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jokikudistrict · 7 years ago

Text

Un Soleil Parmi Les Étoiles

The grating laughter of their employer with the curt buzz of a devilishly lit red button mixed with the clack of a collar and the whipping of chains. The sound of the Artistic Gymnast being whisked to her demise.

Héloïse Duval has been found guilty. Commencing Execution.

...

[ cw for open fractures, elbow/arm injury ]

Héloïse found herself standing in a pool of light a spotlight provided as it shone above her. She stood on the end of a balance beam, a place all too familiar to her after all these years. It didn’t matter, everything that happened back there in the trial room. No matter if she was Stella, or Héloïse, or neither of them now, she couldn’t just forget the years of training that was ingrained in her body.

Silence flooded the space around her, and her shifting eyes tried to find purchase in the empty blackness. Suddenly, from within the darkness, a screen flickered on, and there, Karoshikuma stood in front of her, holding up a card with “0/200” written on it.

Héloïse stared at the beam, then back at the card. Testing her grip with her shoes on, she opted to slip them off as she stretched a bit. The gymnast seemed to be in no rush as she dropped them to the seeming abyss below, and got herself ready in position. If she kept calm, if she planned this all out, then she may even have a fighting chance to survive. She could still survive this.

With an easy breath, in the dead of the silence, she flipped her legs over herself as she did a cartwheel. Her eyes shifted back to the screen and she saw the numbers change. 5/200. Bending her knees, she performed a simple full turn. Without checking the score, she took a breath and a step, performing a front handspring. She then turned. 45/200.

Easy.

Karoshikuma’s points system made no sense, but if this was all she had to do to get out of here, it didn’t matter. Before she could set up into her next trick, a second screen flickered on, and on it, a silent countdown began to count from 120 seconds. It was more than enough time for her to impress the bear, she thought. She was used to having even less time to impress much more important people, after all.

After what seemed like an impressive array of jumps, half-twists and saltos, the points slowly wracked up, and Héloïse saw her victory in her reach. She took a breath as she prepared herself for a few last tricks. With still 60 seconds on the clock, and already at 150 points, there was no way that she could fail this.

[sowwy art comming soon uwu we awogize for the incownvenience]

With a step, Héloïse began with a cartwheel, and then immediately performed a backward salto with a full twist - but just as she was coming back down to land, Karoshikuma moved the beam from beneath her feet. Héloïse slipped, her heart dropping as she grabbed onto the beam and held on for dear life. Without another second to waste though, the beam began to shake and Héloïse’s fatigued arms slipped off, falling below.

She was met quickly with another beam below her, and without much thought she reached for her only saviour from the darkness below and grabbed on - but the sound that came out of her mouth wasn’t a sigh of relief. Instead, it was a pained yelp as her elbow broke her fall. Shaking, she pulled herself up just barely onto the beam, her mind going hazy as she knew there was something wrong with her arm. Her eyes traveled back to those points and watched the seconds tick away. There was still time.

Trying to ignore the excruciating pain in her arm, she realized that all she had to left was perform a forward tuck, perhaps with a twist, and she’d have enough points. She could do this. Her mind went quiet as she stared at the beam beneath her feet.

A step, another, and then a halt, as blaring music sounded all around her, knocking her focus away. Clear agitation covered her features as she desperately tried to bring herself back into focus. She took a step back, as if to start over, and another breath. The music was off, it wasn’t even rhythmic, she couldn’t find a beat. Focus, focus, focus, she kept screaming in her head.

A step, and another, and Héloïse performed a final forward salto with a twist, but her landing was just short of perfect. In an attempt to save herself she reached for the beam with her arm, and landed on the already-broken elbow.

Her skin tears, and Héloïse screams drown out the music as she straddles on the beam.

Hyperventilation nearly takes over as her eyes just barely catch that she just made it with enough points before time ran out. Turning her head, she sees a light source appear behind her, on the end of the beam. She isn’t sure if the music has continued to play or not as the ringing in her ears tries to bring her back to reality. She doesn’t feel pain. She doesn’t feel anything. Her feet bring her to the beam’s path, and she tries her best to keep her balance as she runs. The blood draining from her arm is slick as she doesn't pay attention to how her feet are coated in it.

She’s almost there- she’s almost free. She can leave this hell and become the gymnast she’d always dream of being -- but her slicked feet slip in the blood on the beam and Héloïse tumbles off the beam into the darkness. A horrifying thud only a second later is heard, and another spotlight shines onto the body of the artistic gymnast as she lies on her back, eyes wide. She lets out the faintest of breaths as her grey eyes stare at the exit that’s now too far to reach.

By some otherworldly power, she sits up, realizing that the music suddenly cut off and all that was left was the ringing in her ears and the fact that she could see her radial bone sticking out her body.

Héloïse brings herself to look back up again, and before she knew it, the beam from above was coming down to crush her beneath it.

Héloïse Duval, SHSL Artistic Gymnast, has been executed.

#Chapter 4 #Chapter 4 Trial #Heloise #Heloise Death

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