"yes Mom, everything's fine, the plane landed 2 hours ago".

"Yes, I just got off the train"

"No, I don't need money- just spend that money to go eat with Dad? You know, that place you both like"

"Well, I don’t need it, but thank you anyway, love you byeeee"

“Oh wait, is Michal ok? Good. Love you”

Putting down my phone I let out a loud, exaggerated sigh. It's not as though I've ever found plane journeys fun, but the trip here was especially stressful. Even getting on to the train from the airport was hellish.

Realising I got off track, I shook my head and took a glance around the train station. Peering over the countless heads I found the sign pointing to the exit. The place was filled to the brim with people, so I had to shuffle my way there slowly. Luckily I didn’t have any large baggage, which made the crawl easier. But my shuffle was stopped by a fairly tall woman with short bright red hair. She walked up and stood directly in front of me. I looked down towards her. 

I wasn’t sure how to react to that, "Erm h-hello?" I hesitated.

"Erm h-h-h-h-hello to you too?" the woman mocked, "you're Dan, arn' ya?"

I stood there for a bit, wondering what she expected from me before realising that she had literally just asked me. "Er, yeah-yes, yes I'm- Dan". I stood there in uncomfortable silence for a moment longer before building the confidence to ask.

"So you're Sandra?"

"Wow, you really are the genius Mike says you are," Sandra remarked, continuing in the same mocking tone. She then turned around and started walking to the exit, and assuming that I should, I followed her.

After exiting the station she took a right turn, then a left, then a right in a winding path. Honestly, I was impressed by her boldfaced confidence, going up to someone you'd never met before, essentially calling them an idiot, then walking away, not even checking whether or not they were following.

The city we were in was very similar to what I was used to, lines of buildings with about 3 to 4 floors, shops under every one of them. The only major difference was the amount of people, it was so crowded that moving without stepping on someone's feet was a great feat. Sandra continued to navigate around the city for another 15 minutes before we arrived at a parking lot. She glanced behind her before walking to a supposedly green car so muddy I doubted it had even seen the rain before.

She took out her keys, jammed them into the door, and wiggled them around for a moment before getting them to turn. She swung the driver's side door open and barely waited for a second before saying, "So ya gettin' in or not, hrm?" continuing the 'are you an idiot' tone. She was beginning to get on my nerves, but not wanting to risk my lift and housing, I sucked it up.

I dipped to the other side of the car with a "Yep" and a forced smile. Gripping the handle of the car door, I pulled it open and slid onto the passenger seat, putting my bag on my lap, and my larger one by my feet. She then stepped into the car as well, took a second to start the car and then immediately went full throttle.

She drove in silence for a while, but apparently not being a fan of silence, began to talk. 

“We don’t get much rain”, before remarking “You were looking at the mud”. It would have been hard to not look at it, but I didn’t say that.  She waited a second and took her eyes off the traffic to look at me before facing the road again.  

“It's dry here, so you won’t need any jackets you brought with,” 

“I didn’t bring any jackets,”

“Ha, not bringing a jacket when going somewhere is stupid” she contradicted herself, But I was pretty sure she knew that already.

Those were the only words we exchanged throughout the drive, not that I had an issue with that. We eventually reached the outer area of the city, which had only straight row houses, separated by small spaces of grass between them. They were pretty nice houses, actually, really nice houses.

I moved to open the car door, but Sandra grabbed my arm "No parties, no drugs, no breaking anything, no noise, nd' remember, ya only hear because of Mike, got it".

It wasn’t like I had the right to contest anyway since I was paying practically nothing for to stay in such a nice place. 

"Yeah, of course," I then opened the door and stepped out "and thanks,".

"Armhem" she grumbled as she bent over the passenger seat and pulled the door shut before immediately driving off.

 "But- I, why?" I was completely stumped on why she didn't just let me close the door myself, until realising that I was standing In the middle of the road.

Walking to the house I'd be staying in for a while, I looked in my bag to take out the keys, and after unlocking the house got confused again "I don't remember being given the keys though" I muttered continuing to feel as though I was losing my god damn mind.

I tossed the bag by the sofa chair and took a quick look around the interior. The kitchen, while lacking a cooking pot, had plates and cutlery, so I wouldn’t need to use paper stuff. The rest of the space was pretty empty. There was a small TV, the sofa chair, 2 tables, and a bed and not much else. This worked out well for me, I like things not being too filled anyway. 

After taking my look around, I made my way back to the lounge and slumped down on the small sofa pulling out the book “Death Tomorrow”. I continued to sit there reading, completely losing track of time.

/system starting- choose class/

Something like a punch to the gut, and everything became a shade of black and blue.