*NOT PROOFREAD*

Chapter XV

There is something about capturing beautiful locations through the camera for the world to see. I know that most people are not even aware of the existence of such amazing places all around the world and yet they get to experience these sites through the beautifully directed scenes in different forms of media.

And the fact that I was there, witnessing a part of my dream come alive, the moment was indescribable for me.

I knew I probably looked like a child when they get their favourite candy as a reward, with my eyes wide open and mouth grazing the floor as I tried my hardest not to drool. My eyes were skimming from point to point, trying to absorb and possibly embed this scene into my brain so that I never forget it.

Adrian was taken for his makeup and costume and was stuck in his vanity van for quite some time and I was left standing there, with nothing to do.

After a while of just staring and looking all around the set, I realised how awkward I probably looked, unmoving.

Deciding to be a little more productive and helpful, I decided to find something I could possibly assist with. People were busy with different things, all of them knowing what they were supposed to do. The camera crew was running tests, the costume crew was assembling the clothes for all the actors and the extras and some people could be seen giving instructions to the rest of the crew members.

I wandered around for a while, wondering who to go to when I found a girl standing in front of a makeshift table, ruffling through sheets of paper. She looked pretty frustrated with what I could make out. Her hair seemed a little wild, as if she'd been running her hand through them for a while, her eyebrows kept furrowing every three seconds and she was unknowingly crumpling the sheets she had in one of her hands.

"Hey," I mumbled, once I got closer but she seemed to have not heard me.

So clearing my throat, I tried again, a little louder. "Hey!"

Her head snapped up, making her auburn hair bounce a little.

"Can I help you with something?" she asked, a little edge to her voice.

Considering her state right now, I concluded that it was probably because of work.

"Hi, I'm Addison. Mason's assistant," I said, pausing a little.

She raised her eyebrow as if to say 'So?'

I cleared my throat again, trying to stop fidgeting my hands. "I wanted to ask if I could help you or anything. I haven't exactly been told what to do and I've been standing idly for  a while now..." I trailed off, not knowing what else to add.

It took a few awkward seconds before she nodded, narrowing her eyes a little. "I could actually use some help," she said.

I shot her a confused look, upon seeing her eyes narrowed at me.

"Are you the new intern they've been rambling about?" she asked, her voice anything but friendly.

I hesitated a little, unsure of why she was being cold. Have I offended her before? And who does she mean by 'they'?

I tried to think about the past couple of days I'd been here. I did not even remember seeing her anywhere near the set. And I would've remembered if I saw her, given her bright pink highlights.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," I replied, hesitantly, still trying to figure out the reason for the chill in her voice.

She gave me a once-over before asking me to wait.

I nodded, waiting for her to tell me what to do while she ruffled through some of the paperwork she was going through previously.

"Here," she held out a thick bundle of sheets.

"These are different scripts for the movie. I want you to separate them according to characters and scenes. Highlight all the individual dialogues on each page. You'll find the names of the characters on the top right hand corner of all the pages. Once you're done with that, give them to Layla" she said, handing me a huge stack of papers, even before I could give her an answer.

"S-Sure?" I replied, looking at the heavy pile of jumbled sheets resting in my arms.

"You can ask anyone for Layla so don't come finding me," she said and took off, without giving me a chance to respond.

I stood there for a moment, dumbfounded, until the weight of the sheets started making my arms hurt a little. I snapped back to reality and looked for a place to sit all the while wondering about my encounter with this weird girl. She didn't even tell me her name or who the Layla person is.

I scanned the entire set, looking for a place that would keep me in loop with whatever was happening on set at the same time wouldn't be too distracting. Spotting a place near one of the make-shift tents, I smiled.

It was perfect!

There were four huge rocks, two of them were flat enough for me to sit comfortably and do my work. The spot gave a perfect view of the set and a spectacular scene of the cliff too. A smile etched on to my face  as I took a while to admire the sheer beauty in front of me.

The cliff wasn't wide as it was tall. It towered over a secluded beach at the bottom with what seemed like granular sand with the texture, but I could be wrong. The water that was crashing on the shore was clear blue with a hint of green, making beautiful patterns along the sand. The beach relatively small. I couldn't spot a single soul there, right now, which made me wonder if this was even accessible by the public.

Steering my attention from the beautiful view, I focused on getting the work done first. I really did not want to slack off. Sitting cross legged on the big rock, I turned myself so that I was facing both the set on my right and the cliff's view on my left, not wanting to miss either of the things.

Shuffling through the sheets of papers in front of me, I began to understand Layla's frustration. These were scripts of more than four characters, all jumbled up- which meant that I, not only had to arrange all of them by page numbers, I also had to separate them by characters because as the auburn haired girl with pink highlights mentioned, the scripts were named.

I groaned. This was going to be exhausting and annoying.

Inhaling a deep breath and taking in the view before me for one last time, I started.

*****

It had been an hour and fifteen minutes and I still had half of the pile left to sort. I groaned and slumped back, deciding to take a breather.

I had decided to segregate the characters first to leave the numbering for the end. It was tiring because I had to be careful about not mixing up the scripts for different characters since they had different individual scenes too.

The only good part of this task was that I was getting glimpses into different characters of the movie. Apparently, aside from Adrian and Courtney, there were two more characters for the main cast- Steve Campbell and Mia Collins. Excitement started budding inside my stomach at the thought of possibly getting to meet these two great actors before I might have to leave.

