( ⚠️ : mentions of slight panic attack )

"Good Morning, everyone! Welcome to the official first day of Bootcamp!"

A petit lady who stood in front of them with a very confident stance and a posture Aviana wished she had, greeted them with a cheerful voice. "I'm coach Letitia" The dark-haired woman introduced herself as the vocal coach assigned to the girls throughout the X-Factor journey. "You guys will be seeing me a lot starting today."

"Oh god, I'm so nervous for today" Avi slowly moved her head to her side, looking at the overly compelling girl before humming distantly, making the latter frown in concern.

Something was wrong.

Cher could sense it as her sisterly sense was tingling in worry.

Having met and spent yesterday with Aviana, it was clear to Cher that she was a very silent girl.

Even though Cher put it aside as the younger being uneasy having to talk to a stranger she'd never met, she could sense that Aviana was naturally a tranquil person.

That is, of course, regardless of her resting face, which was the literal definition of - if looks could kill, you'd be six feet under by now.

Cher's assumption was that Aviana was that one girl you would never approach because of how enraged she looks ( unless you have a death wish ) - but when you finally do have a conversation, you realize, wait, she's not actually planning to set the whole school on fire and sacrifice everyone to the satan 24/7.

To Cher, Avi seemed to be someone who'd never respond to anyone unless she was directly addressed. Someone who won't give a shit about anything unless she is involved in the situation.

Today, Cher could see a vast difference from the Aviana she met the day before.

For starters, Aviana was quiet.

Not quite as in, I'm talking to a stranger. I'm nervous, manner. But quiet in a, I'm not okay, but I'm going to pretend I am, manner.

Aviana seemed fidgety and restless from the outside. Although it could easily pass for nerves before performing in Bootcamp, something told Cher otherwise.

Aviana seemed genuinely scared of something.

Terrified, even.

She kept fiddling with the hem of her long-sleeved t-shirt. Fingers wringing around each other as she made herself busy with the task of cracking her bones.

As though she was waiting for something to happen, she kept moving back and forth on the ball of her foot. Everything about her at that moment, the way she moved, the way she stammered, and the way she seemed remote, screamed I am fucking not okay.

The faithful truth was - Aviana was totally out of it.

She wasn't having a fine day at all. And she was not so fond of the reason for her current befuddlement.

What happened yesterday with Louis left the Hampstead girl shaken to the core.

Even though Avi dreaded admitting it, she was heavily impacted by the reunion - even though it wasn't carried out for more than a mere five minutes, with the couple barely even making eye contact.

Shoulders tensed and heart heavy, Avi felt her insides grappling with each other in aversion. She felt her fingers slightly quivering and her throat drying like a scorching desert.

Aviana understood that she was not in the right state of mind to perform in front of judges in this circumstance.

She was overwhelmed with different reflectings skyrocketing past every corner of her little head. Avi found it hard to concentrate on whatever anyone was saying right now. She could see how coach Letitia's lips moved, but her mind was physically incapable of processing any words coming out of her mouth.

Even with Cher - Aviana couldn't comprehend anything the latter was saying, so instead of giving proper responses, she just nodded and hummed in agreement.

"Aviana!"

Avi was harshly snapped out of her thoughts when Cher aggressively started to shake her by the shoulders. Blinking rapidly in surprise, Aviana met with Cher's large concerned eyes.

"Are you okay, Aviana? I've been calling you for about-" Not wanting to waste her breath, Cher cut herself off as she let her hands fall to her sides, sighing in frustration. "Nevermind that. Do you maybe want to get out for a bit? You look totally out of it right now."

"Huh?" Aviana mumbled blankly, a hand rising to fiddle with her lower lip in regret for perhaps pissing off the girl before her. She could see the frustrated look on Cher's face, and her defeated tone made Avi want to seep away into thin air.

"Y-Yeah" A strong feeling of guilt washed over her when realizing how uncooperative she had been. "I need a breather. I'm gonna go to the washroom."

"Sure, go ahead." Cher nodded understandingly. She could clearly see that the younger was far from being okay, but she didn't want to push it by asking what the matter was. She stood there and watched Aviana stumble out of the practice room, her long legs carrying her away from the unsettling ambience.

