The murmurs of the crowd slowly grow louder and louder as I pace my way up and down the small walkway from the changing rooms to darkened space backstage. Staff with headsets race past as they get ready for the start of filming, the narrow passage resulting in constant bumps and scraps as the crew dart back and forth.
"Mr Hughes!" calls a middle aged woman in tight black clothes from the end of the hallway, her lithe rake-like form becoming lost in the darkness of the staging area behind her. Her curled blonde hair hangs about her shoulders rather stiffly, a can of hairspray likely having been used to keep it in place.
Snapping around to look at the woman she cocks an eyebrow, adjusting a set of half-moon glasses as she look at a clipboard. She bites at the tip of her pen, revealing a set of coffee stained teeth before she quickly moves to circle something.
"Don't just stand there!" she barks, snappily gesturing for me to get closer so she doesn't have to shout. With a small jump I race over, pausing in place as she stares daggers at me.
"Make.. Up..." she mouths with her thin lips, her muddy brown eyes focusing on me with deep anger and frustration. "Don't... Run...Walk..."
I slowly begin to approach the woman, her foot tapping sharply against the hardwood floor impatiently. As I get close enough to smell her seemingly unhealthy hairspray use she finally begins to speak again, her eyes looking me over as she sizes me up.
"It... looks like it hasn't run too much" she states, licking her thumb before using it to smudge something on my cheek. "Did we not have something in wardrobe a little better fitting? I..." she sighs, pouting as she thinks to herself. "No... no, I suppose we aren't working with much here."
Taken aback a little at the older woman's comment, my gaze turning down to the ill-fitted pale blue dress shirt and black slacks I had worn to the studio today. Sure, they weren't the best quality or even really well laundered but they did a half decent job of flattering my slender six foot four form. As if catching my concern the woman waves her hand at me dismissively, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth out of some sort of nervous habit.
"No it's fine sweetheart" she sighs, a nasal whine accompanying her pitying words. "We all can't be a Hemsworth. Besides, a lanky loser will play well to the audience. They may even take a bit of pity on you, not like the last..." she begins to chuckle, pausing mid-sentence as something comes in over her headset. "Now? She's... Don't worry I have him with me."
The older woman suddenly grabs my arm, wrapping her bony fingers around my wrist as she begins to drag me into the dim and darkened back stage. The crowd's murmuring softens as we plod our way through the black painted corridors the woman pausing just out of sight of the audience beside the stage.
Suddenly, a burst of music and light fill the room as the crowd roars to life. Spotlights twist and swerve around the stage, each pass briefly revealing a large glass coffin sitting atop a black section of wood resting withing the stage. A booming pre-recorded voice begins to bellow and boom over the music, riling up the crowd further.
"Right before the eyes of our live studio audience, are this season's guests prepared to... LIGHTS...CAMERA...CHANGE!"
While how the technology behind show had managed to largely remain a secret, 'Ready...Set...Change!" had swept the nation and then the world after only the first few seasons. From the fantastical premise to the audience participation and the thrills that came from the voyeuristic nature of the show played well to most audiences.
The premise was the same each season, a group would be sent one by one to alternative realities to try and survive their new life to the best of their ability. Over time, these participant's would be voted off and brought back to this reality with those who lasted the longest getting cash and prizes for their time. What really kept people on the show longer was up to great debate, the whims of the voting public often times being fickle. However, most people tended to agree that it was based on how much fun they could have with the 'audience interactions'.
The participant's each season were not merely sent to another reality, an alternative timeline where things seemed mostly normal. Prior to being sent into this new reality, the live studio audience have a chance to vote and make changes to the participant. From hair color and tattoos to height and nationality, the audience could set a new baseline for the participate in this new world. Once the selections are made the new reality is locked in, providing a life for this new individual, before the participant is flung into this world with reckless abandon.
Each day the audience would watch an edited cut of the participants, from dawn to dusk as they fumble to make their way through life in this new body and life. At the end of each episode, as the contestants went to sleep, the wider world would be given a chance to vote on new traits or changes to 'spice up' the life of the sleeping subjects as well as vote one off as they are forced to return home without a single memory of their time on the show.
