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Author’s Note: This is my second story here, hope you like it. Also, I remembered to put in the disclaimer, yay. Thanks to whichever admin added it to my last post. Here we see Natalie, still feeling the sticky sensation of slime on her skin, having to relive her experience by seeing the fate befall another poor victim on live TV.
Her name was Juliet. I remembered that much. Her identity, her face, her greatest fears, they were all blazed into my memory by the television. They were broadcast in HD, too, and I could see every bead of nervous sweat, feel every taut muscle contract in preparation for what was to come.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Actually, perhaps not so ahead of myself, but ahead of Juliet. What happens to her had already happened to me. That might be why I felt such sympathy. As well as something else…
When I got home my hair was still damp and my skin still chilled beneath my clothes.
“Hey, Nat?” called a voice from the couch. ”How was your swim?”
It had been more than a swim, but how could I ever express something like that? Especially to a roommate, a girl I barely knew. I knew her so little she still kept forgetting to call me Natalie; I hated my truncated nickname. It made me sound like a buzzing insect. But over the past month we had got on, at least, and she kept the place clean and tidy. I don’t think I could have stood to have a messy roommate: I cannot abide mess. Some of the other apartments in this shared townhouse were already loaded with greasy plates and sloppy pizza boxes, and the term had barely begun. Keira cleared her dishes away after eating, even washed them at least once a day, and mercifully actually knew the schedule for the rubbish bins and made sure to have it out on time, when it was her turn. Aside from setting up amicable rules and schedules we had not talked much these past few weeks, and it was unusual to see her lying on the couch on a Saturday night. Being a drama student and a dancer, she was always either rehearsing lines with her theatre group or wearing something ridiculously short to a club.
“Fine,” I said, annoyed that my voice had wavered with that simple sentence. If Keira noticed, she did not let on. She lifted her long legs off the ratty couch and sat upright, leaving me a seat beside her. In silence, I took it, feeling strangely self-conscious as my wet hair held coolly to my scalp. It’s not as if we hadn’t seen one another dashing out the bathroom a dozen times already. Why was it so different now?
“What are you watching?” I asked, as if I couldn’t just look at the screen and see. Anything to break the awkward silence.
“Some dreck, I don’t even know the same of it,” she replied. ”It’s one of those old Saturday night shows like when we were children. Looks like STV are trying to go back to the 1990s.”
I looked at the screen. It really did look like a show from my childhood – the bright colors, the elaborate yet useless set, the rows and rows of audience members pointed straight at the stage where a man in an awful purple suit held a microphone between two people I presumed were the contestants. It kind of looked like a church, with the man in purple the preacher, and the contestants standing before the congregation. One was a tall, broad shouldered male student who had a ruddy face, an irritating coiff and the toothy grin of a public school boy who only pretends to play rugby. The other was a young lady made entirely of small, delicate features, with a pretty little nose and radiant red hair. Both wore bog standard clothes – an open-collar shirt and jeans for the man, a black tank top and leggings for the woman. Thanks to the HD screen, I could make out the name badges. The boy was Quentin (I might have guessed!); the girl was Juliet.
“It’ll probably last two weeks and they’ll get rid of it and try again,” said Keira. ”Don’t know why they bother, nobody’s watching on a Saturday anymore.”
Now I could hear the host, a man with a smooth head and lips like a lizard. He grinned at the camera as he announced, “Now it’s time to face… your… fear!” Like performing seals, the crowd chanted along with him. Quentin beamed and played with his hair. Juliet bit her lip and adjusted the strap of her top.
“What’s happening?” I asked, in spite of myself. I didn’t want to talk. I might wind up saying something silly. But I knew that look.
“It’s like Fear Factor and X-Factor and Noel Edmond’s House Party all squished together. They both do challenges and quizzes, the winner gets their dream to come true. I guess that makes it a bit like Jim’ll Fix It Too, hopefully no one will get arrested.”
I shivered. Probably because it was chilly in a student flat, and shower water from my thorough washing still beaded between my shirt and my skin.
“Yeah the host is a bit creepy too; pretends he’s the devil or something like that. I can imagine the Daily Mail headlines now.”
I willed myself to smile. Keira’s voice seemed strangely far away as I recollected the evening prior to this quiet little moment on the couch. Maybe the mention of Noel Edmonds had brought it all flooding back.