Staring right ahead, Cher failed to notice a specific woman watching the whole scene unfold from the other side of the room before taking long strides towards her.

"Is she okay?" Cher jumped at the voice. Looking behind her, she met with a smiling coach Letitia. "She ran out of the room quite quickly" Coach Letitia gestured towards the door Aviana used to flee the room in such haste.

"Oh, coach saw that?" Cher passed a tight-lipped smile towards her.

"That's Aviana. She didn't seem to be doing well. Seemed so out of it."

"How?" Coach Letitia seemed particularly interested in presenting Cher to talk about the situation, which made the latter frown in slight confusion.

"Aviana seemed so distant and didn't seem to hear me when I kept calling her multiple times. She was basically standing there, staring at nothing, with this blank face." Cher explained carefully, flailing her arms around. "So I suggested taking a breather outside, and she ran away saying she was going to the bathroom."

Coach Letitia nodded while processing everything the girl had shared with her. "You guys are friends, I assume?"

"Well..." Cher squinted her eyes as she shook her head hesitantly, tilting it sideways. "Not really. I don't think you can reckon we're friends already. We only met yesterday, but she's nice" She moved her head to the side. "I guess"

"I see"

x

Aviana's grip on her knees tightened as she squeezed her eyes together as forcefully as she could. The girl almost started seeing sparks of spontaneous flickering light in her blocked-out vision from how hard she was shutting her eyes.

She felt drops of anguish escape the corners of her eyes after having held on to the edge for their dear life for quite some time. Her knuckles turned to a milky ivory shade as she desperately fisted her denim, the rough texture bringing an unpleasant feeling to her palms. Wisps of stray hair were starting to stick to her cheeks, damp from the traces her tears had left behind.

She was sitting on the closed lid of the commode. The thought of all kinds of germs getting on her denim was temporarily pushed aside - for the sake of her sanity. Her knees drove up and down in rapid motions depicting the rising feeling of hysteria and strain in her blood. The rhythm of the movement almost matched the quick beat of her heart inside her ribcage. Her sneakers made a sound of speaking as the soul hit the slightly damp tiled floor of the washroom.

The tiny bathroom stall was suffocating her.

The bright white walls of the cubicle were hurting Aviana's eyes. It didn't exactly complement the dark reflections of thoughts that were looming around in her head at the moment.

She felt herself gradually get sucked into a black hole of panic and anxiety that she knew she wouldn't be able to leave momentarily. She felt as if the partitioned walls were closing around her on each side, trapping her inside without any space to breathe freely.

"Oh, shit" The girl grunted as she doubled over in hopes of her breathing

becoming less restraining when doing so.

Her frail fingers gnawed at the spot just under her left shoulder as she tried to compress her chest in expectancies of inhaling something other than panic.

Silent tears continued rolling down her face at a snail's pace, and Avi didn't even bother wiping them away with the back of her hand. She let the salty liquid stream down her pale cheeks and drip down to the dark blue fabric covering her legs, letting small damp patches appear on the denim in perfect circles.

She tried her best to ignore those tears that rolled out of her eyes as she focused on building a rhythm for breathing. Her boney fingers kept pressing on the area right above her chest, trying to pressure herself into taking deeper puffs of air into her lungs.

"Please..." She murmured to herself. "Please...get out of my head"

She started rocking back and forth while wrapping her arms around her trembling body, trying to lull herself into tranquillity. She attempted to emulate the exact warmth she seeks every time she encounters something as grievous as a panic attack.

An ardour she was despairing for at the moment.

Her eyes unconsciously fluttered as she tried to erase the image of Louis etched on her head in permanent ink.

She so desperately wanted to forget about the boy, yet all her thoughts included him in some form.

She never thought the retrieval of her Louis, who left her with an empty pledge and a shattered heart, would impact her with such severity.

Defenceless and vulnerable, she had never felt more helpless.

And all of this was because of him.

If it was not for that certain azure-eyed, golden-skinned angel sent from hell, she wouldn't be having a full-blown panic attack in a claustrophobic bathroom stall while an audition waited for her outside.

Although she pushed herself to disagree with herself, she knew that she wouldn't be able to stop hyperventilating because every single thought in her head right now was centring this one figure she desperately wanted to omit.

