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It had only been a few days after the Lucky Contestant became the show's sole winner and agreed to Frankie’s deal.
After that adrenaline filled show they had just gone through, having nothing to do right after that hit them like a train.
They were ultimately bored out of their mind.
The sudden whiplash of near death scenarios to peacefully eating cereal in the parent pad was quite the experience that left them feeling empty.
Lucky had hoped they had something more to do while waiting for the new season to begin airing. The only reason they even went to this show was to finally get away from their dull and pitiful life, after all.
They have spent countless amounts of cash to buy cereal boxes in hopes that they’ll find a VHS tape inside one of those. They spent countless hours watching all the seasons of the show as an anonymous user, wondering how it hadn't been cancelled already by how short they were, but still came back to bet their money on some poor contestant once more.
Lucky did all of this just to have that little thrill be present in their pathetic life.
Poor financial decisions aside, Lucky didn’t know if the higher ups of whatever this is were willing to pay them some monetary compensation for their efforts in boosting the ratings. They were still pretty salty that they didn’t get that five million after everything they’ve been through to get to that point.
Lucky knows their eyes were never set on the money to begin with, but an added bonus to all of this wouldn’t hurt, right?
And so, Lucky wandered through the halls of the utilidors, trying to find Frankie in his security room, intercom room, or what that place is actually called.
The oddly bright orange wire had led them to their destination. As per usual, Frankie is just staring at the multiple monitors that display almost everything that is happening inside this parkour park.
“What brings you here, our star contestant?” Frankie’s voice boomed throughout the room. He looked away from the screens to face them.
“Hey, so..” Lucky awkwardly started. “Do you guys ever do anything around here that doesn’t involve the show?”
“Ah, that is a difficult question.. You see, I only continue to exist because of the show. It’s everything I am, it’s my purpose– I haven’t thought about what else to do besides that.”
Woah, that sounds depressing. Lucky would feel bad for the guy if it wasn’t for the fact he had participated in killing over 200 people for the show. It's not a good action to sympathize someone over with.
“I see..” Lucky trailed off, unsure how to respond. His answer did not help at all.
“Do you need anything else, Lucky?” Frankie asked.
Without thinking, the Contestant blurted out, “Can we get a ballpit?”
“What?” Frankie, for the first time, was rendered speechless.
“A ballpit. Because what kind of park doesn’t have one?” Lucky attempted to justify.
“I don’t think a ball pit would be necessary? Or do you have something in mind, Contestant?” Frankie clasped his hands together.
“No, I’m just bored. A ball pit does sound nice, though.” Lucky shrugged.
“Maybe I can find ways to alleviate that boredom, I am an entertainer, after all!” He offered instead.
“...No, thank you.” Lucky silently slipped out of the conversation.
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As Lucky tried to tackle another set of a newly staged parkour course, they realized how worn out the soles of their costume was with every step. The blood that seeped through their clothes from their own injuries or from the long dead contestants had sat drying between their skin and the fabric, making each move more unbearable than the last.
It doesn’t help that the blood or the bodies would cause the Contestant to almost slip and fall at times. They were honestly glad that not every room had a rotting corpse lying around that was likely to spread diseases.
Though all Lucky could think about is how the staff should really clean the place up every once in a while, and that the suit keeps sticking on their skin and its messing their jumps and makes it harder to focus on the next landing–
The Contestant missed the platform that was in front of them a mere second ago.
It left Lucky blaming their janky movements on the costume, because it just made things more frustrating than fun.
While the contestant silently rants as they fall off for who knows how long– like jeez, how far up did they even go? It didn’t register in their head that arms made of springs had coiled around their body, preventing their figure from meeting the ground.
“Contestant! It’s fortunate that I caught you right on time. We can’t have you dying before the season starts!” Frankie said, bringing Lucky up to a different platform, only softening his hold but not letting go.
The Contestant grumbled. “It’s all because of this suit– Do you have any other clothes here besides this one?”
“Hm? What’s wrong with yours?” Frankie’s head tilted to the side.
