Wandering around the rackety and dark hallways of the arena, Avi has never felt so out of place.

It was the 19th of July - or the day Aviana has been dreading but also been looking forward to. Today was the first day of the Bootcamp stage in X Factor.

More than 200 acts from around the UK, Ireland and Scotland who got through the auditions were at the SSE Arena in Wembley to restart the contest as one big crew. And all of them were roaming the venue with furrowed eyebrows and confused gazes just like she was. The majority of the contestants had their fingers wrapped around metal handles of travel suitcases, or the straps of overstuffed duffel bags. And a more deficient amount of people - mainly Londoners - were ambling around with only a small rucksack on their backs - their unoccupied hands waving around and about.

It was still generously early morning, the time barely getting closer to nine, but the venue was over packed already. Unlike the last time, Avi was at the venue all by herself with no best friend to hold her hand and whisper in her ear that she's going to be alright. (Even though Bexley had tried to beg her way to the Bootcamp, she had been immediately cut down by Avi who didn't want her to miss another day at school just to be by her side)

And her day was not going very good so far either.

Avi had woken up at around six o'clock in the morning just so she could get a head start and have a good shower to settle down her nerves before the big day starts. But at the ass crack of dawn, she had managed to stub her toe on her bedside table the first thing this morning. After lying on the floor with post pain squeezed eyes and spending a couple of minutes, cursing out the piece of lifeless wood to ease the anger out of her mind, she had gotten up and limped her way to the shower.

But her shower wasn't being exactly nice to her today either.

One of her shampoo bottles simply just had to throw itself down on the floor which resulted in sticky pale green liquid splattering everywhere and Avi breaking her back after unconsciously stepping on it. After another outbreak of screaming in pain under her breath while standing under the water, she had finished her early shower and had left the bathroom and entered her closet in hopes of dressing up in the outfit she had gotten ready the day before.

But she soon realized that picking an outfit in the dark at eleven o'clock the night before is not very effective because the outfit she had chosen looked absolutely horrible. The ugly sweater and the acid wash jeans seemed much worse when she looked at it from the light. Avi liked to be risky and try new fashion tricks in her day to day life. She liked to be simple yet unique when she chose her outfits. And also the fashion trends that were in fact going around these days were not exactly up to her prototypes. 

And frustrated by her own antics, Avi had given herself the mission of finding something comfortable but didn't make herself look like she rolled out from a hipster home. But of course, choosing an outfit meant Avi pulling out every article she owned from its place in the closet and completely wrecking it at the end. Being somewhat of a neat freak, she almost had another panic attack after seeing the trashed state of her closet.

Not having time to clean it up at once, she decided to place a mental note in her mind to remind and do it later and got dressed in the outfit she finally chose - a lilac crewneck shirt with a bunch of flowers and butterflies embroidered on it paired with a pair of light-washed jeans along with pale pink sneakers adorning her feet and a small chain or pearls around her neck for the effect.

Then it was the beast that she called hair.

Because she had forgotten to properly condition her hair the day before, the dark mane of hers was extra uncooperative today. So after a heated argument between herself about doing a ponytail or leaving it down in its natural form, Avi had finally decided on the ponytail. Only because she didn't want it to get more frizzy as the day went by knowing it would irritate her mind out of her. After her hair was up in a ponytail - secured by a purple scrunchie - she grabbed the backpack she had prepared the night before.

The small canvas bag only contained some little bits of supplies she felt like would need during the day - a bottle of water, a packet of pretzels she stole from a vending machine at school, a pack of facial tissues and some other products. But when she peeked inside to take a double check, she noticed how her mascara was missing. That small bottle of mascara was something Avi protected with her whole soul.

Being a daughter of a pair of very strict brown parents, she was not allowed to wear makeup unless she was attending a wedding. But as soon as she turned fifteen, Avi had pestered and pestered and had managed to coax Devi into buying her a tube of lip gloss, an eyeliner and a bottle of mascara - which Devi did.

But unfortunately, Soniya had somehow managed to find them before she even got ahold of them from Devi. And as usual, the incident was followed by a very stern and serious lecture about only using makeup when she's going to a very very important occasion and Soniya taking away the eyeliner pencil just because -"I don't want you to end up like the kid from that new movie, Ruhi Aviana"

She was in fact talking about Rodrick from the new Diary Of A Wimpy Kid movie that got released in March.

