Aeon Nether & Idol Effigy

Chapter 52- Silenced

Felixe's eyes met mine, which had set into a distant look on my face. My bleary eyes met his in the air for a full three seconds before he smirked in amusement.

Instead of giving me an evaluation he got up from his seat and joined me on stage.

"Although, I commend you for putting your composing and singing talents forward, I'd be lying if I didn't say that your dance was lacking. There was a clear lack in your choreography that you could have improved on, but showed that you left it to be all too safe. Rain, can you please put on my fifth remix composition?"

"Of course Felixe."

"Aeon, pay attention to what you should hope to surpass."

My head followed my chin as it dipped down and released a "mmh", in confirmation.

Unlike the stage performances of the contestants Felixe danced without any lighting or special effects and sang with the hand held mike he took from his judging seat. His every flaw was at more risk at showing compared to my performance where I tried to redirect the attention of the viewers to everything other than my dancing, but didn't overdo it due to not needing to cover up much else in my performance.

The performance Felixe gave was without a visible flaw that I could see. The corner of my eyes glanced in my peripherals to the judges and audience who'd piled on with Trina's critique, assuming that Felixe was too ill to perform up to the task. They were silent and the sound of their breathing raised the humidity in the room up through their gaping mouths.

One minute was all it took to prove that he was better than most, if not everyone else.

After he finished his performance, he gave some tips and went back to his seat.

-... I bet it's awkward for those judges now

-? Awkward? I doubt it, they knew what they were doing and who they were touching. Is it really that surprising that they got shamed after laughing happily when their favourite contestant insulted Felixe.

- Are they going to act soon?

- no, they probably cancelled that. The dungeons have been acting up, even though more people have been diving in them recently.

-He really said: I'mma get up for who I want to

- Couldn't she be more polite?

- I love how people are judging others so harshly whilst I'm here trying to find some new tracks to listen to, lol

- Shouldn't someone call the police

- On who? Let's be real for a moment, the police was probably in on it┐⁠(⁠￣⁠ヘ⁠￣⁠)⁠┌

- Who's going to spill the tea? I'm thirsty and y'all hiding quality stuff! Damn, I don't wanna watch the background characters romantic comedy anymore (⁠T⁠T⁠) Watching people named after brands getting it on was only funny in the comments.

-It was worth watching until Aeon's performance, but the show really tried and compared the second hand killer as someone better, huh. The latter doesn't seem to care much about her performance, even when the only good thing about it is the song given by someone that believed in her.

...

It took a little while after for Trina to return to the audience seats. The show's contestants for the day were finished performing and a break was currently running, in order for the audience to finish scoring contestant's.

An half an hour later the stage's screen lit up showing the calculated results.

Surprisingly, or should I say not surprisingly at all, My result was higher in this batch of contestants that were purposefully bad in order to make Trina look better. What was interesting was the way Trina's score had become worse, probably due to Felixe's health having improved and making her insults sound like she was a joke. A disgusting joke at that. Sadly it was only seen as disgusting now, because Felixe's value couldn't be overlooked as a temporary thing that would die sooner than later.

A day after this, another grouping of contestants went onstage and nothing else happened to the judges who'd toned down their behaviour in light of what was said about them during my performance.

On the screen in one of the onsite gyms for the contestants on the show, the show was cast live and blasted on the speakers. The contestants contrasted greatly to my grouping of contestants who largely lacked talent or effort, and made silly mistakes every now and then. This grouping was made to seem even better than mine from the comparison to the small gym that I was in.

The gym being largely outdated in it's equipment, but clean enough to work out comfortably in. It still smells slightly of dust or something old. Probably due to it being an old and often unused room. I imagine that most people on this site went to gyms around the area.

The more I watched the show being broadcast live, the more I noticed the difference in Felixe who cut his hair shorter, which made him look healthier and gave himself a cleaner look.

...

The second month's challenge is revealed right after the eliminations occurred. Oddly enough only seven hundred contestants were left, making me question what the minimum or maximum number of eliminations were for this show on a monthly basis.

I'm not misremembering when most shows normally calculate stuff like this more clearly, right?

Most of the contestants that were eliminated from the show were also mostly from my grouping of contestants, for the first day of the live broadcasting of the show.

Right now, I didn't have enough brain power to spend on thinking though I really wanted to, because I ended up joining a randomly selected group with Emma's adopted sister and Harvey.

Challenge: something to do with the classics.

Words in bold were printed or rather stamped in a decorative manner on a A3 piece of paper. No, it might be some sort of card stock. That's not really important, so forget my ramblings. All you need to be aware of is that this group was doomed. What's more is that the challenge was even more vaguely abstract than the last one!

What do you mean do something with the classics!?

agsbdjjsmwjwhsns?! This is a second rate idol show where people who've had some basic foundation built in mandatory education have been thrown in to gradually improve or are ultimately removed if they have no eye-catching qualities!

Well, from this type of grouping it was hard not to get the cursing the human staff were directing at me and Rain won't do anything either. This, as I've said before, is an idol type of training show competition thing, fairness is also graded in the entertainment or beauty qualities that each contestant has. It's not just about talent and effort.

I should be happy about that. I'm not bad-looking... Yeah, but everyone else who's got to this stage isn't bad looking either. My ego doesn't allow me to grade beauty either at this point.

But, entertainment.

Entertainment in a word is difficult. It's easier than humour. I mean, people have different humour and not everyone can be a comedian. It's a difficult thing to do, but it's just a category that goes into what we recognize as entertainment.

Now, does it help that entertainment is so wide to encompass so many things?

No.

No, it's really not.

Sitting here between some rich girl who's been glaring at me and trying to think of some malicious way to assault me is bad enough. But my man Harvey... This guy's been trying not to smirk for a while and it's got my senses screaming some kind of danger.

In the midst of all this, the other group members are trying to form cliques. What!? What the hell are you doing? It's sad! Stop! Clique of one guy and another guy that have now become edgy! Stop! And why is there a religious clique! Why are they all against me!?

With my voice peaking up through the chatter and odd behaviour of this group of people, my voice cracked slightly in its low volume.

"Rain... Why?"