My Kryptonite

[ĸara вelova★]

Stage II had begun. Kenneth was lead to the main hall, where a vast pool stretching from wall to wall awaited. The water was murky, and it was impossible to determine how deep it was. Something was moving about in it - many somethings - but the water was too cloudy to confess what lurked beneath the surface.

On the other side of the pool was a wall containing three black doors, clearly labeled with green, ominous numbers 1, 2, and 3. Nothing hinted at what could await within. Large, mechanical hinges promised that opening these doors would be a very difficult task indeed. However, in the center of each door was a keyhole.

"Kenneth, welcome to Stage II! Right now you have three points points under your belt! Somewhere in the water there are three keys, each with a number. These keys open the doors you see ahead. Each door leads to a challenging obstacle, and each of the obstacles are worth one point. Only the contestants with the top four scores will proceed to the final Stage. You were given a safety word before you arrived. Should you wish to abandon an obstacle, you must shout the word, and that point will be forfeited! You may start when you are ready!"

This time there was no audience, aside from the cameras positioned around the hall. Kenneth was alone, and the door behind them shut and locked.

"You can always back out now..." The disembodied voice suggested over the speakers, "...I wouldn't blame you if you have Stage Fright..."

[҉ Kenneth Lorne]

"There is no way in hell I am backing out. Did you hear what my safety word is?!" Kenneth growled, clearly upset about something. He stepped up to the edge of the pool and peered into it, unimpressed. Today was one of those days. Everything was going wrong for him.

He woke up and his hair was sticking to one side of his head. The pillows they had in his hotel room sucked, and he expressed his distaste by tearing it to shreds. His entire hotel room was covered in fluffy white goose down, and he had to ask Eiji for some hair gel, because even after showering his hair would not obey.

So he got his hair styled roughly the way it usually looked, with kinda a cool curl to it, and was introduced to the producer. They told him what his 'safety word' would be, and he just stared. 'You're kidding me, right?' Ken complained, and the producer just looked at him with a blank expression. 'There's no fucking way I'm saying that. I will let someone shoot me before I yell that word. You're all idiots.'

And after that declaration, he stormed into the main room, waved off the instructions he'd pretty much already heard, and growled. Leaving us where he is now, glowering at the water.

He wasn't in the mood to give too much of a show, so instead of peeling his shirt off in slow-motion as he would have if he were in a good mood, he ripped it off. Kenneth tossed his running shoes to the other side of the pool, and got a little satisfaction out of seeing them hit the wall and land in a disorganized heap. He figured that he might want his shoes for whatever they had in store for him behind those doors. He didn't care very much about the shirt.

He dove into the water with a brief and somewhat curt salute to one of the cameras, and opened his eyes once the initial momentum from the dive slowed down. He hoped a shark came up and tried to pick a fight with him. Man, how he would love to punch a shark in the face!

[Peyton Howard.]

Kenneth Lorne was a marketing success. Oh, it wasn't to say that all the other very attractive male contestants were failures; it was just a simple fact of life that Kenneth had zest! Fierceness! Sex appeal!! The exec. producer, upon being presented with Kenneth's profile (with polaroids and a short recap of the first stage), had fell into a fit of total, utter glee and fanboy lust. Perhaps that was going too far, but it still stood that Kenneth, even on a bad day, was still one of the favorites for the competition.

Once Kenneth opened his eyes, he would not be able to see much. The water was much like the kind from a very dirty pond, or a lake; it was grainy with dirt and had flecks of wood and other mysterious objects. The creatures in the pool snapped away from the intruding body, and some swam nervously while others a little more sedately around Kenneth.

The lighting wasn't state of the art and unfortunately, that was the way it was planned. If Kenneth wanted to spot any of the keys, he would have to swim to the very bottom of the pool, where the possibility of spotting the keys through the muck held a much sturdier chance than from midway in the pool. The nearest one to him was in the back right corner of the pool, amidst a nest of eels. The next one was further up, while the last was currently in the process of being located (the tech team was hurriedly trying to spot it via the thermal imaging program they had installed prior to the beginning of Stage II).