laugh Send texts and snaps What filter do you use for the end of the world? Or are we not calling it that. The moon is an angry eye That’s not a metaphor Count the dots on the backs of the lady bugs Melanomic shapes and spurs Signs to continue the journey Distorted by the brightest light Years from now I will sing about this Still squinting but still alive And the clay dries on our skin We hit the road again There’s a pilot I know there’s a shepherd of souls There’s a hanger in Louisiana where we can go It echoes like an iron lung His smile white megatons He says get suited up We’ve got a long way to fly Eat this you idiot you’ve been starving yourself Your eyes have sunken so far they look like mason jars With olives at the bottom of the vinegar When we get to cruising speed He turns and looks at me It’s like he doesn’t believe I’m there It’s a late night ghost double checking stare But that’s what people are Dead pixels of the Earth Bright dot defects everywhere The unblack image burns

When I was a young boy My father took me into the city He said now boy this is your mother’s grave Her memory itches like poison ivy He said they came for her ghost Bedecked in drums and bones Her death rattle sounded like the roll of a snare And the pale parade king flickered on TVs everywhere Dad said there were promises made He said I know you’re too young But that right cunt left your mother behind And now she wanders the smoke choked death world Then I heard a foul sound And every third grave growled My father was gone, a few red feathers fell The police asked me questions but there really was nothing to tell Pyschopomps beware The boys with the auburn hair You will know them by their bloody raiments Coonhound bays and the sounds of trumpets Miles of members marching forth Gregorian humming nightmares The defendant argues that he did not kill his father. He claims that his father quote “sublimated from life to death” end quote. He also believes that his mother’s ghost was taken in by something called the Black Parade. He believes the Black Parade abandoned his mother. And his father moved into the afterlife seeking revenge for this. The Black Parade was a record released by the band My Chemical Romance in 2008. The defendant claims he has never heard this record. The defendant , when not humming, mutters nonsense and warnings. In particular he often says quote “The age of bone has ended. The age of blood arise. There are new kings in the afterlife. My god. The Red Parade arrives. When the parade king left I’m told he shape-shifted with age But he was always a myriad portrait Always and always and always Always and always and always The black lungs of a ghast that laughs It crackles like a draining bath The messengers of my father’s quest Are the hollow life-addicted geists I often find in my bed Pyschopomps beware The crowds dressed with the crimson flare Standing in the dusky distance The sabre thrower’s make-up glistens My father and mother at the head of the band Carrying the old king’s mantle Baton twirlers spinning candles Jesus was right about one thing You will know which one when the horde sings If you reach a certain volume you can make mist pulse It’s not a side effect of physics it’s a holy, holy ghost The age of bone has ended The age of blood arise There are new kings in the afterlife My god The Red Parade arrives

The way you move on the board is different than most other games. In some scenarios you my wish to stop moving. It may seem like it would be beneficial for you or others for you to stop moving. The game will not allow you to stop moving. It is like a rollercoaster with a 100 foot vertical drop in this regard. Be advised it is also like a rollercoaster with a 100 foot vertical drop in that changing directions can cause catastrophic failures in the mechanisms that propel you. Also be advised that catastrophic failures in the mechanisms that propel you are a normal part of the game. Keep in mind there are no non-player characters in this game. The bosses, the peons and the mobs are all run by human players. For this reason, you will not be able to kill anything more than once. Additionally if a character is killed they won’t be able to come back into the story as somebody’s brother who has the same stats as the old character. They will not be able to come back as a character with the same stats but a slightly different name. This is a story not a soap opera. Respect their death and let them be dead. When Cerberus is dead these rules will become more complicated. You may come back from the dead, but you must earn it. You must be the best lyre player. Or the best at something. Tickets aren’t handed out to just anyone. Resurrection is like Bohemian Grove in this regard. There are health potions, but you should not drink them. It has been shown that there is an inverse correlation between how many health potions a character drinks and how complex they are as a person. The FDA requires warning labels which explain as much. God gave us bones so they may break and so that we may feel the Earth carnally. Humans made health potions because they are afraid of their own carnality. Do not wake up one day invincible, inhuman, and one dimensional. Do not drink health potions. You do not have to purchase any rulebooks to play this game. You will not need anything special to make the game start. The game occurs. There is a period at the end of those 3 words. This is a fundamental concept. So I’ll repeat it. The game occurs. Period. It is like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in this regard.

Eat one and a half cigarettes Picked from your front lawn Flowers blooming nicotine In the early evening The dirt, the grit, the bitter The bugs inside my sweater Are using their legs to find my veins And clicking their teeth to enter my skin There’s a coat made of ticks trying to find my heart If I keep it on long enough they’ll make me thin I’m an ugly, fat fairy Eating trash heap toothpaste The lypocytes won’t touch me The fat will shrivel sideways And when they come to get me Oh god when they arrest me I’ll eat my way from the back of their car I’ll chomp through foam and I’ll chew through bars Because I’m the famine spirit you brought on yourself Bulimia nervosa is your funeral spell Eat a roofing tile Pavement black and vile You scale up to the roofscape You crawl against the angles You kick me like you mean it You drag me by the ankles And throw me in the oven on a Teen Vogue page The edges bubble and pop like tape worm eggs You gag on my burned body’s plasticine taste The need to purge swells but you break its waves Eat a chocolate croissant Taste the flaking dough The guilt sparks in your skullcage A scintillating fear state Sloshing ballasts and stomachs You swallow the fat with a flourish And I get drowned by the weight of the food I know you’re not better cause I’m still in you But for some reason I can’t leave your throat If you threw up I’d be free but I know you won’t

