Morrigan grimaced as the map spread over her steering wheel slipped down between her knees and she briefly took her eyes off the road to fish it out again. When she looked back up something small and dark was streaking into the road from an empty, ploughed field to her left – a racoon, perhaps, or maybe a stray cat – and, shrieking, she slammed her foot onto the brake. The wheels of her truck spun and slid across the mud until she finally came to a stop.
Moaning, she fell forwards to rest her forehead against the steering wheel. Today had not been pleasing.
The road was so bumpy to start with that she had no idea whether she'd hit the little animal or not, but a glance in her rear view mirror showed no dark shape lying in the pale mud, so she bit her lip regretfully and lifted the map back up, this time staying stationary in the road. It wasn't like anyone else was going to come along, after all.
She should be there. She should be almost on top of it, she was sure of it, but there was nothing but some old, disused train tracks to her left and fields – a barn in each – on either side of her. Perhaps a little further, she thought, just a little further, then she would turn around.
It turned out to have been the correct decision. As her old truck juddered over the top of the hill the town came into view, and she was there. Twinbrook. Her new home.
Except not quite.
"What?" she snapped, infuriated, as she pulled closer to the rusting water tower and was forced to slow to a stop. There was a fence. A goddamn fence, stretched right across the road and a few metres to either side, where the ground rose up again. There was no way she was getting the big, hulking truck around it.
She pushed the driver's side door open – it complained in its usual way, creaks and groans and cracks and flaking metal paint drifting to the ground – and stepped out, her boot instantly sucked into the mud. Ignoring the ooze sinking into the stained suede she stepped forwards and examined the fence. Flimsy, made of a pale, soft wood. She could probably splinter it with her hands if she tried, she was certainly strong enough. It looked mouldy too, as if it had been stood there for years and everyone had just forgotten about it.
There was no-one around. No noises apart from the birds tweeting in the wild trees lining the road. There was no way she was going back and trying to get back around – she'd got lost twice already and she could see the damn town if she craned her neck. Nope. No chance of going back.
Morrigan wiped her sweaty hands. On the other side of the fence was real tarmac, no more muddy back roads. A real road. The stop sign on the fence made her pause for a moment, wondering whether or not she was driving on private land and whether she'd be fined for trespassing if she lingered long enough.
So she didn't linger for long. Glancing around to check that she was really alone she climbed back into her truck, wiping her muddy boots on the grim carpet and zipping up her jacket before putting her foot down and ploughing right through the fence, scattering shards of soft wood across the cracked black surface of the road. The stop sign twirled across her bonnet and lodged itself in a tree to her left. Right. That was done. Onwards.
She stopped again just beyond the next junction, this time pulling a sheet of handwritten instructions down from where they had been tucked neatly above the sun visor. It was her own handwriting, the instructions having been relayed to her down the phone by the agent she had been supposed to meet half an hour ago to pick up the keys to her new house. She'd set off nearly nine hours ago, and the journey had only been supposed to take five.
End of Puddlewick Drive, turn left before the bridge. Go past stadium, straight on over dam, turn left before estate. Take next left before dam. Turn right. 26 Herschel's Pond Road.
Right. Puddlewick Drive? To her right – over the rickety-looking wooden bridge – was a street of large, opulent manor houses and mansions. Most of them had pools. She decided it was unlikely her new house was anywhere amongst them, and so ignored the street, instead driving a little further onwards until… Success! The sports stadium, it had to be. Gingerly, she drove around it, them spotted the dam a little further along. She was on the right track.
She missed the turning before the estate and found herself driving through a nice neighbourhood of modern-looking houses, brightly-lit streets and barking dogs. Glancing back, she saw the turning she'd missed and turned around, getting it right the second time and leaving the friendly street lights behind.
The ground here was marshy, pooling water filling every dip in the land. Surely there wouldn't be houses here? Maybe she'd written the instructions down wrong? She should go back to town and ask someone…
Oh.
Oh.
"Oh," she said out loud, for good measure.
It was a cabin. No - it could barely even be called a cabin. It was wooden, built above two separate pools of muddy water on thick stilts. She needed to climb two sets of stairs to even get to the front door. From the top level a dishevelled estate agent was sat on the grimy decking, legs dangling through the gaps in the rusty metal fencing. As she watched he waved, then slapped at a patch on his neck – mosquitoes, maybe. Perfect.