So in conclusion, Avi was not allowed to use or keep ahold of any makeup product other than the mascara and the lip gloss. Sure she usually borrows from Bexley whenever she needed some blush or foundation, but the mascara meant a little more than everything to her simply because it was the first make-up product she had been allowed to use.

But to her frustration, it had to be missing right when she needed it the most. After almost fifteen minutes of searching every corner of her room, she finally had to give up looking for it with teary eyes because her its-time-to-go-downstairs-because-you're-fucking-late alarm started to go off with the annoying voice of the lady on the phone echoing throughout the quietness of the room

"Good Morning! The day is Monday, the nineteenth of July, and the weather around Hampstead is -"

"Shut the fuck up lady" Avi had quietly grumbled as she quickly pressed the cancel alarm button on her phone, trying to overcome the frustration she was feeling. "Stupid ass bitch"

Trying to get the thought of her missing mascara out of her mind, she started trudging down the marble stairs with a heavy heart, a frown on her eyes and a big pout on her lips. But to her confusion, the whole downstairs was still dark, only the small light out in the porch dripping through the curtains onto the tiled floor. Usually, Devi is the one who got up in the morning and opened the curtain so the floor wouldn't be dark. But then, she had spent the last night preparing to make a full meal today because it was her big day so Avi came to the conclusion that Devi might've overslept.

But however, Avi knew it was enough time for her parents to get up and get ready because Soniya had promised Jonathon would drop her at the arena but the silence and stillness of the house were treacherous.

Finally understanding that there were only two reasons they haven't even made an effort to get ready, Avi took a shaky breath.

It was either a small chance of oversleeping. (Which is almost impossible because Soniya is a strict early riser and she never let anyone in the house sleep past seven in the morning)

Or they had forgotten.

But living with her parents for fifteen years and knowing them inside and out, Avi quickly came to a conclusion of her own which was leaning more towards the second reason than the first. And the sound of her dad talking on the phone with someone started to ring through the house as well as her mom's quick footsteps. So they were awake.

And in an instant, Avi was dropping her bag on the floor, flying through the floor to reach her parent's room.

As guessed, it did indeed turn out that they had completely forgotten what today was. Oh how lovely.

And a very warlike and aggressive screaming match between the father and the daughter, a near ass-whooping from her mother and a very tense and discomforting twenty-minute car ride later, here she was - roaming around the backstage of the SSE Arena by herself.

All the contestants were instructed to gather into one of the huge assemblage rooms in the arena where they were supposed to get positioned into four groups by Simon and Louis Walsh. Every contestant who competed as a solo act, aged 16 to 24 was set to get into two different groups as Girls and Boys alleged their prefered gender. Every solo act aged older than 25 were to get put into their own team while all the bands - which were not much - were to get placed into another group of their own.

Coming across a green room labelled as 'girls', Avi quickly slipped inside of it to find a place to safely put her bag. There wasn't a lot of people inside the room and Avi assumed the majority of the contestants were already at the place where they were expected. After making sure her bag was not in the way of others and was safely tucked inside a place where she could easily reach, Avi quietly slipped out of the room once again.

As she walked towards where she was sure the assemblage was situated, her eyes kept catching sight of a lot of people, some huddled closer together in tight groups and some isolated and standing alone by themselves. But somehow, the majority of people seemed to have met companions already because every contestant with who she met eyes seemed to be in a conversation with another person.

For Avi, it had never been hard making friends.

Maybe it was because she was lovely, or she seemed friendly or maybe it's because she dresses nicely - either way, she has never had any trouble making friends wherever she went. Sure she had her times feeling much introverted than sociable but somehow, everyone seemed to find a friend in Avi in any shape or form.

When she permanently migrated to England four years ago, one of her biggest doubts was making friends. She was terrified of leaving all her friends behind and initiating all over again in another brand new school, another country, another bloody continent. (But she reckon she did pretty good after changing her name and all that)

The thought of deserting everything she had built over time was a terrifying ordeal but the thought of starting everything over again was a feeling like waking up in the depths of woods and realizing you had nobody else but yourself. But she was proven wrong about her ability in making friends when people quite literally started to follow her around in hopes of becoming her friend. She had a charm that everyone wanted a share of, she had a persistent calming and loving ambience surrounding her like a cloud around the moon and maybe that was the reason why she never had any troublein making friends everywhere she went. And she bloody did have a friend from everywhere she went.

