Michael helped Leia's lower half move herself and the cart back to the middle of the stage after Suzy moved Danielle's exit.
"It's been a fun night of magic and mayhem, but I'm afraid we must now send in our last volunteer," he called, with sarcastic triumph.
A thin brunette walked in from the wings. A pair of oval glasses complemented her bob cut, while her ensemble consisted of a vest, a tube top under it, a long skirt, and low heels. Her fingernails were noticeably colored black.
"Hello, you are?"
"Therese," the brunette replied. "it’s finally my turn."
"Indeed, it is," Michael replied. "You must be brimming with anticipation."
Therese retorted, "I’m not exactly anticipating being uh...", crossing her arms and tilting her head to gesture to the basket of severed heads on the cart beside them. Some people in the audience chuckled.
"Now, Jessica won her challenge,” he exclaimed, “so you can win yours, too."
"I guess," she conceded, "so..., whose head is this?" referring to the last remaining small sack on the cart.
"Let's take a look."
After making sure the sack was upright, Michael took hold of the mouth and pulled the whole thing down around the head inside, revealing it to everyone.
"Therese, you've chosen Leia!"
Leia's closed eyes depicted a somber expression. Her mouth was obscured by what appears to be a panel gag. Her long straight black hair ended as bangs at the front and the rest smoothly flowed around her head into the sack.
"Hold on, isn't that Leia?" Therese asked, pointing to the disembodied lower half attached to the cart.
"Well, those are her legs," Michael clarified. He then picked up Leia's head and held it between his hands, "and this... is her head. Here," he offered it to Therese.
Therese took Leia's head and inspected it. She noticed dried blood both on her neck around the stump and had stuck some parts of her hair together.
"How come her legs are alive, while her head here is not?" she asked.
"Assistant shortage," Michael shot back. “I had to divide the labor the best I can.” This remark garnered some more chuckles from the audience.
“Uh-huh...” Therese gave an unsatisfied look. She focused back on Leia's head. "I found it," she said, plucking out a small roll of paper from Leia's cleanly exposed throat. "Here, take her back."
Michael took back Leia's head and put it upright beside its sack on the cart, while Therese unrolled the piece of paper.
"It says 'ROULETTE'," she read aloud.
"You got the 'ROULETTE' challenge!" Michael announced. He then clapped his hands once, and the theater lights went out, eliciting a surprised scream from Therese. He clapped his hands again a moment later, bringing back all the lights. On the stage, five chairs on a large circular turntable and a large monitor appeared behind them. Therese reappeared with her hand over her mouth interrupting her earlier shriek.
“All right, Therese, why don’t you go inspect those chairs, while I have Leia fetch us more stuff we will need for your challenge?”
“Do I really need to?” Therese asked. “They look real enough from here.”
“Hmm, good point,” said Michael. He pondered for a moment. “All right, new plan: hand me your glasses.”
“Oh, o-okay...,” she hesitantly took off her glasses and gave it to Michael. She blinked a few times, adjusting her vision to the lack of frames.
“I’m just going to... do one of these.” He held the glasses facing away from him at both hinges with a thumb and forefinger at each hinge. Without letting go, he clapped his hands together and quickly undid this action. The glasses disappeared into his hands and an eye mask reappeared between them.
“Whoa, how did you...” was all Therese could say before Michael turned his attention back to the cart. He turned Leia’s legs and the cart toward offstage and sent her off with a light smack on the butt. Her legs, initially jumping in surprise, eventually made their way offstage with the cart.
“Here, let me put this on you,” he said, approaching Therese. He put on her the eye mask without much fuss and guided her to sit on the nearest chair on the turntable.
“You can’t see anything through the mask, right?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
“Good. Stay put for now, while Leia grabs some more props.”
“S-sure...,” Therese replied nervously.
The chairs were arranged in a tight circle, all facing outward. Each chair featured a solid backrest but no armrests, square seats, and a leg protruding down from each corner of the seat. Each chair was also bolted to the platform by each leg. In the middle of the circle of chairs was some sort of tall metal post.
After a minute or so, Leia’s legs strolled back on stage with the cart, along with some other things. Her legs didn’t return alone either. Accompanying them were Violet, Haley, Rachel, and Suzy. Each assistant looked the same as she was last seen, save for their mouths being covered by some sort of black mask.
Therese could hear the sudden influx of many footsteps onstage. The not-disembodied assistants walked past her and lined up on the other side of the stage.
“What’s going on?” an understandably confused Therese asked.
“I hope you don’t mind, Therese,” Michael started, “but with this last challenge, I thought I’d go big.”
“Now, please, everyone take a seat,” he instructed. “The order won’t be too important.”