“What’s wrong?! For starters, this suit reeks of old blood now! One more issue is that it’s actually hard to move in this thing! Maybe the reason why people die so early is because the clothes you make us wear messes up our movements. It either makes us slip through all the blood and bodies and hit a nearby wall, or it makes it harder to even grip on the poles.”
“I hear your concerns loud and clear, Contestant!”
“Do you, really?” Lucky said, laced with doubt.
Frankie ignored that part. “But unfortunately, I don’t think the higher-ups would change it.”
The Contestant sighed, disappointed. Well, it was worth asking.
“I can get you a new one, though! This time, it’ll be better suited for you to move around in, that should hopefully fix some of your problems.”
“You’ll do that?” Lucky’s face lit up. It was better than nothing. “Thanks.”
Frankie smiled. “Not a problem, Lucky! I’m always happy to help!”
“It still makes parkouring way harder than it should be. Which is an issue for a parkour-centered show.” Lucky said.
“We can think of a solution for that. This one can be brought to the attention of my superiors next time.” Frankie said in reply.
Lucky hummed. “That’ll be nice. A new suit would fit into the new stuff the show’s adding in for the next seasons.”
“That sure is correct, star contestant!” Frankie beamed.
Lucky wondered when they were going to be let down to continue to parkour.
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Lucky aimlessly walked around the park, hoping to find something to do. The rooms, in all fairness, looked cleaner than when they first saw it.
There were staff members that Lucky didn’t know were working here that had cleaned the area, though left some blood and bodies behind for that “spooky effect”, as instructed by their superiors.
Lucky on the other hand, very much disagreed with that. The blood was an unnecessarily extra obstacle while running. Seriously, the Contestant thinks they might have gotten some sort of brain damage from hitting the wall so many times from slipping on the corpses.
But enough of that, as Lucky saw the other Frankie supervising the staff. They saw the bloodied, headless body of Henry Hotline getting carried out to god knows where. Lucky, with no other places to go, decided to approach him.
“Is he going to come back?” Lucky asked, not particularly interested, but didn’t know what else to say.
“Hm? Oh, it’s you!” Frankie clapped his hands. “To answer your question, he will! The fans simply adore him, they even begged for us to revive him! It was kind of silly, but we can’t say no to such devotion from our dear viewers.”
“Is that so? Maybe it’ll benefit the show if Henry got a bigger role.” Lucky suggested.
“Henry already has a section dedicated to himself, isn’t that enough?” He said.
Lucky looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Yes, but what if we make him have a role that would make the viewers sympathetic and be more attached to him? That way, it’ll make his death have way more impact!”
“Oh my, I didn’t know you were that evil, Lucky!” Frankie fake gasped, just a bit too exaggerated.
“I’m making your show better, you rabbit.” Lucky murmured to themselves.
They remembered another important character in this show, and were curious about what happened to him. “How’s.. the, uh, monster Frankie doing? I did kinda drop him into the incinerator.”
“Don’t worry about that crazed monster, he’ll also be returning to us in a week or two.” Frankie said nonchalantly.
It wasn’t a satisfactory answer to Lucky, but it’ll do. “He won’t be attacking me then, right?”
“He’s smarter than you think, you can expect him to be on his best behavior once he gets here!” Frankie patted their shoulder to reassure them.
Lucky shuddered. “Hopefully he is.”
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“Should we introduce myself as the past winning contestant, or should we disguise it and introduce me as a new one?” Lucky wondered, though was more preoccupied in their practice run at Deputy Duck’s Parkour Room.
They carried on with their explanation. “With the first one, there will be more people who’d think it’s safer to bet on me, meaning it will encourage them to use more money.”
Lucky paused to catch their breath, then jumped on the trampoline a few seconds later. After landing yet another successful jump, they picked up on where they left off. “The downside is that it’ll grow stale really quickly after a few more seasons. These new people might be harder to keep entertained.”
“We could charge a higher betting fee if we choose the first one. This allows us to increase our profits while the audience will get their winnings. If the audience gets tired of you, we could always just fake your death; and there, we can re-introduce you as a new contestant!” Frankie responded, currently doing nothing at all, being content with watching Lucky perform parkour.
Lucky was shot with a small plastic ball by one of the ducks. They shot it back with full force in retaliation. “That sounds good. But are you sure that won’t be a golden opportunity to get rid of me?”
