Chapter Twenty:
The Ticket to A Much-Needed Vacation
Meggy arrived back at her house, having already wiped away the tears from her eyes, she slammed the door shut and walked through the mess that was her living room, filled with frustration and more uncertainty than ever.
And unbeknownst to her, the creature in the darkness had reawakened, feasting on her frustration more than ever, getting ready... to strike. She went to her chalkboard, wrote down the jobs she'd tried that she hadn't tried before and crossed them off.
Meggy looked over it all, thinking of what was next, what was there left to do in life and how was she going to get through this rough phase?
In a minute and a half, she became more flustered than ever, pain and frustration welling in her very being until the room seemed to spin around Meggy and was obscured in darkness. The sunlight pouring in through the window vanished and confusion came to the surface in Meggy's mind and she felt dizzy...
"What's the matter, feeling a little... lost?"
'Huh...'
"You're all alone, without hope, without direction. You are pathetic, hopeless, with nobody to guide you through your turmoil."
And she saw it, standing before her, taking her shape and staring at her with menacing yellow eyes while sporting the same clothes as her.
The shadow stared at her with a cold, soulless expression, the creature's eyes blank with nothing but the shade of yellow that pierced Meggy's soul and feasted upon every sorrow and negative emotion she ever felt.
"Who are you?" Meggy demanded.
The shadow smiled. "The darkness that has dwelt within, awakened by your every waking hour filled with doubt, sorrow and insecure hopelessness, I'm you… or… at least the part of you that acknowledges the truth, that you're not good at anything..."
Meggy punched at the dark reflection, but missed, and the shadow continued to taunt her.
"Not at jobs, not at life... Not even at friendships. You ran from the only people willing to put up with you and help you..." Meggy attempted to punch the shadow, but to no avail, and the shadow continued mocking the Splatfest champion, "So, do yourself and everyone else a favor..."
'No...' Meggy dropped to her knees, exhausted by what she was enduring.
"GIVE UP!"
The word echoed in her head, the shadow repeated them, then the darkness vanished and Meggy was back in her house. She didn't know what to think, but she needed rest.
Right now, she really was lost, but what she needed the most was some rest and maybe she'd figure it out when she was fresh and ready to keep going. And yet, that monster wasn't going to go away, not for a while at least.
Meggy then heard a knock on the door, probably one of her neighbors, or her friends. She went to answer it and saw that it was the latter; Mario, SMG4, Luigi, Bob, Tari and Saiko with Mario holding a wrapped envelope.
"Here you go, Meggy." Mario said happily.
Meggy took the envelope and unwrapped it, as soon as she did, her eyes widened.
"No way…" She breathed, "Is this?"
"Yeah." Tari nodded, "We put this together with all the money you made at work today and bought this for you."
Meggy couldn't believe her eyes, but it was true. Right there, resting in her hand, was a free ticket to Port Aurora, she'd seen an advertisement of the place prior to babysitting JubJub that day.
For months, she'd been trying to figure out how to get enough money so she could travel there, her friends must've known and decided to arrange something.
SMG4 stepped forward, "I know when I need to figure things out, I just go on a break."
Meggy looked at her friends, filled with a sense of relief. "Oh my gosh…" She breathed, "Thank you so much, all of you..."
Tari hugged Meggy, Meggy returned the hug, then the others hugged her. When the hug finished, the beanie-wearing human looked at the rest of the gang, her friends, the people who'd supported and helped her in coming out on top in Splatfest and had her back throughout every adventure and peril they'd faced together.
"I'm sorry for yelling at you all back there." She said, "I may not know what I want to do with life, but..." she held up the ticket, "Maybe this is the ticket I need to figure it o..."
Just then, the gang heard a noise and turned, seeing the two hobos from Saiko's restaurant rolling down the street in a cart with Hobo 1 at the back and Hobo 2 at the front with a megaphone proclaiming; "THE DAY OF RECKONING IS UPON US! HONOR THE ALMIGHTY FOUR AND HE SHALL SAVE YOU!"
There was a clatter as the two Hobos crashed into a wall, Meggy was very annoyed, having already had enough of those guys. "The sooner I'm on this vacation, the better." She said irritably.