For example, she had an American friend from Los Angeles whom she had met while she was on a trip to the States. She had friends from South Yorkshire, Manchester and Cardiff whom she had met while competing in the Battle Of The Bands. And she also had a friend from Kenya, a girl she met when she went to the country with her father as a nine-year-old (although they didn't talk that often, Avi still liked to consider her as a friend)

But still, Bexley and co. including Farrah, Max and Yeong-ho were dead set on keeping the top statuses of her friend list occupied for the next lifetime.

But here, it was different.

If it was any other time, making friends would've been a piece of cake for her. But here, at the X Factor, the simple thought of even going up to someone and making a conversation scared the daylight out of her.

Because as far as she knew, this was a serious competition. The X Factor is a place that creates artists who become the next big thing, namely, Leona Lewis, Olly Murs and even JLS.

It's a hefty television contest that everyone has the determination and grit to win. Here, contestants enter the contest in hopes of winning it and that's that. Even if you did make any friends, there's competition between you and competition is a toxic trait to carry between two friends - according to Avi that is.

If it was any other time, nothing would have been stopping her from walking over to the raven-haired girl and asking her to hang out later - but this time, the nerves of the contest and the dreadful feeling of developing rivalry kept her mouth shut.

Seeing she finally came across the said assemblage, she took a deep breath to calm herself down before going in. So keeping in mind to at least try to make a conversation with a couple of girls when they're backstage again, Avi quickly made her way inside the room and to the other side of the stage as quick as possible, trying not to earn too much lookout. Somehow, a couple of people threw kind smiles in her way and nodded their heads in acknowledgement and she immediately returned the favour, not wanting to come out as impolite to anyone on the very first day.

Finally settling on the very back away from observant eyes, she started to run her eyes over the space of the large place. She did recognise some familiar faces back from her audition scattered around the staging but the majority were brand new for her.

As time passed by more and more people were gathering and Avi didn't recognise most of them apart from a handful whom she had seen in London. Eavesdropping into some conversations around her, Avi learned that the other audition cities were Birmingham, Manchester, Cardiff in England, Dublin in Ireland as well as Glasgow in Scotland. So indeed It was actually no surprise for Avi to not notice any familiar faces in the clutter of the contestants.

She witnessed a handful of older men and women in the shadows created by the teenagers in the front as well, most of them having hushed talks while a couple of others hollered loudly. But all of the noise and the chatter were cut short into a sharp silence when the doors for the assemblage abruptly opened and Simon Cowell walked in with Louis Walsh hot on his trail.

"Hello, everyone" Simon's voice was curt as it cut through the now tensed atmosphere in the room.

"Hello"

"Hi"

The television mogul received replies from around the room and he nodded in acknowledgement before opening his mouth to speak.

"So we have an unfortunate announcement to make" Almost immediately the room filled up with hushed gasps and chatter but all of it was cut short when Simon cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, our other judges for the series, Danii Minogue and Cheryl Cole will not be attending the Bootcamp auditions this year" Without giving anyone time to comprehend, Simon continued his talk. "As some of you might know Danii is still on maternity leave and Cheryl had been infected by Malaria and is still in recovery"

Another round of hushed chatter rose from the sea of contestants in front of the two judges but Simon cleared his throat as a signal to silence. "So because of that, me, Louis and the producing team of the show had made the choice to axe out, meaning cancel, having a live audience for the Bootcamp auditions"

It was as if the same emotion was running through every contestant's mind as a unison sigh of relief flowed through the room.

Having an arena full of people's eyes on you as you rehearsal, sing and terribly dance on stage had been one of the only reasons Avi had been dreading Bootcamp personally. And now, hearing that live shows had been axed out because of the absence of the two judges gave such a consolation to her mind. She suddenly felt much at ease after hearing that news - of course, she hoped Danii would have a safe post-pregnancy and that Cheryl would have a good recovery - but the fact that there wasn't going to be a whole arena of people watching her as she performed did lift a little weight of pressure off her shoulders.

"But" Simon quickly bite on the word making the entire room let out a frustrated sigh. There was always a but. "Nicole Scherzinger - from Pussycat Dolls - is going to join us the day after tomorrow to give me and Louis a hand in judging" He took a quick pause. "And of course, choosing who's going to have to go home on each day"

An uncomfortable silence fell over the huddle of contestants after Simon's statement. 

Elimination. The second reason Avi was dreading this day to arrive. Bootcamp was a series of events that was going to last for five consecutive days, starting from tomorrow.

