I actually had a bit of fun with this. Combining personal experience with fictional narrative is actually a lot of fun and super relaxing, and I'm sad I didn't think of this sooner. That being said, since a lot of this is personal experience, that includes stupid judgement calls like antihistamine sleep aids. And self administered tattoos. (that doesnt happen for a while tho). Writing Star is a bit of a challenge cause she's kinda my exact opposite. I'm a transman who took no value in his appearance during my time at uni. Star, on the other hand, does, and takes pleasure in doing a lot more feminine-coded stuff, like cheer-leading. Also fun fact: my favorite way to wake up from a nightmare is via overheating. I hardly ever remember a dream when that happens, and I can re-orient myself so much quicker. I am very glad that there is a medication for nightmares. I've been on it for about two weeks, it's amazing.
In the calm quiet, just before dawn, Star felt her body get hot. She sucked in a breath as she opened her eyes. It was like she had been underwater, and was just now reaching the surface. Her body was hot. An unnatural heat seemed to radiate out from her heart and into her hands and feet. Her hair clung uncomfortably to her clammy shoulders. Too hot. She tossed her comforter to the side, where it fell unceremoniously six feet to the floor.
She breathed, feeling her heart slow, and carefully sat up before tossing her hair behind her. She suddenly felt cold in just a camisole and sweat pants. She deeply regretted throwing her blanket to the ground. A quick glance to Morgan's alarm clock across the room informed her that it was six am. Star sighed, and realized that she may as well get up. Her class was at nine, so she had to be up in a few hours anyway.
Not for the first time, she thanked whatever higher powers were out there that she only had a 12 hour course load. Her French class was even online, which meant that she could do that on her own time. Not that she did, but she reasoned that she could always work on it later. She knew she would be kicking herself when the end of the semester got closer, but right now she really didn't care. Caring took too much effort, and most of it had already been spent caring about the classes she actually had to attend.
She decided that right now would be a good time to take a shower. Hardly anyone else would be up, and she didn't want to disturb her roommate, so she grabbed the small bag that held her soaps, lotions, and hairbrush, along with her towel and bathrobe, and, after slipping on a pair of cheap flip-flops, headed down the hall to the showers.
Much to her displeasure, she got stuck in the dorm with communal showers, but it wasn't too hard to get used to. It was hardly any different from the gym showers all the girls used after cheer practice. If there was one thing Star missed about Amity it was cheer-leading. For some reason, and no one was ever really sure why, the school was almost never attacked after hours. Maybe it was because there weren't really any humans to terrorize? That was probably it. All the same, Star always felt safest at cheer practice and football games.
She could lose herself in the routine. Out there on the field all that mattered was her and her team. Moving in sync with the other girls, the somersaults and flips, the pyramid building and deconstructing- These were all things that made her feel like she didn't have a care in the world. She remembered quiet clearly that the last time she felt truly happy was at the last football game her senior year. The Ravens had suffered a rather horrific loss, but she cheered her heart out, and that was all that mattered to her. She only regretted that their team didn't make it to state, because as far as Casper High was concerned, the end of football season meant the end of cheer season as well.
When she reached the shower, the first thing she did after hanging her robe on a hook was turn on the hot water. The only down side to showering so early was that it took a little while for the water to warm up. On the bright side, she wouldn't have to worry about running out. So that was a plus. By the time she shrugged off her clothes in the linked changing stall and stepped under the stream of water it was nice and steaming.
There really was nothing like a nice hot shower to wash away the night's anxieties. Sleeping was something that Star found increasingly stressful, as counterintuitive as it seemed. As the water ran through her long blond hair she wondered why her sleeping troubles and anxiety problems were still so bad even after leaving Amity Park. She also didn't remember being anywhere near this jumpy while she was back at home.
Thinking back on it, however, she realized that she had always been a bit jumpy since the ghosts started showing up. But, then again, so had everyone else. Especially since junior year, when ghost fighting was integrated into the upperclassman gym curriculum. Now that she thought about it, Danny and Valerie seemed especially paranoid. And even though Danny had never done well in gym before, he had the best reflexes in their ghost fighting class. Valerie was the only one that could even come close to his skill.
Star grabbed her shampoo from where she placed it on the shower floor, and squeezed some into her palms before working it through her thick hair. The scent of mint helped to wake her up some more. She supposed it made sense that Danny was good at ghost fighting; he was the son of two ghost hunters, after all. But then, wouldn't someone have seen him fighting ghosts around town? Ever since the Red Huntress upgraded her suit, it was no secret that she had actually been Valerie the whole time, but what about Danny? He always seemed to be the first to flee the scene in a ghost attack. But after that, it was never long before- Star cussed loudly. She had gotten soap in her eye. With a bit of a groan, she washed out her eye with some water cupped in her hand, and then moved on to rinsing the soap from her hair, her train of thought completely forgotten in the wake of personal injury.
She grabbed her wash cloth and body wash and proceeded to clean her arms and upper torso. Star had hoped that getting away from Amity would make things easier. But it was almost as if it had made things worse. At least in Amity, there was a valid reason for her to be so stressed and paranoid. Here in Kingsdale, her nightmares were far worse than they had ever been, and now it seemed that even just the mention of ghosts was enough to put her in high alert. Perhaps she was just afraid that the supernatural plague would somehow follow her from Amity and shatter her peaceful life at King U. Maybe her body and mind were so used to being in a constant state of worry that they didn't know how to handle peace and safety anymore. That didn't sound too unreasonable to her.
Once she was clean, she shut off the water and stepped out of the shower stall and into the changing one. A bit of water had splashed back, making the floor slightly damp. She wrapped her hair in a towel and laid her bathrobe on the small bench before sitting down, so she could apply sweet smelling lotion to her arms and legs. As she spread the lotion over her legs, she felt the fine hairs there. One of the benefits of being a natural blond was she didn't have to shave as often. She would probably do it in about two days, but for now it was hardly noticeable, and for that she was glad. Star didn't think she could bring herself to care enough to shave this morning. She noticed that she was a lot more apathetic about things like that. Sometimes, on the weekends when she had no where to be, she wouldn't even shower at all. In the past, she would shower almost twice a day, but now she considered herself lucky if she could motivate herself to do more than simply rinse off the day's grime.
Clean and moisturized, Star shrugged on her bathrobe and gathered up her toiletries before heading back to her room to finish getting ready for the day. She decided that she wouldn't bother with blow drying her hair today, because Morgan didn't have to be awake until after Star's first class, and she didn't want to wake up her sort-of friend.
Star sighed as she re-entered her room, thinking forward to her plans to meet with Professor Smalls later in that day. She had no idea how she was going to explain her actions, but she couldn't just ignore it. It wouldn't sit right with her, and she knew that. She had a feeling that she was in for another long day.