The Hands of Death

Royal's Death

The date is August 24th and the cheerleading team and I were at our beach house in Florida preparing for the most important competition yet. But the most important thing for me was when they were deciding on the new cheer captain. All the girls who wanted to try out for the captain had a solo in the competition and would be judged based on the performance of it. I had practiced my solo about 100 times and was prepared for the worse from a trip to a power outage.

 My coach came into my room and said: "Royal it's time for the competition so get in the van."

 I grabbed my cheer bag and caught up to the rest of the girls fighting over which seat everyone should get. But, I didn't care which seat I got. I was just focusing on the most important performance of my life.

 We pulled up at the arena, and when we got there, everyone rushed to get out of the car and explore but the coach said: "Girls were 15 minutes late get dressed then go-to makeup and Ms. Jones so she can do your hair and don't forget do your best out there and get us a 1st place trophy."

 In unison, we said,'' We will!". 

About 10 minutes later everyone was dressed and ready to cheer their hearts out. Our coach came over to us and said: "It's showtime girls, so go out there and impress those judges......and for you girls trying out for captain you best bring your A-game''. 

We went out on stage and got into formation. I saw the crowd of people and thought "wow this is amazing to see how many people came just to watch some kids cheer".

 The lights dimmed on us then the music started. For my first stunt, I go into a single base heal and then into a scorpion landing with a spirit tuck. We cheered our hearts out and then it came to the solos. Mine was last and watching the girls was very intimidating. They were so good. Then the music started to pick up signaling it was almost my turn and when it hit the climax it was my turn so I went out there like an exploding bomb and did a bunch of complicated flips and turns to leave the crowd in awe. And when I landed the last flip and the music turned off and the lights became brighter the crowd roared with applause. I let out a sigh of relief as I started to catch up with the rest of the team. 

The coach then said " the new cheer captain is......drum roll, please...Royal! Congratulations on all your hard work and dedication." 

Everyone turned to me and started clapping. I ran up to my coach and said: "Thank you so much, this is such an honor!"

 Then I turned around and yelled at everyone "Let's go to the beach and have some fun."

 What I didn't know was that this trip to the beach would be my last. When we arrived at the beach everyone rushed out of the van in a hurry. We ran into the water like it was going out of style. I was shoulder in water swimming farther out when a strong current flipped me over. I cut my arm badly on a rock and it stopped me from being able to swim so there I was drifting out in the sea slowly sinking. Never to be seen again.