As I rounded the last corner, the number of people waiting in the hallway was unbelievable. There were people from all walks of life here hoping for the same chance as me to become a rising star. I knew there would be many people here, but I wasn’t expecting this amount of bodies! I wondered which of them were here to sing or to dance, or perhaps act.
Would they split us up into our various talents? Or would we just go in one by one and show off what we could do? While I was mulling over my thoughts, one of the staff members stepped up to me.
“Name?”
“Liam Smith,” I replied with a smile.
The staff member nodded and checked for my name on his list. On finding it, he nodded and ticked it off. “Very well, Mister Smith. We will call you in when it is your turn. Please wait here until then,” they said and moved onto the next person who had shown up.
The waiting seemed like it would take forever and they would never get to me.
“Mister Smith?” A voice called, startling me from my bored stupor.
“Y-Yes! Here!” I called out, which caused several of the others waiting in the hall to laugh at my sudden outburst. I felt my cheeks burning from my embarrassment and let out a nervous laugh as I moved over to the staff member, rubbing my neck awkwardly.
As the staff member leads me into the interview room, I take note of a few people sitting down. They are sitting in front of the stage that is used for those of us showing off our skills. Most of them look like the typical business person. Smart shirt, black trousers and shoes and ties. The last person, however, wore sunglasses and a hat that covered most of his head.
He looked slightly out of place and it had me wondering if he was who I thought it was.
The thought that this man was Kain Jones had my stomach all fluttery.
“Mister Smith?” One woman asked as she spotted me.
I nodded in agreement. “Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking with nerves.
The woman looked down at the sheet on her desk and asked, “it says here you wish to be an actor, though you have had some training with singing?”
With another nod, I replied, “that’s right.” I wondered which talent they would prefer me to show off. I hadn’t come from any rich background, which would have given me the best training, but the schools I went to had their own classes that I took full advantage of.
The small group of people whispered to one another before the man in the hat whispered to the woman next to him. She nodded and then turned to me and said, “then why don’t you incorporate both into what you wish to show us?”
Adding both together? That wasn’t an impossible request, but it wasn’t something I had quite prepared for. Still, I had to impress them so I quickly thought up something on the top of my head.
Taking the centre of the stage, I took a quiet but deep breath in, as I had learned to do many times during practice. Then, with a clear voice, I spoke out some lines, “if there is a story to be told, why should I not be the one to tell it? Do we all not have that choice to tell our own tales?”
With another soundless breath of air, I changed the tone of my voice to mimic a different person, saying, “you always do this, brother! You let yourself think everything will be fine if only you can make it to a certain place or do a certain thing, but life is never that simple! You go into those woods and you won’t come back out again! The legends-”
I cut myself off, changing my voice back to the previous one, my tone annoyed as I say, “I’m aware. I know the song as well as you do.”
With one more soundless breath in, I sing, “in the darkness, the wolf wakes. To a numbed heart of ice, the wolf takes. With you beside me, the wolf sleeps. On a starlit night, our wishes leap.”
I’m about to continue the second verse when the woman, with a smile, holds up her hand. The group seems somewhat impressed and although I didn’t finish the song; I pray I pass their trial.
“Thank you, Mister Smith,” the woman says and nods. “You may wait in the canteen and get something to drink or eat until we finish the rest of the interviews. When we’re ready to say who has passed the next stages, we will call you back here,” she said, motioning to the door on the other side of the room. “The lady through there will show you where to go.”
I dip my head in thanks to the people who are taking notes and offer a polite, “thank you.” I’m a little breathless, but I do my best not to show it to them. There’s no way that I want them thinking that I am not skilled enough to go through to the next stage.
I’m still nervous, but I doubt they’ll give away if I have passed their expectations or not and trying to ask might annoy them too much and they’ll not want to work with me. I only wish I could get some sort of hint that the one who I assume is the CEO; liked my performance but with those sunglasses, I get nothing helpful from him.
As the lady shows me the way to the canteen, she makes polite conversation with me, asking if I think I did well, and what I think of the company building so far. I answer her to be polite, but truthfully, my mind is still so focused on if I’ve passed the first trial or not.
When we reach the canteen, the woman returns to her post, wishing me luck as she goes. She’s probably said this to everyone so far, as part of her job to make people feel welcome. I don’t mind, it’s nice to see someone putting a lot of heart into their job.
I decide to settle my nerves with a hot chocolate and a sandwich, nothing too big just in case I have to do any more physical acting later but something that will keep my energy levels up in case I am here for most of the day.
