"Well, I gotta say, It's nice to have you here Nina, I'm sorry if we treated you so roughly some days ago, I hope you could find it in your heart to forgive us," Jeremy leaned forward as he gazed into her eyes.
"Oh..." She leaned back with a chuckle before she moved her body towards him while carrying a smile that matched his. She looked at the audience, still with the mic in hand, and after a slight pause and with a sweet tone, she replied, "Thank you very much, was it…"
"It's Choir, but you can call me Jeremy…"
"Jeremy, oh yes," she paused again to tilt her head, looking at him without dropping her expression. "I'm sorry, I tend to forget things nowadays, but thank you for introducing yourself to me and on that, I'd say that the past is past, I mean if what happened before resulted in this... beautiful thing… I'm okay with it."
Contrary to what she had expected, she received a moment of silence as though the crowd became dejected at her reply and in panic, she took a sharp breath with her shaking lips. Then, she forced up an awkward grin and continued, "I mean… I don't even remember what happened…" She let out a shrill laugh that made her heart tremble even more, noticing that none of the audience seemed to give her much except for this chest wrenching distant gaze as if all of them held their breaths while judging her. "Would, you… Mister, would you be nice enough to tell us what happened?"
Just then, Jeremy's smile got wider as he looked at her with a face about to break into a laugh. He then lowered his head a moment after and soon, with a soft chuckle, he nodded at the director in the distance and turned her attention to her, saying, "Sure, I guess it would be good to let the audience see what happened."
Jeremy reached out to tap her shoulder, pointing her to the large TV in front of them that was plastered at the far side of the dome. She squinted her eyes in confusion and there she saw someone, who was supposed to be her friend but she could not recognize, get stabbed through the door. It was then followed by another woman, who got her head together with her upper torso blown off along with a sound as if someone smashed a watermelon with a sledgehammer. What came next was her looking at her friend, a fat man who had his head torn off too before he went down to the floor and then, suddenly, the camera jumped to her getting stabbed by a couple of harpoons before she fell to the ground before the video was cut off.
The audience began to clap a laugh and she, on the other hand, did nothing but hold her breath. She just looked at the empty screen in the distance and after a few odd seconds, she pulled out a smile and looked at him. "Oh dear, so that's what happened to me! So that's where I got these holes in my body…"
"Yeah," Jeremy replied, cupping his chin and sinking his thumb and index finger into his cheeks, massaging it to prevent it from showing a smile. Then, with a soft tone, like that of a whisper but spoken as if it was meant to sting, he added, "Considering that most of the video contained the footage of your friends getting killed, but sure." He raised his voice and now with his words that seemed to be overflowing with care, he continued, "We're very glad that you're fine and really, really, our staff, and especially me, extend our deepest apologies, it must've hurt."
"I'm sorry, what?" she replied sweetly, tilting her head towards his words before his last as he felt a little pleasant burn radiate in her chest.
"No, nevermind," Jeremy added, leaning back with a chuckle to rest his shoulders at the back of his dark green couch. "Let's just talk about you, for now, tell us your story and in exchange, I'll tell you something good later."
"Oh," she retorted, still with a wide smile as she pushed herself back from the edge of her seat. "I'm just a… an actress turned to a model by the time I grew up." She laughed, with her head laid down. "I started as a baby doing a commercial for, of course, baby wipes and then it went on. Borrowing my mother's words, I grew up beautifully and yeah, even though times back then are hard… We ended up having to eat nothing at all but you know, I persevered through that." She took a deep breath and just stopped for an awkward second before she raised her head and looked at Jeremy with her eyes widened as if she was asking for something. "I took on two jobs at the same time and I even experienced having no day-offs as well, that is, until I got discovered again. Imagine me, just without having any shred of money left, going into a talent audition with the others that were so well prepared and still get the job by the end of the day… haha… haha… haha… haha… hahaha… that's what jumpstarted my career back into the industry, which had a lot of bumps on the way which was okay because—"
"Yeah, I—"
"Which is my dream," she went on, pushing Jeremy's voice away and walking towards the crowd as she tightened her grip at the mic in her hand, gazing at them and still being ultimately surprised that she failed to make them show any sort of reaction. It felt like she was being stoned by in place. "You know, I've been working hard, I've worked hard for this! It's been my dream to face this so many people, these good people, who are here to watch me and who are here to listen to my story!"
"Yeah," Jeremy continued, placing his arm over her shoulders to call her attention to him, to which at that moment, he realized that she had not dropped her smile even while she's letting out a loud disappointed breath through her nose. He invited her back to her seat and there, with a twisted grin, he continued, "I understand that they're being tough on you right now but give them time to listen, I'm sure that they'll warm up to you and now, as promised, I'll tell you something good."
"Something good, you're giving me something better than this? Wow…" She replied with a sweet chuckle.
"Yes, Nina, we have a gift reserved for those who we invite into this show! Our last show got our guests riled up that they pretty much tore themselves apart and now, what I'm giving you…" He took a deep breath and leaned forward as though he was going to whisper something in her ear. "What I'm giving you now is a second shot at life, a chance to live again!"
"You mean that I'm dead…" She continued, tilting her head and dropping her smile for the very first time. Then, as though she was telling a joke, he jerked back the corners of her mouth to form a broken grin that was as wide as her eyes at that moment of realization. "Oh yeah… I died… I'm dead already… that explains why… these holes…"
"Sadly you are, Nina, but look," Jeremy moved on, stretching his arms so his fingers could touch her bloodied shoulder. "You've had your dream fulfilled, but this is real, this is reality and now, you're going to get a shot to live again and continue living this life that you're supposed to live!"
"Really?" She said with her head still laying down.
"Yeah," he replied with a nod. "All you have to do is to win our audience's favor which I'm sure you could do better than the next contestant and you'll have that ticket that you could use for your story to live on, what do you think?"
"Yeah, I'm… I'm in…" Nina replied firmly, raising her head towards him with her eyes that seemed wavering.
"She's in…" Jeremy gave her back a warm smile before he turned to the crowd while raising his arms along with his booming voice that reverberated throughout that dome that was drowning in silence. "She's in folks… she's in and now that's done," he gave Nina a nod before he cued the director at the distance and after that, he faced the crowd and shouted, "let's bring out our next contestant!"
A piece of upbeat welcoming music rang around the dome and roused Nina's heart to the point that she wanted to jump and soon, another man walked into the stage. His dreaded face was full of lines like he was tied up like ham and among it was his eyes that were widened and strained, looking as if he didn't understand a thing that was happening. The man's body was hunched as if he had no energy to move with both his arms that had no fingers swayed back and forth while his feet, that seemed as if it lost its nails, smeared the floor as he showed everyone his staggering trail.
"Who—"
Their gazes met with her confused expression meeting his confused eyes then suddenly, the man let out a guttural scream and dashed towards her like a beast set to sink his fangs into his prey. He passed through Jeremy who remained in place with a dignified smile and there, he gathered all the fingers that he had left on his right hand to make a fist before he bashed her face in.
She fell back to the floor with a loud thud, holding up a gaze full of fear and wonder as she pressed her palm at the side of her face. Nina looked at Jeremy who pointed her to the screen right above them that showed the time of eight minutes and seventeen seconds and at that moment, she realized that the crowd who had denied her before was now laughing once again.