Emily blinked her eyes opened and sat up fast. The walls around her were blue and plain--not lime green and covered with posters. She started to shake as she tipped herself out of bed and pressed her feet into the soft carpet below. Her bedroom floor was hardwood. Nothing was right. Nothing was right...
"What the hell..."
Emily spun around slowly, examining the unfamiliar room carefully. This isn't right, she thought. Emily started to panic. She didn't like this strange place. She never had liked going to places she didn't know well--new friend's houses, hotels, ski cabins--they just didn't feel right to her. and this definitly didn't feel right. Emily looked across the room and saw a mirror over the big brown dresser. She closed her eyes and inched herself along the wall, until she guessed she was right in front of it. She stuck out her hand--
the mirror was there.
She opened her eyes and...
Emily was still Emily.
She had the same long black hair, the same boring brown eyes, and the same skinny limbs that seemed to just hang off her. Her ears were still lopsided and she still had a freckle on her lower lip.
But where was she?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Emily sat on the short lumpy bed for a while, staring at the door, contemplating whether she should go through it and find out about the world she was now so obviously supposed to survive in, or just stay here until she slowly died.
She thought about her boyfriend, Rick, and how he had told her he loved her, but she didn't say it back.
Now she wishes she had.
She thought about her parents, her friends, and her little sisters.
Her heart ached like she had just eaten fourty-six grande burritos from the Taco Bell.
She stood up and tried to balance on her jello-legs. She turned the golden doorknob and pushed open the large wood door. Emily walked down the long, sleek hallway until she reached a staircase. She stepped down each stair, one at a time, so that the stair-monsters didn't get her, and then turned into another room.
There was art on the wall, and big leather furniture. It was nothing like her home of mismatched couches and fold-out tables. It wasn't a home at all. It felt cold and big, and too empty. There was a dog bed in a far corner. It's funny--Emily had always wanted a dog. Her parents always said that she couldn't even take care of herself, no kidding a dog. Emily laughed at her fathers humor. He had always been the funny one. She stared again at the fancy blobs of so-called "art" on the dark paneled walls and then--
"Emily?"
She turned around.
