Nicotine Patches
One month before the crash.
“Come on, I can’t run out now!”
Sal was just about to realize she had run out of her stash of nicotine patches. She was in her and Anya's sleeping quarters, looking for them. Well, ain’t that great. She was sure to her bones she had packed enough for the trip. Curse her and inability to pack enough things!
This was bad. Really, really bad. The last time Sal had gone without anything with nicotine, she went half insane! And that’s not even putting it lightly. From what she could remember from that time, she was convinced the sun was going to explode at any moment and had to check out the news on her phone every few hours, just to make sure it wasn’t.
She can’t let something like that happen again. What would the others think of her? The big, strong Sally Monella, lost to her senses because of some stupid withdrawal?
“Shit.”
Not much she could do anyway, she was out is space, for goodness sake.
“What are you doing?”
“AAGH-”
Sal was so lost in thought, she didn’t even hear her co-nurse sneaking up behind her, looking over Sal’s shoulder. Sal quickly turned around, making her stumble and land onto her bag where she’d kept her patches. She heard a small crunch. Welp, there goes her chips stash too.
Sal quickly sat up, ignoring that thought for now.
“Anya! What are you doing here?”
“Uh, you know we’re still on the clock, right?” Anya replied, gesturing to the room around them.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“Yeah.”
Sal cleared her throat and sat up more straight, making the chips crunch even more.
“Say, you wouldn’t happen to have taken any of my nicotine patches, would ya?” Sal tried to ask smoothly. It did not work.
“You use nicotine patches?” Anya asked while holding her hand out to help Sal up.
“You know what? Nevermind, it’s not important. Do you need help with anything?”
Sal let Anya pull her up to her feet. As they walked out of the sleeping quarters she tried to push down all the inevitable dread she knew only would get worse over time.
“This is fine.” She tried to convince herself. “Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? It’s not like any of those thoughts were logical anyway! I just need to sit this one out. Yeah, this will work out fine, right?”
Right??????