We catch a 3 foot shark On the coast of Carolina we knock it out And stuff an oar deep in its throat Until the head is removed We keep our distance from the fish Sometimes danger can be the spice in your soup The smell of superancient sizzling things Can draw certain things to you The man with the auburn hair Is next to the fire like he was already there Blowing on his soup with pale blue lips We pretty much take it in stride I’ve seen weirder things ask for stranger tithes Not least of which was you, mi amour In the classroom of love we defer to one All hail the omnivore Another joins the feast Someone I thought I’d never see Healthy and whole hair burning gold Like the flame gilded spun sugar of her soul The last time I saw her Was before the hospital A cell phone picture of burning scrubs Dead cerberus in the back of a Ford Probe She’s done a fusion dance With her self I guess Hold this image in your head Her with a super saiyan glow When I was a kid I thought it was fake But now I’ve seen it and now I know Lady Tantalus with fruit on her lips Gas fumes are the call of the void Ten toes cold in Atlantic salt Baptize the newly undestroyed

One half motorcycle helmet The other half some kind of scuba gear Poor kid badass moving through the riot gas Ukelele aloft! Addict princes bow down to the holy fool He will kiss your heart and you will call him a tool But when the microscopic glass Rains down with all the ash You can expect to find him Visor down Cheeks all wet With the handful of people he managed to protect One half fizzy lifting smile The other half some kind of Chemical X Goofy laugh for the crack smoking heartthrob Who totally hated his guts! Addict princes bow down to the holy fool Master of blunting shanks and other tools And when the microscopic glass Rains down with all the ash I expect to find him Visor down Cheeks all wet The meaning of life playing solos in his head

We put a damp cloth on her face And give her mouth to mouth Someone says do you still do that? Did they replace it with something else? Imagine a car shaped ambulance Filled with clowns not EMTs Hereditary and Mad Max Have scenes a lot like these You ask yourself if you’ll forgive yourself If she ever wakes up So much yelling the windows fog And then we hit a truck The glass breaks on our skin We hit the road again When I was a kid I really loved Wolverine I would wear his costume in my room A private bulletproof Halloween My heroes were Power Rangers They were good just to be good I would dress up sometimes as them too I will never save the world This has nothing to do With the car crash or you But it’s what I think of when I see You actually ripped in two

How to get to Hadestown. You’ll have to take the long way down. Leave the city, keep your hat low. It’s a long way from there, but that’s how it goes. There’s no North Star. No astrolabe. When you find that mine shaft, try to be brave. Crawl until everything’s sore. Then crawl again. And crawl some more. Don’t bring a light, just go forward. The shaft only goes in one direction. The river Lethe is a hospital room. It is a river of pills and they will tempt you. Don’t tell the doctors what you want to forget. Don’t show up to the blood test. Cerberus is dead, there’s no more dogs. You can walk right in if you’ve got the gall. That’s the real secret, brother. They don’t mind if you go in, but the door locks behind you. You’re gonna need some Adderall. Put your headphones on as loud as they go. You will still feel the cries like a man who is deaf, they will buzz your bones, those Tartarus dead. You’re on a mission for just one. Find your target, then turn and run. There’ll be like 18 others you want to bring back. But there’s only room for two in the mine shaft. My suggestion? Don’t even look. Don’t try to notice the other ghost you may know. You don’t want to see your dead brother or what he looks like when you choose another. This is where the Adderall comes in. Let the tunnel vision take you.

They rippled out the banner Across the asphalt scab The ghost town where we make our home Was alive with grimepop bands I buy us all some donuts I’ll meet you in the pit Lift me up and throw me down and lift me up again In the sweat and thrashing Me and Lady making eyes There’s a monologue from Bear Grylls over the montage of that night He says I’ve written books On the art of what they did But I always end up misty eyed When the black metal begins There is lurid colors Yon sacred LEDs Breathe your beer breath ruin Growl just for me If you make it to the end of the story dear Just let that feeling sit Write only what you need to down In a text you’ll never send There’s a perfect nowness Here come those big deep breaths There’s a rawness in the ending That only power chords express We are the underworld escapers We have faces you may know But the road can turn the headlights on In these neon sugar skulls I am not your brother I am him but something more I want you to hit that snare so hard they lose hearing in their soul Hang the guns on the mantle Run the rose water bath The skalds will sing of this moment With unparalleled panache We were standing in the driveway In a sweaty six way hug The corpse paint on our cheeks ran down As the summer rain cleaned us If you make it to the end of the story dear You won’t need any pics Like bare feet on gravel You will feel jagged but you will feel There’s a perfect nowness Here come those big deep breaths Things like this are Halley’s comet They are once and then again Petrichor and gatorade One boy cracks a smile The fire of St. Elmo burns The future is fat with lightning