The four assistants quickly sorted themselves on the rest of the unoccupied chairs.
“All right, boys, you’re up!” Michael called offstage. In the next moment, five stagehands dressed in all black rushed onstage. Each one was carrying a few bundles of rope. Each stagehand proceeded to tie each woman to their chair.
“Hey!” Therese exclaimed.
“Hold still, Therese,” Michael advised. “They don’t bite; they’re just tying you to the chair.”
Two lengths of rope tied each woman to her chair’s backrest, running above and below her chest. Another length of rope ran over each woman’s thighs to tie her to the seat. Each stagehand gently took one of each woman’s ankles, crossed them over the other, and tied them together. Each woman’s wrists were also bound together. Finally, each stagehand produced a length of wire, looped it around each woman’s neck, and threaded both ends to a fixture hidden behind each chair. After a few minutes, the stagehands finished their job and retreated offstage as quickly as they entered.
As the ruckus died down, each woman could now be seen tied securely to her chair.
“Everyone comfortable?” checked Michael. His assistants nodded.
“I think so?” Therese replied. She tried hopping forward in her chair, but apart from moving her bound wrists and tied ankles up and down, she did not budge.
“Great. We can begin.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Michael started, “our dear Therese has been left with the Roulette challenge. In preparation, each woman here has been bound tightly to her chair. I’ve called on my remaining ‘whole’ assistants to fill out the rest of the chairs. The black ‘masks’ they’re wearing right now have mouthpieces that are currently gagging them, since they won’t be talking much in this challenge. Counterclockwise from Therese, we have Rachel, Suzy, Violet, and Haley.”
Michael walked toward the monitor and pushed a button on the side. The monitor turned on, showing a circle taking up most of the screen with a black arrowhead in the center on top of it serving as a pointer. The circle was divided into five equal slices, each slice having a letter on it. The tip of the pointer always pointed to a slice.
He continued, “The challenge goes like this. The screen here shows a spinner. If I touch the screen,” he taps the screen, causing the circle to start spinning slowly, “the circle spins and will cause one of the slices to land on the pointer. Note that the pointer faces a slice the same way the mechanism onstage is positioned behind a chair. Now, each letter corresponds to one of the women’s initials and are arranged the same way they are currently.” After several seconds, the spinner stopped on ‘T’, and the screen transitioned to a full white background with the word “THERESE” in black text. The turntable rotated, eliciting a squeak from Therese, until it had her facing the audience directly.
“When someone is picked, the metal post in the middle will activate and decapitate her. How that will work you shall see later.” Therese gulped, lamenting the thought of a surprise beheading. “She is then removed from the platform, the chairs and the spinner are adjusted, and another person is picked. This continues until there’s only one remains. In order to win, Therese must be that one person remaining. However, after doing the math, she has a consolidated twenty percent chance of winning. To give her a bit more control, there is a twist, which I have already partially implemented by blindfolding Therese.”
“You still can’t see out of that, right?” he asked.
“No...,” she confirmed, sounding dejected.
“Excellent. Now, every time the spinner picks someone, Therese has a choice to make before the machine does its work. Since she cannot see who the spinner has picked, she has the option of rotating her position on the turntable to the position of any other person still in the chairs. For example, if the spinner picks Therese, but she decides that she wants to swap with, say, Violet, the spinner will rotate to move Therese to Violet’s position. Of course, everyone else will be moved accordingly. Once the selection is finalized, the turntable will rotate whoever was selected to face the audience.”
“Is everything clear, Therese?”
“I think I got the gist of it.”
“Are you ready to begin your challenge?”
“Yes? I mean I can’t really do anything else right now.” Therese gave a halfhearted attempt to break free of her ropes. Nothing moved.
“Good, the Roulette challenge starts now!”
With that announcement, the metal post in the middle of the chairs whirred to life. The upper portion of the metal post turned out to be a metal casing, falling off and revealing a comically large wooden mallet. Therese was seen fidgeting in her chair, while the four assistants remained cool and calm.
Moving over to the digital spinner, Michael tapped it, making it spin. After several seconds, it landed on ‘H’, then flashed “HALEY” across the screen.
“All right, first selection has been made,” said Michael. “Therese, would you like to take anyone’s place?”
Therese, without thinking, blurted out, “I’ll, uh, go to where... Suzy is. Yeah, let’s do that.”
“You heard her. Spin her to where Suzy is.” The screen obliged, returning to and moving the circle. The pointer moved from ‘H’ until it settled on ‘S’ and flashed “SUZY”. The turntable then rotated Suzy to directly face the audience.