Frankie chose to overlook how the duck spun around in a frenzy, shooting in every direction when it got hit. “Oh, don't you worry that pretty little head of yours! I doubt another contestant would be just like you. We have countermeasures to keep you safe and sound!”
“Right.” Lucky sighed. They tried to jump yet again, but a sudden pain that shot on their leg made them double down, crouching on the floor while clutching their hand on the wall to stabilize themselves.
“Star Contestant?!” Frankie wasted no time running towards Lucky and moving them to a better position. “Are you alright?”
Lucky couldn’t tell whether Frankie was genuinely worried or not, but they did not care right now, not when the pain hurts too much to think about anything.
“Yeah… I think some of my stitches got loose or something.” The Contestant managed to muster a response.
“Oh my! That won’t do. We need to treat it immediately, or else the whole show’s at stake!” Frankie went ahead to find a first aid kit lying around. It wasn’t a moment before he came back with one.
“Now, I heard that talking is a good distraction from pain,” Frankie said as he shuffled through the medical supplies.
“I think that’ll help.” Lucky said, only half-believing themselves. They suppose they should really rest after this and not parkour recklessly. “Give me a topic.”
Frankie chucked. “Alright, what about our beloved character, Deputy Duck?”
“Is he really beloved?” Lucky scoffed. "That duck was so underutilized, I saw anonymous users on chat complaining about it."
“Isn’t he so adorable, though?” He remarked while working on wrapping bandages around Lucky’s leg.
“He tried to poke my eyes out.” Lucky said blankly.
“Hmm, he does that sometimes. Please, do forgive him.” Frankie offered him an apologetic smile.
Lucky rolled their eyes and continued, “Another thing! Won’t it be fun if we used Deputy Duck to uncover other doors? Some secrets or a different parkour course? His character is a cop after all, so we’re gonna use him to investigate. It’ll be good for engagement; people love a good story, the viewers even tried looking for lore last season when there’s only very little of it. Maybe do something with the flash, too. It was kind of useless, and also–”
“And that’s all bandaged up now! Did you have fun letting all that feelings out, star contestant? You sounded so passionate about it!” He said while laughing and lifting Lucky up like it was the most natural thing in the world to do.
They didn’t protest as they could hardly walk anyway. “That fast? I was too focused on my rant, huh.”
Laughing, Frankie said, “You sure were! I’ll take your criticisms to heart, it was something others have also complained about. We can talk more about this later, but for now, Lucky, you should focus more on recovering!”
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The Contestant lounged around the room that had the locked door to Hexa Havoc, wracking their minds on what to do while waiting for the game show to start.
They noticed the offline chat on the big monitor had people already sending messages. The anonymous users were talking about different topics that range from the game show itself, or other privately funded streams.
The chat soon took notice of Lucky’s presence from the cameras and they instantly exploded in greetings and questions.
“Oh, you guys can see me already?” Lucky shot a question back.
A barrage of different variations of “yes” popped up. Another anonymous user said, “Blink twice if you need help!”
Lucky said, deadpanned, “I’m wearing a mask, how could you even see if I blink or not?”
“Face reveal when??” Several users questioned.
Lucky felt like fastening their mask a bit more while reading that. “For legal reasons, never.” This was beginning to be like a QnA session or something.
“Good luck on your second round! I bet all my savings on you, so you better not disappoint!” A user commented.
“I’ll try my best?” Lucky said, acting unsure. People don’t know it’s staged after all, only ever speculated about it. “You really shouldn’t gamble all your money like that, though.”
“Well you gambled your life for 5 mil, you’re way worse than me.” They quickly retorted.
The Contestant huffed and crossed their arms. “Touché.”
After skimming past a few more words of encouragement and threats, a different message caught their eye. “Huh.. Rabbit royale? Lucky rabbit? Bunny bank?? What are you all on about? Is that some sort of secret code..?”
Chat went silent for a moment.
“Are you there–” Before Lucky could even finish their sentence, the chat suddenly sent so many messages that it was hard for them to read before it was gone.