But forgetting him was something she simply could not do.

Or would refuse to do so.

So she just accepted that she would have to sit there till her goddamn tears ran dry, praying to every named god that she wouldn't miss at least half of the vocal training.

x

Three hours, a complete mental breakdown, a stern talking to by Cher and coach Letitia, hundreds of concerned looks thrown her way and couple hours of actually practising the song later - Aviana was finally left alone to herself near a corner in the practice room.

After she had soothed down from her little outbreak in the X-Factor washroom, she returned to the training room. Only to be met with a very furious yet concerned Cher and coach Letitia.

Coach Letitia had given her some unsmiling talking about how she should not disappear during training as it takes away her mandatory time in practice. She also mentioned how she had sent Angus and some other production staff members to find Avi, only for them to return with subtle headshakes.

Aviana felt humiliated.

One - because she had absolutely no excuse that made sense for being hauled up in the bathroom for that long.

Two - is because her little escapade has caused so much trouble to coach Letitia and the production staff.

Three - when coach Letitia lectured her about the issue, she wasn't exactly being unpretentious about it. The woman was speaking in a very loud voice which meant every single person in the room was able to hear the conversation.

They all stopped whatever they were doing as they tried to subtly listen to the exchange between the coach and the girl. Although they later tried to act as if they had heard nothing and did not know anything about the situation, the concerned and bewildered glances thrown in her direction every two seconds for the rest of the training time were practically giving it away.

And then, Cher Lloyd.

The girl grabbed her by the shoulders and shook the life out of Aviana so forcefully she felt her skull moving back and forth inside her head.

When she finally stopped shaking the soul out of her, giving Aviana a chance to stabilise herself without dropping to the cold tiled floor beneath them, words of concern and insult were hauled at her at full speed.

Aviana could only nod and conform to whatever she was saying as her mind was still drifting far away.

And after she got clamoured for being so careless, she finally got a chance to practice the song she was supposed to sing in front of the judges.

All the girls were to sing 'If I Were A boy' by Beyonce.

Aviana couldn't lie - the song definitely fit her vocal tone. While she really enjoyed singing rather wispy and dreamy melodies, the confident and delegating ambience the melody of this song gave away really fit her raspy voice.

She usually liked to stick with melodies that brought out a feathery, almost flimsy and raspy voice in her but her alto vocal range rather her sing with an octave.

Her being an alto meant she had to sing the chorus an octave lower as she absolutely could not hit the Beyonce notes in the song. But, seeing as she had a whole ass panic attack and almost cried herself to a blackout in a bathroom no more than three hours ago, her voice was as hoarse and scratchy as it could be.

She had tried to push it to return to its' normal tone by continuously sipping some honey from the tiny bottle she had packed herself - just in case something went wrong before the audition.

For example, right now.

It hadn't even been half a day, but the bottle of tasteless honey was almost halfway over.

"Fuck you man" She cursed out a certain eighteen-year-old as she nervously shuffled back and forth in the practice room.

If it wasn't for him and his charming self who flaunted his way into Aviana's senses without an invitation, she could've nailed this audition today.

But of course - Aviana was just looking for someone else other than herself to blame, like her fucked up head wasn't entirely the reason she ended up with a sore throat right before the audition.

"Girls, please get ready now!" The voice of coach Letitia rang throughout the room. "We have ten minutes left until it's your turn to get on the stage."

With heavy hearts and stammering heartbeats, all the contestants made their way to the front of the room. They were then asked to stand in a queue according to the alphabetical order of their family names.

Having initials on the opposite ends of the alphabet, Cher stood at the front half of the line while Aviana stayed in the latter half. Yet she managed to gesture a thumbs up towards the girl when she caught her eye, wishing her good luck from afar.

"Now, we're going to go to the wing and wait until the judges finish evaluating the boys." Coach Letitia continued to shout out what was happening as they were guided down a massive hallway to the left wing of the stage.

As they stopped next to the stage, a sea of chatter broke out among the contestants while their eyes fixed on the large stage in front of them.

The contestants in the Boys' category were standing in a single line across the stage while a few of them stood by the side.

Right in front of the stage, Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh sat in their respective judges' seats with their heads held up in fulfilment.

