Hello and welcome to my shitty self-insert (except it's not me) fanfiction. (Practically everyone that writes self-inserts claims it's not them, so you can choose to believe me or not.)

This is a completely unoriginal take on the classic Modern-Girl-in-Amesteris story! MGIA? Are there enough shitty self-inserts in this fandom for it to have an abbreviation? That's not to say that every self-insert is shitty, I wouldn't write this stuff if I didn't enjoy every SI story I've ever read. It's an endearing term. I have a very large soft spot for self-inserts. They're my not-so-guilty pleasure.

The Cool (read: pretentious) Latin PhraseTM translates to "who watches the watchers?", meaning who protects us against those who (supposedly) protect us?

Apologies in advance for whatever grammar mistakes pop up, do not hold back in correcting me.

The image for this is a picture of my dog because I'd feel too guilty stealing a stock image, and I'm too lazy to design something myself.

.I.

Mid-June, 2016 - Farm

Anna had completed high school, her graduation a small affair occurring the weekend before. She had resigned from her position working at the bookstore in town. She had sold her little truck to a boy who lived a couple of farms down. Her room was clean, near empty, her meager belongings neatly packed into a few boxes lined up against the far wall, yet to be loaded into the plane.

She would fly from the farm into Minneapolis this afternoon, her father piloting their little plane. Her brother would meet her there, and they would drive to their new apartment together, and the next stage of her sleepy little life would begin.

Anna was not clever, or beautiful, or special, or creative, or even particularly kind. She also wasn't stupid, or hideous, or particularly unkind. But she was common, ordinary, and completely unspectacular. She was average, perhaps lingering just below.

She graduated on time, with a regular class rank and a regular GPA. She was overweight, her face covered in an excessive smattering of freckles typical of redheads, and her features a bit lopsided. She'd never been with anyone, not that she was particularly interested. Her friends all lived in a city 5 hours away, and she hadn't seen them in years. She hadn't written to them or texted them much either. She'd never bothered to make friends here.

She was ordinary. Average of mind, average of appearance. She had never done anything exceptional. She never planned to.

Anna did not aspire to much. She would have her little apartment with her brother, she would work a little meaningless job just enough to pay her half of the rent. She would go to a little community college in Minneapolis and get a little associate's degree in something that would allow her to continue to be imperfectly average for the rest of her life. She'd be some sort of secretary, or a court reporter, or a paralegal, or a translator. Something where she would work regular hours, indoors, behind a desk. She'd make median income, just enough to be not quite content. She didn't plan to marry, or to have children, or to do much of anything.

There wasn't a spark in her. She didn't feel restless. She wasn't filled with wanderlust or a desire for adventure.

She didn't think she was depressed. She wasn't crushed by the weight of her misery. She simply didn't care. And she wasn't sad that she didn't care. She regarded her life with a grey, lifeless apathy.

Intellectually, she figured that she ought to feel differently, but she could never quite muster up the emotion to really care.

Her father wasn't home yet, but it was nearing noon. She stood, stretched and made the few trips up and down the stairs with the boxes, her things sitting at the farmhouse door, ready to be moved into the plane.

She sat in the rocking chair in the living room and gently moved back and forth. She tapped out a rhythm on her knee. She pulled her hair out of a ponytail, then back into the same ponytail. She drew her phone from her pocket but quickly discovered there was little to do. The screen timed out, the phone still in her hand, as she stared out the window into nothing. Her mind buzzed with little mundane things.

There was no longing for more, no wish that things could be different.

She didn't want for beauty or intelligence, or greater bravery or strength. She just sat, not quite content, but not endeavoring to change anything.

Eventually, her father arrived home with his wife. Anna continued to sit while they bustled about. After some time, she rose, and brought her boxes to the plane, securing them within. When she finished, she made a move to return to the house, but instead, stilled. She got up and sat in the co-pilot's seat. She had no wish to say goodbye to her room, or her home, or the farm animals, or her father's wife. She settled in and continued to stare out at nothing, absently twisting her ring around her finger.

The flight was short and silent, uneventful. They touched down and waited for her brother, who arrived a few minutes after landing. Her father must have called ahead to let him know they had departed earlier than planned.

They all made quick work of depositing her boxes in the car, and her brother got in, the engine still idling.

Anna gave her father a one-armed hug and nodded her goodbye before turning sharply and walking away.

It was a short, silent, and uneventful farewell.

She and her brother made inane conversation on the trip to their apartment, filling the silence, though silence didn't really bother them. The radio played over their conversation, neither of them listening to it. She supposed neither of them were really listening to each other either.

Anna resumed her blank staring at the passing landscape.