Today, the nineteenth, the contestants were supposed to come in for the quick assembly then settle down in the hotel the producing team had prepared for them after getting assigned to your respective team. And contestants like Avi, who were not staying at the hotel were simply dismissed after getting designated. So, any events from today were not getting filmed or recorded accordingly the reason there weren't any camera's around as Simon spoke to them in the assemblage.

Tomorrow, however, the twentieth was the official first day of Bootcamp. As said in the email Avi had received days after her auditions, tomorrow they were supposed to get trained by a professional vocal coach and perform a specific song in front of the judges. And at the end of the day, almost half of the acts were to get eliminated and return to their hometowns. Then respectively they were gonna receive choreography lessons and more vocal coaching on the second day.

On the third day, as listed, the contestants were to perform another song out of a list created by the producers and the last day was the day their futures got determined by Simon, Louis and Nicole Scherzinger.

"Now, first of all, we're going to separate you into four groups. Girls, Boys, Groups and Over 25s" Simon said as he walked towards the group of X Factor crew members who were standing against one of the walls in the room. As he reached them, one of the crew members quickly stood off the wall and grabbed a file that was lying on a nearby table. Clumsily pulling out a document which was stapled together, he went to stand next to Simon. "Now everyone, here we have a document with all of your names, ages and X Factor numbers. And starting from oldest to youngest, Angus is gonna read out your X Factor number, name and age so make sure all three of them are correct" Simon finished before gesturing Angus to take over.

"Alright then starting from the oldest" The guy spoke in a thick Scottish accent. "Number 610134, Derrek Adaway, forty-three"

As seconds passed by Angus continued to call out names from the list in her hand and slowly the older contestants started to move from the main huddle to form a queue next to it. Once Angus was nearing the end, boredom started to settle in Avi's mind. Humming a song in her head - which somehow unsurprisingly happened to be a Taylor Swift song - she started to slightly drift off to a world of her own. But just when Angus finished reading out the names of the competing groups and started reading out the names of the boys under the age of 25, a voice near her ear made her almost shriek in fear.

"Hey" Turning around with frightened eyes, Avi came face to face with a girl not older than herself. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry if I gave you a scare"

A petit girl with dark and wispy hair was standing in front of her.

"Oh no, it's alright" Avi smiled at her.

"Sorry, I just saw you standing alone and I was alone too so I thought why not come and talk to you" The nameless girl smiled before her eyes drifted down to Avi's chest. At first, she widened her eyes, thinking she was doing more than looking at the pattern but the girl's word assured her. "And also I just really really love your shirt, it's so adorable"

Looking down at her shirt, Avi smiled to herself before looking up at the girl again. "Thank you so much. It was cheap but it's pretty"

"Absolutely"

The girl standing before her had midnight black hair, matching her own but it was much wispier and straight. With her dark eyes, makeup and biker clothes, she seemed like a Bexley from another dimension. Suddenly the girl jumped and pushed a hand in Avi's way. "Oh, by the way, I'm Cher"

Avi smiled, taking a hand giving it a gentle shake. "Nice to meet you, Cher, I'm Aviana"

"Oh my god, love your name" Cher gushed. "I didn't think this was gonna be this long. I thought it was just the casual greeting and then it's over. I just want to go to my hotel and sleep, you know? Which reminds me, did you get your hotel room number? Because I didn't and I don't know where to get it and it's really driving me insane"

Surely, as it dawned, Cher was definitely a talker which was why it took Avi a couple of tries to reply to the girl. "I'm actually not staying in the hotel. I live only twenty minutes away, so I'm actually going home"

"Oh, that's a bummer" Cheryl pouted, her red-stained lips puckering out before her voice dropped to a whisper and she leaned more towards Avi. "All the girls and the boys are planning to have a pyjama party before the hectic days starts tomorrow"

Before Avi could respond to the girl, Angus' voice interrupted them. "And now the girls. I'm going to read your names in age order and please come over make a queue next to the boys"

"Oh, here we go" The fact that Avi was not able to reply to her was completely thrown out of the window by Cher as she turned to listen to Angus attentively.

Lightly chuckling at herself, Avi shook her head at how she was so anxious earlier about making conversations with other people but this chatbox of a girl had completely gone out of her way to make herself comfortable next to Avi. Slowly but surely the people waiting at this side of the room started to lessen. Simon and Louis were engaged in a conversation with another man dressed in a crisp black suit on the front of the room.