While most stayed until they were voted off, some would simply not be able to take the pressure of their new situation. Each season there was always one, a person who would break character to beg to go home. Immediately after the feed would cut, the team behind the show immediately evacuating them to avoid any sort of drama or trauma.
After so many seasons run around the world the technology was generally considered beyond safe aside from the seeming amnesia. The changes would come from a forceful integration of the contestant with other worlds in the multiverse, their own traits being displaced one by one until only one new reality matched them. These displaced traits would be suspended, waiting for the contestant to return so that they can snap back into place.
However, while it may simply appear as though all was well when someone returned nothing could be further from the truth. One could not simply be 'pulled out' of these other worlds, to traverse one and simply come home. Rather, the traits that they had been removed from would merely reform into a facsimile of who they had once been that would simply take over their life. The loss of memory was not a result of 'moving back through realities' but simply due to the fact this individual had never left in the first place.
Each contestant, after sending the week thinking they were going to win the grand prize, would soon find themselves stuck in a life not their own and body that the audience had granted them.
I'm pushed out onto the stage by the director as the crowd begins to applaud, the rowdier members hooting, hollering, and wolf-whistling as I shyly wave to the indistinct mass of people. Rows and upon rows of people sit in the gloom, the stage lights making it all but impossible to see just who was out there. Each seat is equipped with a small touch screen, the devices they would be using with much glee as they designed a new me.
"Well hell-o there Mr Hughes" coos a bright and bubbly voice over the speakers, my eyes turning downstage to spot the gorgeous auburn haired host standing beside the glass coffin. Curvy and tall, her lightly tanned form is practically poured into a tight light purple dress and her long flowing hair hangs just below her shoulders in thick well-maintained waves.
Tapping the transparent device with her pointed nails, the lid begins to open with a hiss as she gestures inside of it. The crowd quickly grows louder as their screens begin to light up, the devices coming to life in preparation for what's to come.
With the sweat beginning to run down my neck and the attractive host nodding towards the open casket a little more severely, I begin to nervously plod along towards the device, struggling my best to smile for the crowd.
"This here is our first contestant this season, Mr Jourdan Hughes!" states the host giddily as she excitedly gives a little shoulder wiggle. "He's twenty-nine, college educated with three degrees, six-foot...four? Oh honey, where have you been all my life?" she asks, placing a hand on her hip as the crowd laughs along.
I nervously laugh back, my voice being entirely inaudible over the sound of the host and her microphone.
"Fairly nerdy..." she continues, reading from a teleprompter at the edge of the stage. "Games, movies, Dungeons and Dragons of that's in right now dear. Single and... oh Un-Em-Ploooooyed" she calls out, emphasizing the last bit in a playfully mocking tone. "Don't worry Jordy, I'm sure we can work on that" she giggles with a wink, once again riling up the crowd.
As I reach the glass casket I find a microphone shoved in my face, the auburn haired woman grinning at me eagerly.
"Soooooo..." she asks, bringing the microphone back to her for a moment to state her question. "When you win the grand prize, what do you plan to spend it on?" she asks, playfully implying I would even make it to the end.
"Ummmm..." I reply dimly, looking towards the crowd with anxious dread. "I'd... buy my first home!" I hastily spit out, the crowd cheering as the host nods her head from side to side.
"Not the most creative, not the least either" she muses, pausing to give me a smirk. "I don't think we've found our chicken this season, what about YOU?" she calls out, pointing to the audience as their cheering grows louder and louder.
Facing the crowd I watch as the host steps in front of me, a menacing grin spreading across her lips as she gives me a light push into the cabinet. The second I step inside the door slams shut, a loud ear-piercing hiss filling the cramped space as a faint fog begins to build around me feet.
"Okay everybody" the host calls, her voice barely coming in through the thick glass walls of my claustrophobic tomb. "Do you think Mr Hughes is ready to... LIGHTS...CAMERA...CHANGE?"
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