She passed

Gisele slept all through the afternoon all the way till past midnight. She would have slept till the next morning if not for the rumbling in her stomach and the rattling on the door. She tossed and turned then finally stood up and walked to the door.

Aunty Lou was standing at the door with a tray of warm food. Right on time to quell her hunger. Gisele stepped aside and let her in.

"I was afraid you would be hungry since you didn't eat dinner so I thought to bring some food to see if you're awake" The woman explained.

"Thank you Aunty Lou. I was about to die from hunger in my sleep" She collected the tray and began to eat her food.

Aunty Lou didn't leave, she stood by the side and watched the girl eat. There was no pretense, she ate what she could and didn't try to watch her manners_all though they were flawless as they were.

"Sorry if I had intruded Miss's privacy, but i saw the drawing on that sketchbook. Did you draw it yourself?" She asked.

Gisele nodded and looked up at the table. The presence of someone's touch was evident. The things were not as she had left them.

"Do you think it's lovely?"

"Lovely is an understatement Miss, it's absolutely gorgeous. Miss has such an awesome gift"

Gisele laughed "It's no gift. It's just something I have gotten good at from sheer practice"

Aunty Lou nodded understandingly "How long has miss being designing?"

"Since I learnt to hold a pencil. It became a hobby to design dresses" Gisele was reminded of that time, a regretful look flashed past her eyes.

"Miss should become a designer then. You would be famous in no time" Aunty Lou complimented.

"I do have plans of doing that but first I want to try being a model. Does Aunty Lou think I won't succeed as model?"

"Miss would succeed at anything" Aunty Lou assured. Even if it was to become a singer, the girl had a melodic voice, with a little amount of training she would become a singer that swoons people heart with her voice.

Speaking of succeeding. Gisele was reminded of something.

"Aunty Lou what time is it?" She asked urgently.

Aunty Lou looked at the clock on the wall and replied "it's minutes past one already miss"

"Ah my phone!" Gisele dumped the tray on the bedside table and rushed to look for her phone. She found it and then rushed back to her bed and began scrolling through it hurriedly.

"Miss is anything the matter?" Aunty Lou asked worriedly.

"The audition result was released by 12. I had slept off and forgot to check it." As she spoke her hand and eyes scrolled through her phone.

The first stage of GXJ's audition ended at the stroke of midnight, the result would also be posted at the same time. Those who had passed would get a special email containing their requirements for the next stage audition.

There it was!

An email with the company's logo and heading was sitting leisurely amongst the messages on her email. She didn't need to open it to confirm if she had really passed cause she had caught a glimpse of the first word.

'Congratulations'

She really passed?

"Ahh I really passed!" She exclaims joyfully almost waking the whole house. Aunty Lou's mood was spontaneously lifted by the girl's happy mood.

"Miss, you should read the message completely" She urged.

"Congratulations Miss Gisele Alexandria Andres_" The email started. Gisele was all smiley as she read the rest of the email.

It was really something to be happy about. Among the countless number of people and celebrities that had auditioned. It was stated only a hundred and twenty seven had passed the first stage and Gisele just happens to be one of them.

She was overjoyed, it might just be the first round but still it showed that her chances in the industry weren't that slim. Now all she needed was luck to somehow pass the second stage and her chances in the last round would be a fifty-fifty percent probability.

"Miss congratulations on passing the first round" Aunty Lou congratulated her with a smile.

Gisele smiled then sighed "Thanks Aunty Lou but passing the second round even seems more impossible. I would need some kind of special luck to make it into the list of 20 selected people. Sigh" For the second round only a number of twenty people would be selected to move to the final round. It showed how strict they would be in their selection. Out of 127, 107 people were bound to be disappointed at the end. The tension was bound to rise.

"Then I wish Miss good luck"

Gisele held unto the woman's hand enthusiastically "Aunty Lou, I'll depend on your luck okay? So be my fairy godmother and keep giving me luck"

Aunty Lou laughed and tapped her hand "Sure, although I personally don't think Miss would need any luck. Nevertheless I should get my magic wand and bless miss with all the luck in the world"

She and Gisele laughed to her joke, she stayed and chatted with Gisele a little bit then had to leave to give the girl chance to sleep.

Gisele couldn't close her eyes out of excitement and anxiousness. The emails she received contained all the information she needed to know about the second stage. The second round was the Show off stage. For this round they were supposed to show off their representative skills, so they were given five Concepts to represent.

Each of them were to take five separate shoot based on those Concepts and the best twenty would be selected to make the last stage. The Concepts were tricky, it left her wondering... What exactly were they thinking about to arrive at those Concepts? And also Why the F*ck were they supposed to be worrying about that when they only just wanted to sit still for a front cover page?!

Concept 1: A mother's First time.

Concept 2: A Banished Consort.

Concept 3: An ailing Celebrity.

Concept 4: A Seductress

Concept 5: A CEO's Kept woman.

Seriously what the hell were these?! Why should she be bothering herself with these rubbish when she just wanted to feature as a front cover model? What Representative skill? Was that even necessary?

The Concepts might seem easy but it wasn't all that simple. If you were to represent them as a normal person then it would not be hard but as a professional model you would have to think of them from a professional point.

It was also stated that there must be no one else in the shoot apart from the contestant. No adverse make-up or props should also be used. Also no special effect editing. So one would have to sit and think of two things;

First, how to depict these concept without being direct and Secondly how to do all that by yourself with merely just sitting still or standing still.

Sigh! This stage was not only going to take her time but also her mental energy and her hard earned money!

They were given just as week to come up with an idea, take the shoot and then send it over. After the week runs out, the second stage would be closed.

Still unable to get back to sleep. She sat up and went over to her desk. She could as well use the remaining hours of the night to start coming up with ideas. Every minutes counts.

She sat down jotting every idea that came to her head. She who thought she would be awake all night ended up dozing off on her working table.

While she slept probably dreaming of pleasant things, someone somewhere was having the worst night of her life.

After a hectic day of running around for a small time gig. Brenda finally had a chance to rest. She drove her small cheap car back to her apartment at the suburbs of town. Standing in front of the dark apartment. She frowned and brought out her phone.

'where are you?' she sent this text to a number and went ahead to open the door.

She turned on the light and the whole apartment was lit up. Fine furnitures and an artistic decoration. Nothing expensive but it was pleasant to the eyes.

She walked in and dumped herself on the small leather couch. The stress she felt were clearly depicted in her brows. With a sigh she tried to relax but her brows scrunched up again and she sat upright. Took a look at her phone and the message she had sent. Surprisingly it had gone unread.

Brenda switched to dialer and clicked on the first name that appeared on the call log.

'Big Bro'

"The number you're trying to call is unreachable at the moment, please try again later" came the voice of the customer service.

She tried a few more times but received the same reply. The frown on her face grew deeper. It was unusual for her brother to stay out late, especially without informing her.

She was going to call someone else when a call entered into her phone.

An unfamiliar number calling at such an hour. That was not something that happened everyday.