“I’m sorry,” the host hissed. He stood between the two contestants, a hand raised over the shoulder of each. Time ticked along with the pulsing music in the studio. The audience was hushed. Tension hovered, unseen but not unobserved, in the dim light.
Then, he dropped a hand. ”Quentin,” said the host, squeezing the man’s burly shoulder. Quentin made an exaggerated face, the kind that says he’s disappointed but still going to be a super sport about it all. ”Tell your girlfriend to get packing, because you’re going white water rafting on the Nile!!”
The lights came up, the crowd applauded, and Quentin hopped up and down on the spot. As he pumped his fist in the air, his coiff flapped around on his head. The host continued to grin, looking exceptionally pleased with his witty fake-out.
“And as for you,” he said, turning his eyes on Juliet. The girl shrank back, her face flushed.
“What if you don’t win?” I found myself wondering aloud.
“Think 90s,” said Keira, rolling her eyes. ”At the start they ask them what they fear most. Dreams and nightmares. I think that’s the name of it, actually. I guess it’s a little more coherent than calling a program about winning washing machines and motorbikes ‘Takeaway’.”
Figures in dark robes and hoods, like ninjas, appeared to either side of Juliet and clamped her arms. As they led her away, their swaying hips revealed they were likely women. Why the ubiquitous eye candy was covered up, I had no idea. I was too busy focusing on the face of the host. That grin just kept getting bigger. ”I think it’s time for you to face your fear.”
The TV cut to Juliet, now being plonked down on a seat. A jolt ran through me. There she was, perched on a little stool, surrounded by a perspex box. The two ninjas closed the door with a flourish then disappeared into the mist rolling across the stage. Lights flashed, thunder rolled, and then all grew dim save for a blisteringly bright spotlight aimed directly at Juliet. In the glare, all eyes on her, her face bloomed a beet red.
“Oh god,” I whispered. I hope it was quiet enough for Keira to miss.
“This is what you said you feared most,” called the host’s voice. ”Three.”
“Two,” chorused the crowd, unseen in the darkness that entirely surrounded Juliet, leaving her adrift and alone.
“One!” A siren wailed, Juliet clamped her hands to her face and in a second the pretty, sweet girl was lost beneath a deluge of smooth, glossy slime. It ran over her face, caking her hair and swallowing her features. It streaked down her shoulders, peeling down one strap of her tank top in its wake, and flooded her modest cleavage like a valley under a torrential storm. Her black outfit turned to shiny swathes of color where the gunge stuck to her curves. Juliet sat there, shoulders hunched against the cold, wet deluge, her lips and eyes squeezed together as if trying to defy reality by force of will. But it was happening, and finally she relented, letting out a visible sigh as her head and shoulders relaxed and let the gunge come.
I realised I was leaning forward in my seat, almost toppling over. I leaned back, slowly, tried to avoid drawing Keira’s gaze. The TV was a vibrant splotch of running colours, and underneath it all sat Juliet, green eyes staring out from a shell of slop. The smeared door popped open, revealing her in all her slimy glory.
The host held out his microphone, keeping his purple suit at a distance. ”How do you feel?”
Juliet just stared, then squeezed her eyes shut. Words failed her, and coated in cold she shook, her shoulders still tense. In her mind, I was sure she was willing herself to just be swallowed up by the earth.
“Glad I’m not her,” said Keira. She let out a light giggle.
“Me too,” I said. Except I had been, less than an hour ago. I had sat right there, pinned in a perspex box, watched by a hungry crowd, and sucked air into my lungs in that helpless second before it all came splashing down. The whole team had watched, and my own cousin, as I was covered in gunk and stripped of dignity. The memory rushed back, and with it a chill ran through my belly.
Keira lifted the remote. ”Want to see what else is on?”
“Yes,” I said. The show had already moved on. Juliet, of course, had not. She would still be sitting there, covered in gunk, her clothes stuck to her skin. Slime would weigh her down as she stood up, shame would hold her head low. As she walked away from the watching crowd, she would feel the coolness press against her with every step, feel the sludge seep into her underwear. Everything she was wearing had been affected, every inch of her would have to be washed, and in a final indignity some anonymous stagehand would lead her to an unfamiliar shower where she would be expected to wash away the worst of it. If she was lucky. ”Please.”