“Rh crr—“ Suzy’s displeasure was cut off by the hammer folding down, and slamming into the hidden fixture behind her chair. The impact apparently started a motor, roaring to life. She watched wide-eyed as the wire looped around her neck was slowly pulled taut. It kept getting pulled until the wire was pressing deeply into Suzy’s neck. It wasn’t long before blood began to trickle from the wire.
“Mmmnnnnggghhhh!” Suzy screamed into her gag as the motor gained a second life and the wire started sawing through her neck. She clenched her fists and kept her forearms close to her body, in response to the agonizingly slow progress the wire made. After a few moments, her wailing was reduced to quiet gurgling with the wire intercepting with her windpipe. Soon, the gurgling would stop, but Suzy remained conscious, choosing to tightly shut her eyes. When the wire reached her spine, its progress slowed even more. Suzy managed to open her eyes again, but they were rolled way up this time. Her hands and forearms went limp, resting on her lap. Eventually, the wire finished its arduous trip through her spine, and after a couple of moments, it sawed completely through Suzy’s neck. The painful process took a little over a minute to complete.
Once the wire had separated the last portion of muscle and skin, Suzy’s head rolled down off the fresh neck stump and into her lap. Her head landed face up at an angle, the back edge of her stump nestling itself into the gap between her stomach, forearms, and tied wrists. The blood from her neck had dribbled down and stained the collar of her top. The hammer slowly folded back up, resetting itself upright. The lifting cut the power to the hidden motor, and its sound soon dissipated.
“Bring the hammer down, indeed,” commented Michael. He went over to Suzy’s chair and lifted her severed head by its ponytail. Doing so revealed that some blood had dripped onto her thighs. Despite her disembodied state, Suzy appeared to still be conscious, if in a terrible daze. Her body remained lifeless, however.
“What the f—hell just happened?!” Therese blurted, visibly distressed. She remained quiet while she heard the motor ran, but wondering about what made the ‘plop’ sound at the end made her break her silence.
“Suzy got decapitated is what happened,” answered Michael. Carrying Suzy’s head, he strolled over to the cart and moved a small thick circular piece of wood closer to him beside Leia’s head’s sack. It resembled a base of some kind. With his other hand, he moved his hold so that his hands cradled her jaw, and gently lowered her head onto the piece of wood. It seemed that the top had a socket that would fit her neck.
Michael turned back to the audience, pulling away from the cart and holding his lightly bloodstained hands in front of him. Shortly after, he pulled out a handkerchief from one of his pockets, wiped his hands as best he could, and spoke, “All right, as a treat for all of you, ladies and gentlemen, all assistants who will be decapitated in this challenge will also be displayed alongside the losing volunteers.”
The audience cheered and clapped.
“To distinguish them, my assistants’ heads will be placed on small plinths I had custom-made. They deserve it, really.”
Glancing back to Suzy’s head, it was now fixed to the wooden plinth, her eyelids half-closed and eyes looking downward, yet still blinking. Putting back his handkerchief in his pocket, Michael turned to her again and pinched her nose, but apart from a flaring of the nostrils, she didn’t seem to notice it.
“Looks like Suzy still needs a minute,” he observed, placing a hand on top of her head for a brief moment. “Let’s have her body removed now.”
Both the theater lights and the screen turned off for a second. When they came back, Suzy’s body and chair had disappeared from the turntable. The remaining chairs had been adjusted to distribute the extra space from losing a chair, and the screen now showed a circle with four equally sized slices instead of five.
“Right, let’s not dally anymore. Let’s do another spin!”
Returning to the spinner, Michael tapped the screen. It spun again. After several seconds, the spinner landed on ‘R’, and “RACHEL” flashed across the screen.
“The second selection has been made,” he declared. “Therese, the option to swap is yours.”
Feeling partly guilty for having Suzy lose her head, Therese stammered, “I think I’ll stay put this time.”
“Stay put, it is!”
With that, the turntable rotated to have Rachel face the audience. She remained calm, for the most part, only flinching once the hammer struck the fixture behind her. Another motor revved, the wire around her neck slowly receded behind her, yet she fixed her gaze straight, into the crowd. This remained even as the wire pressed into her neck, though she closed her eyes once the wire finally bit into her flesh.
“Mmm—!” Rachel let out a squeak and tried to remain quiet, “Nnnnggghhhhh!!” but even she could not stop herself from crying out as the wire sliced through her neck. Her body jerked in her chair a couple of times, but she seemed to get this under control. Like Suzy before her, her silence would be forced when the wire met her windpipe. Soon, the wire would reach her spine, but Rachel kept her eyes tightly closed. A minute and then some went by before the wire exited cleanly out her nape.