Her gaze on the pair was disturbed when Simon's voice boomed through the speakers all over the arena. He called out a name while his eyes scanned the stage over the glasses sitting on his nose.

It dawned on everyone what was happening immediately.

A blanket of stillness fell over the whole arena as they all anticipatingly waited for something to transpire.

A tall boy with ginger hair going past his shoulders stepped out of the line he was standing in.

Bowing towards the judges, he walked over to the wing of the stage, his face cast towards the ground. Some other guys around him sighed and patted his back in support and remorse as the said boy quietly left the stage.

Accepting the harsh reality that he got eliminated.

Everyone - on stage and off stage - was holding their breath as they watched Simon call out name after name, forcing contestant after contestant to leave the stage with teary eyes.

She watched as this continued for about a couple of minutes until there were only about twenty guys left on the stage.

"The rest of you on stage," Simon spoke into the microphone in front of him. His hands folded on top of the judge's table, eyes scanning the span of the stage. "Congratulations, you're through for the next stage of Bootcamp. Good Luck."

Aviana exhaled a large amount of carbon dioxide she was holding inside her lungs in solace.

Everyone seemed to have been influenced after seeing the tension between the contestants and the judges on stage as they started to quietly talk among themselves.

The boys left on stage were patting each other's shoulders, silently giving each other acclamation and moral support to go forward without feeling guilt for their fellow contestants who got kicked out.

It was about a couple of minutes before they started to leave the stage, meaning it was time for the girls to showcase what they'd practised.

"Girls aged 16 to 24, please make your way over to the stage."

Aviana let out a shaky breath as the line shuffled forward, the nerves and anxiety following it in a dreadful shadow.

Her fingers were wringing around each other as she tried to get ahold of her clammy hands. Suddenly she was reminded of the exact movement that had led to a very distressing episode in the bathroom earlier. She tried to rid her head of those unpleasant thoughts for time's sake.

For some reason, she was more worried than she felt on her audition day.

Maybe, it was because of how Simon was staring at the preparing girls with hawk-like eyes, watching their every move and motion.

Or maybe because she knew deep down that the consequences of her early actions had physically affected her, which might get her kicked out of the competition.

Maybe it was because she knew her voice wasn't in the best position to be used for singing and the healthiest arrangement right now.

Or maybe it was because she noticed the faint figure standing on the other side of the stage, with his arms crossed and his motherfucking eyes set on her and only her.

hi hi, my babies! how have you guys been? hope everyone is doing well and healthy! I, myself is not doing okay because I'm currently sick so I have a tissue stuck up my right nostril. I'm writing this at 12.50 in the morning with my lights turned off because my mom would kill me if she finds me awake. so please excuse any typos because I can't fucking see the keyboard and although I'm highly qualified in blind typing, forgive me.

before everything, only three more days till the 23rd of july I'm so excited

first of all, I have to give you guys a huge THANK YOU! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE VOTES OMG WE'RE SO CLOSE TO 1K I CAN SEE THE SILVER LINE JSKJSK ALSO SIX HAS BEEN #1 IN ONE DIRECTION FANFICTION FOR SUCH A LONG TIME GAH I'M SO THANKFUL. all of this success is because of you guys who take your sweet time to read this brain dump i write. i have nothing else to say other than how thankful i am to have you guys because believe it or not when I'm sad all i do is come here and read the comments you've left. they make me so happy and don't forget that i literally read every single one of them! so keep commenting

I've been kinda wanting to do a little q&a to celebrate the immense success of SIX ( flexx ) so let me know if you guys would like to do one with the characters!

also, I had like a three hour long breakdown today because I read this fanfic which was so fucking sad?? like omg I can't even?? i usually don't cry when I'm reading because I'm not heavily affected by harsh words (thanks mom :') )  anyways, this fic was so sad bro like it was only fifteen chapters and ten chapters in I was sobbing so hard like literal tears running down my cheeks?? and it wasn't even a happy ending hajdjroint

you guys I just realized. it'll be 2023 soon oh my god. one direction will be 13 years old what the actual fuck. wait what oh my god

7 years is playing as I came to this realization now I'm gonna have another breakdown bye

I love you btw

TPWK ♡

- 𝑬𝒔𝒂

( @avianarae_ )