Morrigan stepped out of the truck, her lip unconsciously curling as she stared up in dismay at her new house. The orphanage had been better than this! She'd known she hadn't had a very big budget, but this? Olga had said she'd done the best she could, but this was below ridiculous. She'd phone her later, see if there hadn't been a mistake.
"Hi," Morrigan called up at the estate agent, who stood up and wiped at the backs of his trousers. She ascended the first set of creaky wooden steps nervously, waiting for them to splinter underneath her feet. They didn't, they held her. Just. The second set was longer, she noticed with a grimace. On this bottom level of the building sat a dirt-encrusted, rusting grill, and a washing machine. A washing machine, outside? It barely looked functional. The thick, square pillars holding up the second level looked functional, at least. It wasn't like there was a lot of weight to hold up, anyway.
"Miss… Vox?" he asked nervously, extending one sweaty hand, as she reached the top of the second set of stairs.
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Pleasure."
He noticed the unimpressed look on her face and his smile became a little sympathetic. "I've got your key for you, and a spare just in case. Welcome to Twinbrook."
She nodded slowly. "Okay."
"It's a nice town," he said quietly. "Low crime. Lots of jobs."
"Yeah, I… I know. I'm supposed to start working at the grocery store tomorrow."
"Oh! Well, that's nice. You'll like that."
"Is the whole town like…" she gestured around at the muddy gloom, thinking of the beautiful manor houses she'd seen before disbelievingly, and he laughed nervously.
"No," he blinked and licked his thin lips. "You're below the dam at the moment, on the flood plains. Her eyebrows shot up and he hastened to console her. "Don't worry, it's never actually been flooded since the dam was built. Once you get up into the town proper it's much…"
"Drier?"
He smiled and nodded and Morrigan sighed, looking around at the greenery. Standing in the corner of what she was fairly certain was her land was a tall willow tree, obviously decades old, and similar foliage surrounded the plot. She could deal with that.
A mosquito landed on her bare throat and bit. That was going to be less easy to deal with.
"Anyway," said the estate agent, slapping at his exposed wrists as more mosquitoes landed. "I'm going to leave you to get… settled in. You have my number?" Morrigan nodded. "Alrighty then. Maybe I'll see you around town?"
She nodded silently, staring at the key in her hand.
"Good, then. It was nice to meet you, Miss Vox."
"Mmhmm."
She approached the door as he descended the stairs and disappeared down the road. It was whitewashed wood, a lamp with a rusty metal shade hanging from the wall next to it. There was no visible switch. Inside, maybe?
The key was difficult to turn in the door but it came open eventually, letting some light from outside into the grim hovel.
"Ohhh… God!" Morrigan snapped, staring into the gloom. The walls were undecorated wood and grey cinderblock, the floor uncarpeted boards. The phone on the wall and the bare bulbs hanging down from the ceiling were the only signs of electricity. She flipped the switch and the lights flickered on, and when she picked up the phone there was a dial tone – so everything was functional, at least. There was an almost empty bookshelf, a sofa, a table and two chairs, a rickety-looking double bed and a chest of drawers, along with a tiny kitchen area. And that was it. A door led through to a dark, dingy bathroom, stained porcelain seeming to mock her as she looked down at it. She had to use that. Dear God, she had to live here! The one mirror on the wall was cracked and warped, she could barely make out her face in it. That would have to go. There were no blinds on the windows but she supposed it didn't matter, she hadn't seen any other houses in the immediate area so it wasn't like anyone was going to come looking.
She stripped off her jacket – old, cracked leather – and laid it down gingerly on the small dining table.
"Welcome to Vox Manor," she muttered sarcastically, staring around at her new home in dismay. With a deep sigh she pulled out a book from the sparse selection the previous owner had left in the bookshelf (all dog-eared and worn), which turned out to be some kind of electrical manual. Well, if there was one thing she knew how to do it was handle a wrench, so she settled back on the creaky sofa and prepared herself for an awful afternoon.
A/N - I decided to start writing up my sim's life story a while back because I'm that kind of boring. I'm not really sure where this is going but it'll probably include spoilers for World Adventures, although it won't follow exactly because that would be really tedious.
Literally all I own of this at this point is the design of my character, everything else belongs to the creators of the Sims, so no profit is being made from this and it's just for fun.
Enjoy!