"number 210293, Cher Lloyd, sixteen"

"Welp, there we are" Chery took a deep breath and smiled as she shrugged her shoulders and looked up at Avi. "See you on the other side Aviana"

Avi lightly laughed as Cher skipped and stood on the very end of the line. Looking around, she only now realised how there were only about twenty people left. The more the seconds went by, the more girls started to join the line and the more Avi's insides started to feel rather heavy.

She was now one of the small group girls still waiting at this side of the room and the worst thoughts she could ever think started to run through her mind. She absolutely hated being one of the last to get picked and this was even more menacing than that.

It had been made clear that the names were read in age order, starting from oldest to youngest. And Avi wasn't stupid enough to forget what Louis had said to her back at her audition day almost a month ago.

"She's the youngest so far"

And as far as she knew, London was the last audition destination which only meant one thing.

She was officially, the youngest contestant on the show.

Which eventually implied that she was going to be the last person to get picked up. Getting picked last meant, having to stand all by yourself until the very end till your name gets called. Which implied that everyone would at least look at her for one time and the fact that almost 200 people will have their eyes on her till the very end made her heart beat a little faster and her nerves grow.

When the number of girls standing was down to five, she realised that there was no way she could hide in the shadows, trying to convince others that she's invincible and look like a loser anymore so straightening out her back, she took a step towards one of the other girls. Ignoring the burning stares on her, she stood straightforward as another girl walked up to the line.

And just like that, they were down to two girls.

 Avi and another girl with fierce red hair stood alone while almost the whole room had their eyes set on them. Although the redhead seemed unbothered by the attention she was receiving, Avi's inside felt like when her mom would be hand wringing water out of a t-shirt after doing laundry.

"Number 12892, Rebecca Creighton. Seventeen"

Avi's insides started to twist as she watched the fake redhead start to walk towards the line, leaving her to stand all by herself. And finally, after it felt like an eternity of more than 200 people staring at you and judging her every movement, Angus opened his mouth to speak the words she was desperate to hear.

"Number 101054, Ruhi Aviana. Fifteen and the youngest of the clan"

Ciao my babies! After a long long time I know, I know. And I am sincerely apologizing for taking forever to update the book because I know you guys were so impatient for this chapter. I'm so sorry if it feels like nothing but I hope you at least got an idea how Bootcamp in SIXverse work (we're calling my universe SIXverse from now on :) and how hectic morning can be. (can relate to her tho)

I know I took a too-long break and I'm so sorry but I can promise, I'm going to try and give you guys another update before next week! So that's a first but I hope you guys enjoy it!

And also, thank you so so so much for 5k and 350+ votes, the votes you leave, the comments you leave mean the world to me and I try my best to reply to all of them because it's only because of you guys, SIX is getting this much love and I'm forever grateful.

Last month I had my end terms and I was going through a little tough time. So Nymphadora_Granger cheers to us for getting through that month without killing ourselves boo! And a vv special hug to swiftie968 for being the sweetest person. Your messages literally make my day and ilysm, let's hope we can meet taylor and gracie one day <3 Nymphadora_Granger , you're welcomed too.

And to everyone who I haven't named here but yet sent me sweet messages and made my day better, thank you so much, I love you all so much! And I hope you had fun reading this chapter. Although I did have fun writing about the miserable day Avi had, the rest was so hard to edit. (istg editing is way harder than writing and for what?) but I pushed myself because you guys deserve the world here we are!

Now let's talk about everything that went down the past month

Gracie aka the love of my life released her second ep, THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE and guys, go listen to all of the songs. I swear that ep had no skips it's the best ep I've ever heard in my whole life <3 and she met taylor at her birthday party and I'm so proud of her, she deserves the whole world

Then Harry Styles aka the other love of my life launched pleasing which I'm too broke to buy. Actually, it's not that I'm too broke to buy, it's that it's so fucking expensive. I get that it's and all but do you know how much it costs in rupees? THIRTEEN FUCKING THOUSAND RUPEES. your girl could buy a whole phone with that money :) and when you add the pleasing pen and the serum it's...it's...*shudders* TWENTY SIX FUCKING THOUSAND and I could rent out a small motel room with that money. So in conclusion my hope for buying a pleasing set is nonexistent :')

Then daily reminder I just LOVE LOUIS AND TAYLOR SM <3

and again, thank you for reading and being with me for this story, your support is what makes me strong so thank you, thank you, thank you so much for your love! I love you guys so much and please don't forget to drop a vote because we're almost at 400!

stay hydrated and give yourself some love for me <3

TPWK ♡

- 𝑬𝒔𝒂