For a second, it seemed that Rachel’s head would remain on her shoulders. However, her body relaxed and her neck slumped forward slightly. Her head, in turn, began to tilt forward. Rachel was caught off guard with this sudden movement, opening her eyes in surprise. Her body remained mostly in place because of her ropes, but with no restraint, her head continued forward until it slid off her neck altogether. It fell, tumbling off her forearm before landing on its side on the turntable and facing Therese.
“Another head on a plinth,” said Michael. He picked up Rachel’s head by her hair and returned to the cart, leaving behind a small puddle of blood. With his free hand, he took a second plinth and moved it beside Suzy’s head. Suzy, now recovered from her beheading, was looking at Rachel’s head. Rachel, on the other hand, seemed to be locked in a frown. Michael ignored them, carefully placing Rachel’s head into the new plinth.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he told Rachel, responding to her frown after finishing the placement. He made a move to pull his handkerchief from his pocket again, but stopped himself. Instead, Michael wiped the residual blood on his hands onto Rachel’s forehead. She could only look up in defeat.
“Hey, it’s your blood,” Michael jibed. Rachel seemed to chirp something at him, but he had already turned away and walked to the screen to notice. It didn’t help that in her current state, she was unable to make any sound or even tilt her head in any way.
Stopping at the screen, he queried, “How are you holding up, Therese?”
“I think I just got someone else beheaded again,” Therese responded. “Who was it this time?”
“It was Rachel.” Rachel’s body to Therese’s left remained limp. “Speaking of which, let’s get her body out of here.”
The theater lights and the screen shut off again, and when they turned back on, Rachel’s body and chair was nowhere to be seen. The turntable and the screen had been adjusted to only three participants.
“Let’s go, spin number three!” A third tap of the screen came the third spin of the circle. It spun a bit longer than the second time, but it eventually landed on ‘H’. “HALEY” flashed across the screen.
“Rgrnn?” Haley cried out. The pointer had landed on her a second time.
“The third selection has been made,” Michael declared. “Therese, are you going to swap with anyone?”
“G-give me a moment,” she replied. In her head, she felt bad about the assistants losing their heads because of her challenge. However, her want of not losing her own head was stronger. Therese concentrated and figured out that woman who spoke into her gag earlier must have been selected and that this person was on her right.
After a few moments, she asked, “Who’s—sorry, who are still left on the turntable?”
“Ah, Haley and Violet, they are losing their minds in anticipation.”
Gah, fifty-fifty shot, Therese thought. I just had to want to participate in this show. The one who got selected is definitely on my right. If that’s true, I should be good if I don’t switch, but I still feel guilty for getting these girls beheaded, even if they’re all probably used to it. If I lose my head because I switched, I’m going to lose my head! Ughh, I hate this.
“I think I’ll swap with Haley,” she uttered.
“Spin her to Haley’s position!”
With that command, the screen rotated the ‘T’ slice into the ‘H’ slice’s position. Haley’s eyes widened.
In the dark, Therese felt the turntable rotate her clockwise. There’s no way, she thought. The turntable stopped, having finished its rotation, but suddenly, Michael chimed in, “We need you to wear this, Therese.” She heard him move closer to her, then behind her. “What are y—“ was all she managed before being stifled by a phallic gag. She felt Michael secure the gag behind her head. “All right, continue,” he said, walking away.
“Mhrh?” Therese chirped, managing to look at Michael’s general direction. Behind her, the hammer struck the fixture at the back of her chair. “Mmm!” She heard the motor start up, and she felt the wire dangled on her shoulders suddenly move. Wait. Wait! Therese began fidgeting in her ropes, but to no avail. She stopped when the wire made contact with her neck.
“Mmmmmmmmm!” With the wire biting into her skin, Therese screamed. She made clawing motions with her bound hands trying to reach her neck, but the ropes only let her graze her chin. Her screams turned into coughs as the wire entered her windpipe. She gave up moving her hands once her breathing became erratic. How am I still alive..., she thought, letting her entire body relax. She felt the wire slowly chew through her vertebrae and felt some relief when it finished its journey out her neck. Her shoulders slumped to the left once the wire released her. The motor immediately went quiet.
Therese’s head fell, hitting her left shoulder and bouncing off her left forearm on the way down to the stage floor. The top of her head took the brunt of the impact, before settling on her left cheek facing away from the audience. She was still alive but could barely form a thought, the lack of sensations from her neck overwhelming her senses. This was compounded by the abrupt feeling of being lifted by her hair and feeling blood drip from her open neck.
