Page 44 of The Song of Sunrise
“Akemi!” Hogsmith yells from right next to me. My eyes snap upward toward his face in shock.
“On my mark!”
I turn to look at the course.
I can do this. Just repeat what I did this morning. I narrow my eyes and lower my body to the ground, readying myself for the first initial leap across the waves still rippling from the last candidate falling.
“Go!” he whistles, and I leap.
I make it to the first small platform easily and shift my feet to leap across. I nearly fall off when I land. My arms instinctively flail outward to catch my balance.
I complete the rest of the platforms much more easily, only to find myself at the floating barrel that has been the source of my demise for many practices.
“Go fast, don’t stop,” I whisper to myself. “Slow means falling. Falling means water. You don’t like water.”
I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth and leap. My right foot finds its mark, and I use that same step to propel me across.
“Yes!” I whisper, then pick up where I left off in my song as I reach for the rope net above. This is the easiest part for me.
My palms have long lost their supple softness from practicing this very section. I grit my teeth and move my tune up a halfpitch. Seems appropriate to modulate the key along with the stakes. I swing my legs upward, hooking my knees in the net exactly like I did this morning, slowly making my way toward the other side.
At the end of the net, I look down, dreading this next section. Below me is a long wooden plank bobbing in the water from its air-filled platform on either side. Story telling, I’m a natural. Singing, call me talented.
But dancing and overall balance, I’m terrible.
I unlink my legs and hang down above the beam.
“Shit!” My left palm slips, eliciting a few gasps from the crowd I had almost forgotten. Almost.
A guttural sound escapes me as I swing my arm back up to the rope. Calluses reopen at my effort. Pain sparks through my body, but I ignore it.
Now that my grip is fixed, I stop and steady myself for the landing and drop.
My knees buckle under me, but I make it and begin to walk down the floating plank, arms out and knees slightly bent to absorb the waves.
I hear a splash to my left. I’m supposed to be the only one on the course! I chance a quick glance only to find Sabra apologizing for accidentally knocking a first-stone into the water.
Of course it’s fucking Sabra trying to make a rise out of me. That will not do.
I refocus my eyes toward the slender plank beneath my boots now bobbing up and down. I stick my hands out, quickly catching my balance. My heart thrums in my ears, a steady tact to which I breathe. I bend my knees and absorb the movement from the waves.
I block out the noises and yelling I hear from the audience. Likely from Sabra’s attempt to thwart my chances of making it across the water-slicked beam.
I don’t celebrate this time when I get to the halfway mark because the second half of the beam has two alternating poles that hang from the ceiling like a pendulum.
The first pole swings, and I run across the plank. My right foot slips and I go down hard, knees scraping against the plank. Somehow, I manage to keep enough balance to avoid falling off the course.
Sweat trickles down my neck, though I’m not sure if it’s from the pure physical strain of my body, the stress, or the inferno of rage I feel inside.
The second pole swings at a faster rate, so I need to run the moment it crosses the center. I take a moment to find the pattern.
Three…
Two…
One…
I run, one foot in front of the other, knees bent.
