Neutral Waters 1-1

Robin Waters had barely stepped out of the cab before the itch to reach for her phone took over.  This was an important moment, and the thought of it going unchronicled was out of the question.  It wasn’t just the start of her new life on her own, but the start of her internet fame.  Or so she hoped anyway.  In anticipation of her impending success she dubbed her new blog “Rise of the Pale”.  Yeah, that sounds good.

 

After finishing her first entry in what would undoubtedly become the most famous blog ever, she wandered over to SimTube to see what crazy new videos had been posted since she had last checked it during her cab ride from the airport.  It wasn’t long before she found herself on the dark side of video offerings.

Deciding that she had seen enough, Robin put her phone back in her pocket and took a look around at her new place.  It was small but in this neighborhood her limited funds were not going to get her very far.  In fact, it had taken almost all of her money just to secure the little place and she knew that she could not survive for long without any income.  She needed a job now, and headed straight into town to the local grocer, looking for work.

They only had part time positions available, but little money was better than no money, and she took the job without hesitation.

On her way out the door she noticed a young man tapping away at his phone.  They had at least one thing in common, and it wouldn’t hurt to get to know some of the locals, so she stopped to chat.

 

Before long there was a small crowd gathered around the grocer entry.

Despite a friendly start to the conversation, Robin and Tulip Frost discovered that they had some irreconcilable differences that they just couldn’t overcome.  About weather no less…

After her fight with Tulip, Robin decided it was time to head home.  There wasn’t anything to do there, so after a quick dinner she climbed into bed, hoping to be well rested for her new job.  Her day hadn’t been all bad, but she couldn’t shake a feeling of unease.

The next morning was wet and dreary.  Robin could barely see where the sky ended and the ocean began, the fog was so thick over the water.

She didn’t mind the cold, but the gloom outside her windows was permeating the small, empty house, and she felt alone for the first time since her move.

Being a genie had its perks, though, and a slice of angel food cake was just what she needed to help pull her out of her doldrums.

When the carpool stopped to pick her up the driver handed her a pile of clothes and informed her that this was her uniform that she would be wearing on the job.  She became a little perplexed as to what exactly her responsibilities at the grocery store would be, and how this particular outfit would help her accomplish them.

 

After a while Robin realized exactly how tiny her paychecks would be, and knew that in her current situation she had little hope of having enough money to survive.  She dreamed of the day that she could live off of her blog alone, but she had few followers, and was starting to doubt that it would ever go anywhere.

She needed a plan B, and a college degree was probably her best hope of a stable future.  If she wanted to get there she needed to start saving money, and at the moment her small cash reserve was dwindling.  Part of her plan included trying to get her hands on as many scholarships as possible, and after a trip to the second-hand shop she had some books to study from.  She also managed to cobble together a cheap bookshelf to accompany her milk-crate couch.

Another part of the plan meant spending less money on bills, and Robin started hunting for a roommate to help cover the cost of her house payment and utilities.  She had few possessions and there was more than enough room to squeeze another twin size bed into her bedroom.  She was elated when a young woman by the name of Jesse Lime responded to her ad.

Jesse seemed like a nice young girl, and over all was pretty quiet.  She seemed to spend an awful lot of time in the bathroom though.

While she was looking through the paper one morning she noticed that they were looking for test subjects at the science center, and were offering payment that far exceeded her meager earnings at the grocer.  She was already frustrated by her work conditions and the lack of opportunity there, so she hightailed it to the science center to fill out an application.  After her change in jobs “Rise of the Pale” saw its first positive post since its start.  Even better, it brought in some new followers.

Robin found that the library close to the science center was a great place to study in preparation for her college entry exams.  It helped that the chairs there were much more comfortable than her old futon mattress stacked on crates that served for a couch at home.

Sadly, her couch wasn’t the only piece of incredibly uncomfortable furniture in her home.  Every night she tossed and turned, and when she got up in the mornings she was still exhausted.  One night, though, it wasn’t her mattress that was keeping her awake as much as a foul stench that pulled her from her bed in the middle of the night.

She was dismayed to find the odor coming from her fridge.  Like everything else in her house it was dirt cheap, and its quality showed.  Jesse, too, was awakened by the smell coming from the kitchen.

When she took the spoiled food out to the garbage can she discovered that a raccoon must have wandered into the yard and helped itself to some yummy refuse.  The rest of the garbage lay scattered across the driveway.  It was more than she wanted to deal with at 3 in the morning.

But when she was approached by an umbrella-toting zombie something in her snapped.  Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, maybe it was just the ridiculousness of the entire situation, or something else entirely, but when she saw that zombie she did not run and hide in her home.  No, she seemed to think he was the most adorable thing she had ever seen.

After mock-attacking the zombie when his own pathetic attempt at an attack failed, she couldn’t help but laugh.  Then she turned around, waved the zombie off, and went inside to go back to bed, leaving the garbage for the morning.

The rain had picked back up, so the zombie took out his rainbow-hued umbrella, and shuffled away.

Umbrella-man wasn’t the only zombie who stopped by the house that night.

Apparently zombies aren’t so far gone that they have forgotten how to text…

While being a test subject offered almost-liveable wages, the actual experience on the job wasn’t ideal.  One of the tasks she was given involved plant mutations, and she hoped by growing a few houseplants of her own she would gain some extra knowledge about them and hopefully get herself some kind of promotion faster.

One morning while she was getting ready for work she discovered that her roommate had plugged up the toilet and left it for her to deal with.  Robin was less than pleased.

She couldn’t ignore her own bladder though, and it would need to be taken care of anyway, so she scrounged up a plunger and went to work.

Just when she was starting to stress out about not being ready for work on time, her carpool driver called.  He apologized for not telling her sooner, but turns out that since it was Spooky Day they had the day off.  Robin was disappointed at first because she really needed the money, but was relieved to hear that she would be receiving some holiday pay to make up for the lack of income.  She decided to spend the day at the Spooky Day festival.  Money was still tight, and she was trying to save as much as she could, so she limited her spending to a single cup of coffee.

The festival was full of photo booths and face painting, and everywhere she looked she saw places ready to suck her pockets dry.  At one end of the fair, though, there was a haunted house that was actually free to enter.  Surely it was creepier at night, but she appreciated all of the effort that went into putting it together, and for the distraction from her economic plight.

After posting her adventure through the haunted house on her blog she decided to wander around the festival and meet some more of the townsfolk.  After all there wasn’t much to do at home, and it was still pretty early in the day.  She met a young man by the name of Zee after the pie-eating contest was finished, and while their conversation started off nice enough, he didn’t want to have anything to do with watching silly SimTube videos on her phone, cat or otherwise.

Feeling dejected, she cut her day at the festival short, and went back home.  The exhaustion that her coffee had kept at bay started to creep up on her.  Jesse was reading on her bed, and lacking any energy for sim interaction Robin turned around and collapsed on the couch instead.  At least it wasn’t any less comfortable than the bed currently occupied by her roomie, and as she drifted off to sleep she wondered how long it would be until she managed to get a decent night’s sleep.