Reverse Hopper, Reversed Fortunes - Part Three

I open the driver's side door, hopping out quickly as I lurch and stumble on the uneven cobblestone. I hear a voice scream in shock as I appear from behind the dumpster, the cry quickly being followed by my world spinning as I'm brought to the ground along with the utter stranger.

"S... sorry..." I croak, groaning a little as I feel my arm pressing against their shoulder while my other hand rests grazed against the stones beneath me. As I try to stand I feel my arm tug on something, the feeling of their warm skin against mine pulling painfully as though we were super glued together.

"I... oh..." the voice mutters as her words catch in her throat. Leaning back I look down as I find myself staring at a bespectacled skinny and short woman in her late teens with long black hair pulled back into a thick braid, her large and heaving bust pooling to the sides of her petite torso. 

A set of pale icy blue eyes look up at me in shock, her delicate jaw hanging open as she begins to hyperventilate.

Reverse Hopper, Reversed Fortunes - Part Two

I reach in through the window as I turn off the radio, the screeching speakers not taking the bass heavy song well at all. Sighing to myself I lean against the driver's side door, my head tilting back as I try to plan my next move.

The gears slowly churn inside my skull, the last few weeks catching up to me as I feel my body ache and exhaustion begin to grip me.

"Okay..."  I muse, reaching into my pocket as I fish out my keys. "I think I know what to do..."

I had seen the advert weeks ago, a series of them in fact, for the tourist destination of Daleshaire. The small old mountain mining town had recently, after finding a bubbling natural hot springs buried within the surrounding hills, had invested rapidly into expanding itself into a tourist hot spot.

While other may call it more of a tourist trap, the effort had certainly revitalized interest in the town as people flocked to stay at the newly built hotel and hot springs as well as the new art installations and freshly recovered hiking trails.

With the new interest in the town and the wave of visitors flooding every available bed, there was a distinct lack of people to take up the numerous jobs that had popped up to handle the influx. I had deleted the emails fairly quickly, the town being so far from my home in the city that the commute simply was not worth it.

However, with the lose of my home the offers simply seemed far more intriguing.

Reverse Hopper, Reversed Fortunes - Part One

Huffing loudly in the echo-filled parking lot I strain to force the last box into the backseat of my car. The cardboard flexes, buckling in of itself as I press my hands against it and cram it up against another equally flimsy and flexible box. Sweating slightly I give the box one more shove, stepping back quickly as I slam the door shut.

I wince as I think I here something break, either inside the door of my aging dark green sedan or the boxes stacking inside it, a depressed sigh rumbling out of me and through the underground lot as I bite at my lip.

"God damn it..." I mutter quietly, wiping my nose a little as I sniffle and fight back tears. "Stupid fucking..." I continue, pausing as I inhale deeply to try and calm myself back down.

The months without work had slowly drained me of whatever resources I had left. Too proud to ask my family for help and too focused on academia and teaching to look for a job that could at least pay the bills, I soon found myself being served with an eviction notice from my elderly landlady.

She didn't seem to take pleasure in the act, nor did she seem all to upset, the order for me to pack my things and to vacate by the end of the month merely being business.

I had largely handled the burden in silence, packing my stuff each day, my job hunt grinding to a pause as I sold off what I couldn't fit in the back of my car and packed the rest. By the end of the month I was left with not a lot, merely a wad of cash and a car full of boxes with no place to go.

My car radio blares from dashboard, the crackling speakers weakly playing the end of yet another pop song that I had used for at least a little bit of background noise in the otherwise depressingly quiet. The bubbly radio host quickly begins to chirp.

"Hell-ooooooo and welcome back everyone, that was YOUR number four. Before we go to the bronze, lucky number three, this is just a reminder to all our Reverse Hopper listeners to take your In-Guarder today if you haven't yet"