April

Day 3

Luke suddenly jolted awake. He blinked a couple times and looked around. He was in a nice room, there was a large glass door with a balcony; sunlight was shining through. Oh that's right. He was in some sort of dating show. Today was the first day of shooting!

Luke went to hop out of bed, but his foot got caught in the sheets and he fell. Why did he have to be such a dramatic sleeper?

Luke sat up and rubbed his head. The carpet was nice.

Luke scrambled to his feet and opened his walk-in closet. The show had given him a couple of new outfits along with his own, just so he wasn't wearing the same thing every day. He picked a casual T-shirt and shorts and put them on. He fixed his hair then left his room.

Everybody slept in odd places all over the house; Luke was located on the fourth floor. He liked travelling up and down the many stairs (still not having noticed the elevator).

Luke strolled down through the living room that was right outside his door and glanced at the other rooms around him. He knew one of them was a random bathroom, but two others were bedrooms. He hadn't seen who went into them last night, but he had a month to find out. Luke walked down the hall towards the stairs, feeling he was going to get lost someday and the cameras would be there to watch him. Cameras. Luke glanced around, noticing one on the table in the living room. It didn't appear to be on, but he wasn't sure. Luke took a step towards the table then suddenly stopped when one of the doors opened. A woman wearing black walked out and picked the camera up. She then saw Luke and almost jumped back in surprise.

"Hi," Luke gave a small wave.

"Hello," she said, clicking her camera on. "I took a bathroom break at the wrong time."

"Oh that's alright," Luke said. "You don't need footage of me struggling to find the stairs."

The woman chuckled. "Oh we'll take anything."

Luke laughed awkwardly and turned to go. The stairs were just down the hall to the left, right?

Darik pulled a chair out and sat down. The presence of camera people loomed over him. The first day was going to be very uncomfortable. Hopefully it would get better.

Darik quietly munched his cereal. It was nice that he was being included in the show. When he was younger, he was always left out of events with all the other elementary schoolers. But now he was sixteen and had no one had an excuse to not invite him.

"Good morning!" Maddi sat down in front of him with a cup of chocolate milk.

"Morning."

"Are you excited?"

Darik squinted at her. "Honestly I'm not sure what to expect."

Maddi glanced at a camera man then lowered her voice. "I guess we're not really supposed to talk about the show."

Darik shook his head.

Maddi took a sip of her chocolate milk. "Well...I heard one day you don't get to talk to your s/o at all."

"Huh, that's interesting."

Maddi laughed. "I don't have a s/o, so I can talk to anyone."

"Who told you that that'll happen one day?"

Maddi shrugged. "I can't remember. Maybe I made it up. Or maybe it was a dream..."

Darik finished his cereal and hurried away before Maddi could drag him into a conversation he didn't want to participate in.

Kirk sat on the couch in the living room of the first floor. There was a TV and plenty of room for many people to sit with him.