Susan's steps were heavy as she strode down the street. The sun was just starting to creep over the horizon, casting its deadly lasers on the streets of Splatsville.
Susan sighed. She still couldn't get that dream out of her head. Ever since that day, she'd relived the horrors of that day consistently. She'd sought therapy after Anna nagged her about it. But after that didn't work, she'd stopped going. Why spend all that money on something that didn't work?
She walked past a group of kids waiting by the entrance of turf war. Looks like she wasn't the only early bird around. The kids were all holding turf war weapons, waiting eagerly for turf war to open up.
Susan chuckled, as she was reminded of her years in Inkopolis. She'd been like these kids. She'd gotten up early, waiting outside of Inkopolis tower, eager to play a few matches. She smiled to herself as she relived the memories with her friends or the many tournaments she'd competed in with her team.
Susan glanced again at the group. One of them had apparently made a really good joke because they all laughed so their laughter echoed from building to building.
Susan had sometimes wondered if she should ever play again. Take a few rounds and forget her worries of everyday life.
She sighed. But, that was a luxury she couldn't have. She didn't have the time to play some silly games. She and Anna already struggled with full working hours. If even a few hours were wasted, their entire life could fall apart.
Susan sighed and looked ahead. "The world sure gets harsher once you grow up…"
Leaving the group of kids to their business, Susan strode down the street as she relived memories of a distant past.
Sand flew into Susan's eyes as she drove over waves and waves of sand. If it weren't for her goggles, she'd be blinded by the harsh sand flying into her face. The engine of her sandmobile roared. It had taken some time to get used to the loud engine, but Susan felt it was an everyday sound now.
Glancing at her map, she took a slight turn, aiming towards a group of rocks in the distance. According to intel, there was unexplored wreckage there. It was inside the territory of another clan, so no scavenger from Splatsville dared to explore it. And the clans were always focused on fighting each other, so they never cared about all this wreckage lying around.
On her many years as a scavenger, Susan had learned the patrol patterns of the neighboring clans. It allowed to slip in after a patrol squad had passed, and then book on out of there right before the next one arrived.
Heck, with the recent war going on and the clans being on the offensive, there might be fewer patrols, which would give Susan even more time to look for valuable stuff.
Susan looked at the clock in her sandmobile. 08:30. A patrol should have gone by an hour ago. That meant she had around six or seven hours until the next one came by.
"That reminds me," Susan muttered, looking at the time. "Anna should be waking up soon."
Almost on cue, Susan's radio began beeping, signaling that someone was trying to contact her.
"Speak of the devil," Susan muttered and picked up the radio. "Yeah, hello."
"Hey Susan!" said Anna's excited voice on the other end. "I saw your note. Why'd you leave so early?"
"Couldn't sleep," Susan replied as she drove between two large rocks. "Decided to get off early and get some stuff done."
"Alright, sounds good," Anna replied but then she froze. Susan was getting pretty worried that the signal had cut out when Anna finally continued.
"Susan, where are you?" Anna's voice spoke, a tone of slight annoyance and exhaustion. Susan smiled awkwardly. She'd known this would happen.
"Well, I don't know exactly where I am," Susan tried to reply in a casual tone. "If you give me some time, I can figure it out on the map."
After a slight pause, Anna replied. "Susan, are you past our borders?"
When Susan said nothing, Anna groaned. She sounded like she was absolutely done with Susan. "You barely escaped with your life yesterday, and you still want to go beyond our borders?"
Susan said nothing, so Anna continued. "Seriously, you are going to get yourself killed if you keep doing this! You know fully well that our calculations of their patrols are flawed! If they spot you, they won't hesitate to capture you as a ransom or something even worse, or they'll just straight up kill you!"
"Anna, relax," Susan replied. "I'm confident in our calculations."
"And since when has math been your strongest suit?" Anna replied coldly. Susan laughed awkwardly.
"Besides, if a patrol comes by, I'll just book it out of here!" Susan said reassuringly. "There's no way they can catch me!"
"Hmmmmm…" Anna replied. After a short pause, she continued.