Steve Campbell was your all-American golden boy with blond hair and blue eyes. He was usually seen in chick-flicks as the guy with all the girls falling for him. I'd heard rumours that he was basically similar to his characters in real life which is why his acting was so believable. I guess this was going to be his first action-thriller.

Mia Collins on the other hand was a stunning Asian-American beauty, known for her portrayal in movies of different genres. She has been in horror, science fictions, action and even a melodramatic one. She was an incredible actor too.

The thought of being surrounded by so much talent sent another wave of excitement in me.

But as soon as the happiness came, it vanished just as quickly once my eyes fell on the pile of scripts in front of me. I sighed, giving a mental pat to all the people who had to deal with paperwork. If there was one thing I disliked, it was paperwork.

At least the plus point was that I was practically getting a chance to read the script myself. Trying to think of positive thoughts, I grabbed the undone bundle with another sigh escaping my mouth.

"Well, someone looks like they're having fun," a familiar, annoying voice reached my ears and I grudgingly looked up.

Adrian was standing there in all his good-looking glory, looking even better than the last time I saw him. Guessing by his attire, he was probably done with his makeup and costume. I was trying hard not to check him out, because I really did not want to give him another reason to annoy me.

"Don't you have a scene to shoot or something?" I asked, letting a little bit of annoyance slip into my tone.

He raised an eyebrow, clearly amused with my slouching self. "I do, but they're currently re-checking the safety equipment so that I don't fall off the cliff and die," he replied, ever-so bluntly.

I rolled my eyes at his response before something registered in my head.

"Wait- are you shooting the action-sequence on the cliff?" I asked, suddenly energised at the prospect of witnessing of of the major scenes in the movie.

From what I had gathered from the scripts, this was one of the main action scenes of the movie where in Jake, Adrian's character was supposed to get shot and fall from the cliff after a major fight sequence with the bad guys. And judging from his outfit- which consisted of a tight black t-shirt (which did wonders for his fit physique), black skinny jeans and a leather jacket- a typical bad boy outfit- that this was probably the scene I was thinking about.

Adrian chuckled at my expression. He has a nice laugh.

I almost slapped myself when that thought crossed my mind.

"How do you know about the scene though?" He asked curiously, snapping me out of my annoying thoughts.

I waved a few sheets of paper in front of his face instead of speaking. He grabbed them from me, before examining them. He raised an eyebrow after scanning the sheets and meeting my eyes.

"What are you doing with these?" he questioned, his eyes darting in between the lines of the sheets I had handed him and me.

"One of the crew members gave me this entire pile," I motioned towards the different stacks of paper,"to sort out according to characters and arrange them page-wise," I answered.

Adrian looked at me with raised eyebrows.

He didn't say anything for a moment, ignoring his strange expression, I thought I'd speak up instead. "By the way, do you know who Layla is?"

"Why do you want to know?" he asked, tilting his head a little. He looked adorable with that head til-STOP.

Ignoring my inner thoughts, I focused back on our conversation. "I have to hand over the scripts to her once I'm done arranging," I replied, waiting for him to answer.

Adrian pressed his lips together, as if trying to avoid laughing, which confused me.

Instead of answering my questions, he asked,"How long have you been sitting here doing this?"

"A little over an hour, why?"

He pressed his lips further, before he looked at me with what seemed like pity. "Because, the scripts you have with you right now are the first drafts and they're supposed to be discarded since they're of no use to anyone and Layla is responsible for discarding anything related to this project so that it doesn't get to anyone before the release of the movie," he answered, handing me back the sheets he was holding.

I froze. I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. Did I just spend more than hour organising junk that was supposed to be disposed off?

I eyed the stacks to my left that I had organised with so much attention.

I couldn't find a reason as to why someone would do that to anyone. Especially someone they just met. The thing that made me sad was that I genuinely put in a lot of effort to do this right. I didn't want to disappoint anyone in the crew and just wanted to help lessen their burden, especially today since they were short on staff.

And having someone order me to do something useless instead of something productive made me feel more useless than the task- as if they didn't think I was capable enough to help them.

"Please tell me you're kidding me," I said, not looking at him, hoping that he would just tell me that he was making a fool out of me.

When he didn't respond, I looked up meeting his eyes. One look at his expression gave me my answer. He must've noticed my disheartened face because his voice softened as he spoke.

"Who gave you this task?" he asked, sitting down with me, surprising me a little.

"A girl with pink highlights. Don't know her name," I said, shrugging, my eyes trained on my fiddling fingers.

The more I stared down at my fingers, trying to comprehend what had just happened, the more my sadness transformed into annoyance. By now I was positive that the hostility was deliberate and specifically towards me.

Who did she think she was, ordering me to do stuff that was going to waste my time. I was here to assist the crew members and learn from my surroundings and I wasn't going to let just anyone take advantage of me being new here.

I looked up with determination. I collected all the sheets of paper and stood up.

Adrian followed my lead, looking surprised at the sudden change in my mood.

"Good luck on your scene," I gave him a small smile before jumping off the rock and heading towards where most of the crew members were working.

I didn't wait for Adrian to respond and quickly started my way, with new sense of resolve.

I knew what I was going to do.

*****

Hey Guys!

(If there is anyone still reading)

I hope you enjoyed the chapter :)

First of all, I would like to apologise for making you all wait so much for the update. I had a terrible writer's block and it was just not going away.

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