No Such Thing As Broken

Chapter 7: To the Valley

Susan woke up exhausted and feeling like death itself to the annoying sound of her alarm blaring through her earbuds that had somehow magically managed to stay in during the night. She was in no mood to do anything at the moment, or ever again really. She just stayed in her hammock until her second alarm went off. She had a class to get to.

She didn't want to go. She really didn't want to go.

She knew no one in the class but still felt like she wasn't welcome there. Besides, she was still stuck in the same clothes as yesterday. She had other outfits in her car but that was too much effort. She would have to go a public bathroom to get ready.

She could technically going into her dorm building and just use a different hall bathroom. But she didn't want to risk it. Risk running into anyone she knew or thought she knew. She didn't want to do anything.

But she needed to get to class, she paid for the stupid things, might as well go to them.

Ever so slowly, the girl forced herself out of the hammock and out the door of the library. Her first stop was her car to get the things she needed. She felt like literally garbage but she wasn't going to risk going close to the dorms until she knew one of Rozene's classes was well underway. Which wouldn't be until about a half an hour after Susan's class got out. That's if it got out on time, the professor was notorious for starting late and ending late.

Until then she will settle for a quick splash from a sink and a new set of clothes. And possibly some gum and coffee. Susan normally hated coffee but she was at the state where she hated everything equally so why not.

The bathroom she chose was not in the library but not too far away that it was unreasonable. It was empty, which was nice. If any bathroom was ever going to be empty, it would be this one. For some reason people just didn't like it.

Susan didn't bother with a fresh face of makeup, simply cleaned off the stuff that got messed up and reapplied in spots. She combed her hair to an understandable condition and called it good.

Her new clothes were just the pants she wore the day before, new under clothes, and a sweatshirt. Nice and comfortable. Not to mention indistinguishable from the crowd. Perfectly normal. Perfectly safe. She needed to stay safe. She needed to stay hidden. Just another face in the crowd that no one bothered with.

Susan stayed in the bathroom for a while longer. She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to face the world. The outside world was dangerous, people out there didn't believe she existed. She wasn't wanted.

But she had a class to go to. She wasn't going to waste her money on moping around in a bathroom. Leave that for the musicals, she had a life to live. And she had no idea how much life there was left for her to live.

Slowly she stepped out of the bathroom. Something felt, off. It was to quiet. The campus was normally full of life at this point. But it was still. The air was sick, heavy. Something was wrong. Either something was wrong or something was going to be wrong.

Susan knew it she couldn't be the only one who felt it. No one was here so even the most oblivious had a clue. Even if they didn't know it. They knew, instinctively, they knew, something was going down. A primal fear could spread by the simplest wave of a hand, people knew, something bad was about to happen.

Susan rushed to class, she didn't want to be outside. It was making her sick. She wanted to cry. The air was poison. She felt sick. She didn't want to be outside any longer.

Susan sprinted to class. She had to. She couldn't stand being outside.

She bolted up the stairs. Pushing the door open, she found that the room was mostly full already. Class didn't start for a while but somehow, the class was fairly well populated.