"I don't approve of this, but I guess it's too late to stop you. But you and I are going to have to have a talk about this, you can't just recklessly drive into clan territory!"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Susan responded. After that, they just sat in silence, as Susan glided over the sand. Finally, Anna spoke again.
"Why couldn't you sleep?" she asked, a bit of caution in her voice. Susan hesitated, but then answered in a casual tone.
"Couldn't sleep."
"Oh?" Anna responded. "I thought you'd stopped having bad dreams. Same one?"
"Yep," Susan replied abruptly. "Same one."
Anna hesitated before she continued. "Tell me, how long has it been since you had a therapy session?"
A knot formed in Susan's stomach. She'd never told Anna that she'd stopped going to therapy. She'd never lied, she'd just never mentioned it. Susan felt the temptation to lie but knew it was easier to just tell the truth.
"I think it's been…" Susan said, thinking. "Like, one year, eight months, three weeks, five days and… I don't know, two hours?"
Susan could hear a long sigh on the other end. "Here it comes…" Susan thought.
"Susan, how many times have we talked about this?" Anna asked in an exhausted voice. "I thought you'd finally swallowed up your pride and turned over a new leaf."
"Anna, I went there for almost a year and nothing helped," Susan replied. "I just didn't see a point in spending all that money on it if it doesn't help me."
"But Susan, doing nothing isn't going to help either!" Anna replied, her voice a little higher than usual. "Heck, it might even make it worse!"
"Then I'll just live with that," Susan answered. She really didn't want to talk about this now. "Besides, they're just dreams. They can't harm me."
"Not harm you?" Anna replied, a bit of doubt in her voice. "You think I haven't noticed how exhausted you've been lately? You're barely able to keep your eyes open at dinner, you have way less focus when I'm talking to you. And don't think I haven't noticed when you go out at night! You just sit out on the balcony for hours on end! If these dreams aren't what's causing this, then what is?!"
Susan bit her lip. She'd dreaded this conversation for a very long time. As much as Susan hated it, everything Anna said was true. The dreams had become a lot more frequent, and she'd barely been able to sleep. But that didn't matter. As long as it didn't cause harm to her on the job, it wasn't important. Anna continued her tone a bit calmer.
"Tell me something, Susan. Maybe it's not working because you don't want it to help. If you just went in there and took it seriously, maybe you'd stop having these dreams."
The knot in Susan's stomach got even tighter. Thinking about it made her uncomfortable.
"Look Anna, can't we talk about this later?" Susan asked. "I'm almost at my destination and-"
"Oh no, don't you pull that one on me!" Anna interrupted. "I am not going to let this go! You are going to therapy whether you like it or not!"
Susan was getting kind of tired of this conversation. Desperate to find a way out, Susan blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Alright, let's make a deal. If I go to therapy, you go to all of these auditions I got for you."
Susan was sure she'd won this argument. She knew Anna was incredibly stressed when it came to the auditions. She always tried to find an excuse. So there was no way she would agree to this. But then Anna spoke.
"Oh, that's all? Great! Then it's a deal! We'll book a session for you when you get back!"
Susan froze. "Oh no," she thought. "Why'd I do that?!"
"Uhm," Susan stuttered hesitantly but could find any words. After a while, she sighed. "Fine."
"Alright, great!" Anna said excitedly. "I gotta start working now, so just contact me if there's any trouble! Anna out!"
The signal cut and Susan was left listening to static noise. "Great…" she muttered and turned off the radio. "Now what?"
She knew there was no way out of this. "Guess I'll just go," she muttered. "I can just go along with it, less trouble."
She tried to get the conversation out of her head, but there was one thing nagging at her brain.
"Did I really just try to abuse my best friend's social anxiety?" she thought. She'd been so desperate for a way out, she'd just said the first thing that popped into her head. She knew Anna dealt with social anxiety. She'd always been awkward in a group of people or when she met strangers. It was the reason why she never went to any auditions.
Susan sighed. "Why did I do that?" she muttered. She'd tried to exploit Anna's anxiety to get out of that situation. If she'd been more focused, she would've never tried that.
"Cod, what a terrible friend I am…" she muttered. She sped up. She could see some large wreckage at the horizon. That must be her target!
She emptied her mind of the previous conversation and drove on over the endless wasteland.