“Therese, unfortunately, you have lost the challenge,” Michael stated, carrying Therese’s head in one hand. He used his free hand to pull her eye mask up to her forehead. The reintroduction of light into her eyes was initially blinding. Weakly, she opened them, only to see her listless headless body alone onstage, with no sign of Haley, Violet, or the turntable that her chair was supposed to be on. Instead her chair and body were now on a smaller wheeled platform.
Is that me...? Therese still had control of her body, which she would later realize. Right now, her only evidence of this was seeing her shift her legs a little under her long skirt.
“I think that’s enough sightseeing,” Michael said. He turned to the audience away from Therese’s body, swinging her severed head to face them.
“It is plain to see that Therese’s head and body are both still alive and mostly functioning,” Michael announced. Therese’s eyes were blankly staring into the distance, still processing her new state. Her body, meanwhile, was seen trying to bring her hands to her neck stump to no avail, “but as much as I’d like her to have more time to adjust, I’m afraid we have to put her with the other losing volunteers now.”
Michael turned to the cart, letting Therese see the new items on it. She saw Leia’s severed head, still inactive but now missing her gag. Suzy and Rachel were looking at her the best they could with their poor movement options. They look okay, at least, she thought, before Michael pulled the eye mask back over her eyes. This caused her to slowly lose feeling in her head. The last thing her head felt was Michael lowering her, her exposed neck pinning down someone’s hair and the back of her head resting on someone’s cheek.
With Therese’s head nicely settled into the basket of severed heads, Michael faced the audience once more, leaving Therese’s body alone for now. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that that was the final challenge of the night, so we must be saying goodbye.”
“However,” he continued, “there is one more thing that we must do: we need to restore Leia.”
Walking over to Leia’s legs, Michael stroked her nearest leg with the tip of his shoe, being careful not to accidentally kick her. In response, she tapped the tip of her foot into the floor, then walked offstage, taking the cart with her. Before she started moving, Michael quickly put Leia’s head into the basket and lifted the basket off the cart. As soon as her legs were clear, he put the basket down on the floor, closer to the audience. The movement, meanwhile, prompted Suzy and Rachel’s heads to look around. A short wait yielded the return of the cart, with a passenger on top.
A female headless body was sat on the cart opposite Leia’s legs, her own legs dangling over the edge. Her neck stump was uncovered, showing muscle, bone, and blood vessels. She was leaning back slightly, supported by her arms. She wore a short-sleeved patterned knee-length cream dress with complementary block heels.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Athena,” Michael introduced. “Well, it’s her body minus her head, which is currently with Jessica.” Once Leia’s legs stopped the cart, Athena offered a hand to him. He gladly took it and helped her hop off the cart. He spun her around so the audience could see her from all sides.
“Like Leia’s legs over there, Athena’s body is unable to hear us and can only interact with the world through touch. Let’s change that.”
Crouching down, Michael picked up the basket and placed it back on the cart. Retrieving Leia’s head, he took Athena’s hands and had her hold the head facing the audience. Once he was sure it wouldn’t be dropped, he then guided her body to place Leia’s head on her neck stump. Apart from a faint squish, nothing happened.
Michael pulled his hand away slowly, making sure Athena’s body still held onto Leia’s head. From a back pocket, he produced a black choker. Acting swiftly, he went behind Athena’s body and put on the choker directly on the thin red line separating Leia’s head from Athena’s body. He moved back in front of her and removed both her hands from holding the head on her neck, placing them at her sides. Confident that the head is now secure, Michael performed some hand waving gestures in front of Leia’s face.
Leia’s head slowly opened her eyes. She smiled when she glanced at Michael.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back, Leia!”
The audience clapped, as Leia did a curtsy. Leia’s legs spun the cart around, putting themselves next to Leia and bringing Suzy and Rachel’s heads back into view. They were seen looking at Leia.
While the clapping subsided, Leia unlatched the belt attaching her disembodied legs to the cart. Michael then took Leia’s hand and together they walked forward downstage, with her legs following beside them.
“That’s our time,” he announced. “Thank you all very much. You’ve been a delightful audience. Good night!” Michael and Leia bowed to a resounding applause. Her legs also bowed, showing the neat cross-section of her waist to the crowd.
After they finished bowing, the curtains started closing. During this time, Michael and Leia shared a hug, while Leia’s legs positioned herself back to the cart and proceeded to push it, the basket of heads, and Suzy and Rachel’s heads offstage. Breaking off their hug, Leia went over to Therese’s headless body and unlocked the wheels of the platform it was on. She turned it so she could hold the back of the chair and began to push it and Therese’s body offstage, with Michael following closely behind. They both waved one final time as they disappeared behind the curtain.