The waiting to see if I passed onto the next stage was excruciating. My stomach was turning into knots as I worried about if I could have done something better, or different. I had no way of knowing what the other contestants had done, or how well they performed. I didn’t even know if we were all going to be judged together or if they would split us up into groups of our talents and then decide from there.Then there was the number of people who had come here today. Each one must have had something exceptional to show off, or else they wouldn’t have got past the signing up or the first showcase. I wondered how many people they had denied already or if they were going to sort us out after. You could have all the talent in the world, but if you croaked during the moment that you had to show off your skills, there was no way you’d get in.I held my hand to my chest and focused on my breathing. I had to be confident and relax. There
Being paired with another person had its pros and cons for the interview. The pros being the fact that I had someone I could bounce off of during a scene, being able to work together also helped showcase how well you could work during improvised sessions. The cons were, if your partner messed up, it could reflect badly on you if their mistakes caught you out.I hoped to God they paired me up with the girl, assuming my hunch about her was right. Not because together we would both pass the test, but because she looked like she was least likely to mess up, which would be a risk for me too.Luck was not on my side, however, as they paired me up with one of the older, more nervous ones. The man wasn’t too much older than me, but he gave me the impression that this was not the first time he had tried to get hired here.Despite the disappointment in the match, I figured I should still be polite. I smiled at the man an
Waiting for the results was now even more arduous than before, all thanks to the man they had partnered me with. Would they disqualify us both for ignoring the options, or would they find it impressive that I had continued as though we had planned it all along despite knowing that was impossible.I couldn’t let the pressure get to me, however, as any sign of weakness meant I was not ready to deal with the stress of being an actor.After what seemed like forever, the judges had made their choices and called us back over to get the results. Despite working in pairs, some groups only had one of them pass to the next stage. That gave me hope that I might still get through.As soon as it was my turn to be judged, the woman who had done most of the talking was glancing down at the notes in front of her. She was quiet for some time before finally saying, “we said this was an improvised session, so it is no surpr
I can feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest as I start taking off my shirt. I can feel my cheeks burning brighter and hotter at the thought of showing off my body to those who are pretty much strangers to me, even if I have spent half of the day with them. Not to mention if that is Kain Jones! To be looked at by that man has my mind swirling. I have no way of knowing what sort of body they’re looking for with this role, I just hope I have such a body they are after. I know requiring actors to strip is quite common for performers, even if I wish that wasn’t a reality. As the last button is undone, the man in the hat made a short hum of thought before saying dismissively, “that’ll do. Thank you.” I didn’t even get to take the shirt all the way off. That… was a distinctly bad sign. Did he sense how nervous I felt? Or could see without me going fully topless that my form wasn’t what he was looking for? I could fee
I entered the room alone and came face to face with Kain Jones. My heart skipped a beat, but I had a feeling it had been him there watching us. His sunglasses were now replaced with a pair of reading spectacles. His strawberry blond hair and heterochromia blue and brown eyes are a clear give away which had been why he had hidden them both behind his hat and sunglasses and hardly spoke. He gestured to the seat in front of him and waited for me to sit down before he made my fate known to me. I sat as instructed. “You indeed show much talent, Mister Smith,” Kain said, his words milky honey despite the firm tone he spoke with. I offered a smile. “Thank you,” I replied, though with Kain’s blank demeanour I couldn’t tell if he was actually impressed or if he was merely being polite. There was an awkward silence between us as Kain shifted through the notes and things he had on me. He then lifted those beautiful eyes to meet mine and sa
The other young lad was just exiting the office as I made my back there. It hadn’t been long since I had left, but by the look of things, they had already rejected him. This did not surprise me; he wasn’t much older than me and his body type was not too dissimilar either. I offered him a small smile of comfort as I passed him by, but I had no intention of stopping to talk with him about things. As I found myself back at the office, I could tell that the CEO was still within, as I heard him speaking with someone on the phone’s loudspeaker. I couldn’t quite hear who he was speaking with, but at a guess, it was the woman from before. I almost felt bad for interrupting them, but I felt this couldn’t wait until they finished. I took a deep breath in and opened the door with a bit more force than I had planned to use. Kain paused in what he was talking about and looked up at me through his glasses. He did not look impressed to see me in the least. In
Shiya had been rather nice to me on the way down to the lobby and walked me to the front doors before leaving me outside to go back to her own work. She did not comment on what I had done, perhaps because there wasn’t much more to say about it. I just couldn’t believe someone like the Wulf man had got the job over me and had somehow kept it despite the filth he was. I couldn’t move from the spot for a while before I sighed and took a few steps to head home. I hesitated and looked back at the building. No. I would not give up just yet. There had to be a way to make the CEO see I was more than qualified to work for him. The fire inside of me hadn’t gone out just yet. I just needed an idea. I couldn’t go back into the building without the risk of security being called on me, but I could wait out here. There was no way Kain Jones used the front entrance, though. That meant there had to be a back entrance people came in and out of to come and go unn
The first blow lands in my gut, causing me to buckle over as far as I can go while being held by the big dude behind me. I don’t even have that much money on me, or even a phone. I had to scrape up what little I could just to afford the outfit for today and that meant selling what little I owned. It was a cruel irony in a way. The leader didn’t hold back his punches and when he had grown bored with hitting me; he let his friends have their fun. At least they weren’t punching my face… THWACK My cheek stung from the blow. I shouldn’t have tested fate by thinking about it. It was inevitable, really. Another blow landed on my other cheek. Regardless, I did my best to endure their onslaught of punches. As they slowed down, I shot them a small glare. I refused to give them the satisfaction of showing them any pain. Big mistake. The leader had the big fellow knock me to the ground and before I could get up or roll away, the fiv