>>5798591"I know it's silly Paul, but I am afraid and always have been. I know it's illogical and not even just here, but I am afraid that all efforts would turn out to be wasted effort and that I would never improve in the end."
Paul, bless his soul, looked at her the same as all the others. While there was sympathy, there was no understanding, as nobody truly understood just how afraid Janette actually was of far too many things to count. After all, she is the kid that her mother had to literally drag to her 1st day of school because she was and still is afraid of change, and while her mother now thinks of that as a funny anecdote to share with her friends over a glass of wine, that still applies to Janette to this day. The only difference was that she hid it better now.
"I think everyone is a little afraid deep down, and even if you do not produce anything others would think of as valuable, in the end all that matters is whether you yourself enjoyed it and nothing else. So common, let's see what you can do!" He spoke earnestly while extending his hand to her, but it wasn't something she hadn't heard before. While Paul was a friend and cared, she resented these cliche therapy lines flowing so easily from people's mouths.
As if it's so easy to get over her problems, just a few words of encouragement and people thought that they had truly helped her. It made Janette want to lash out and yell at all would be therapists that they could shove their advice where the sun does not shine, but she never did. She just put up a fake smile and gave a nod because, as always, she was afraid because she always been and always will be a coward. It defined her to her core after all.
"Thank you, Paul. I had to hear that..." Then a purple meteor hit the ground in front of her before she could finish. With Janette screaming in fright, she fell back off the bench and on her behind. From the impact point, a purple device rose up and hovered in the air, with a few green sparks jumping off it and hitting the ground at random.
"What is..." Paul could not finish his sentence, as suddenly he and Janette fell through a large portal that appeared under them. The portal's interior was a nonsense of sounds and colors she even could have sworn she heard her favorite youtubers video intro for a brief moment before all was consumed by blackness as her mind could not cope with it all.
[Digital World - CPU Sales Season - 4:03 PM]
Janette shifted her sleeping position because she felt something poking her arm. The poking did not stop in response to that in fact, it redoubled. Annoyed at the poking, she instinctively batted whatever it was aside with her arm.
"Alright I'm getting up!" She said and opened her eyes. What greeted her was not her home; it was a cave with her laying on a huge leaf that felt like a mattress for some reason, and she was being poked by one of those bamboo swords from anime held by one of two identical creatures clad in Kendo armors.