Anonymous user: WHO TOLD
Anonymous user: Don’t worry about it :)
Anonymous user: LMAO
Anonymous user: parkour yaoi is real
Anonymous user: AYO??????????
Anonymous user: NO
Anonymous user: Whatever you do, don’t search it
Lucky decided to only respond to the last message. “I don’t have access to the internet here, I can’t search for anything.”
The Contestant swore they could hear the chat let out a sigh of relief, for whatever reason. They felt like they were missing something here.
“I’ll just forget this ever happened.” Lucky said. The chat agreed with them.
The chat changed the topic to yet another question and answer portion. “Why are you back here, anyway? Not satisfied yet?”
Lucky hummed, placing a hand to their chin. “You could say that. Double or nothing, am I right?”
Awkwardness filled the air around them. Even the anonymous users were concerned for The Contestant. Lucky could feel the growing judgement radiating from the screen. “Everyone?”
Without warning, Lucky was picked up and lifted away from their sitting position, now dangling in the air by a pair of robotic arms.
“Alright, that’s enough chatting for our star contestant! They need to get ready for the show.” Frankie said towards the chat.
Lucky saw no signs of Frankie putting them back down. “Wh– hey, let me go!”
“No can do, Lucky. We have a broadcast to catch! I know I'm faster than your little legs will ever be.” Frankie reasoned that only made sense to himself. It sounded more menacing than it needed to be. “You shouldn’t be too friendly with those folks, y’know?”
“Compared to you? Really?” Lucky said.
“Indeed, they might be those people who enjoy other shows more gruesome than ours, it’s best to stay away from them!”
“Uh-huh.” Lucky said, not convinced in the slightest. They wonder if they'll be counted as one of those people, having bought over seven hundred cereal boxes just to participate in a death game. They’d much rather not ask that aloud.
The Contestant could only glance at the chat one more time. They couldn’t read a single thing again as more messages flashed at the speed of light. The chat must be excited, Lucky concluded.
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After a yet another successful run of a new season, Frankie and the Contestant looked over at the growing numbers on the screen.
“We got over two million viewers this season!” Lucky cheered, holding up a can of soda from a vending machine given that they didn’t have wine to celebrate.
“All thanks to you, our star contestant!” Frankie said, smiling at them.
Lucky put their hands on their hips and proudly said, “I know, I know, I’m carrying this show.”
Frankie chuckled. “Such a humble contestant. What will we do without you?”
“Be bankrupt, duh.” Lucky said flippantly. “Now, when will I get paid for this, exactly?”
“Hmm, the higher ups are considering making you an official employee. But once you sign the contract, there’s no going back.” He cautioned them.
“I feel like they’ll kill me if I refuse.” Lucky sighed, staring off into the distance. “It’s either die by their hands, or die in a parkour race. The latter is a much cooler death.”
“A death of a star,” Frankie thought out loud. “It not only kills them, but they burn the things around them.”
Lucky didn’t dignify that with a response, opting to talk about something that has been bothering their mind. “Y’know, wouldn’t it be more exciting if the next season is longer? We have the budget for that now.”
“I’m listening.” Frankie said, his gaze fixed on the Contestant.
“You know how your viewership dropped because your contestants keep dying so quickly? What do you think about making the show, I don’t know, episodic? Most private shows also do this. Why not us, too?” Lucky turned their head to face him.
“This parkour park isn’t that big of a place, what do you propose to lengthen the race?”
“Huh, I didn’t think that far. Can we make up some scary story about this place or something?”
Frankie nodded. “Ooh, you’re talking about mysteries! My superiors weren’t interested in that; they’re more focused on the parkour side of things.”
“Figures, your parody about plot devices wasn’t a good one.” Lucky remarked.
Frankie feigned annoyance. “Hey, I take offense to that! I believe I did my part really well, mind you.”
“Well, if you’re going to do a parody, you have to subvert expectations, not follow them!” Lucky said.
“My, my, what a splendid little critic you are!” Frankie patted their head. “How about you officially work for us to bring your suggestions to light?"
“Just watch, I’ll make this the best show you guys could only ever dream of!” The Contestant declared confidently.
Frankie could only smile brightly. “We’ll be counting on that, Lucky.”