Page 10 of Emma & Edmund

When she awoke again, she was shivering, violently and uncontrollably, her bones trying to escape her skin. Fat raindrops coated her, numbing her against everything but the seizing of her nerves. She didn't try to open her eyes.

Emma didn't remember rising, but when she returned again, she felt weightless. Warmer, as well, as if she were wrapped in the embrace of an angel delivering her to heaven.

No, not heaven.

Heaven wasn't supposed to be suffocating, or jostling. One wasn't supposed to feel almost unbearably nauseous in heaven, or like their head had been cracked open. She felt like she was on fire, her still-soaking clothes clinging to her sweating skin, and her breath pushed out in stuttered hot pants.

Her head pounded harshly, pushed this way and that by an unknown force, a tight foreign constriction wrapped around both temples doing nothing to help ease the pain.

Despite it all, though, she felt stronger. Air filled her lungs, she had ceased trembling, and her toes - still confined in her riding boots - wiggled. With a final press into her temple, the jostling stopped, and her head was cradled in a plush cushion.

Still, she did not want to open her eyes. While she thought she physically could, feeling much more capable than the other moment's consciousness was afforded to her, she wasn't ready to face her fate. She wasn't yet ready to see the flames of Hell.

After all, where else could she be? There were even the earth-trembling footsteps of an otherworldly beast. It was as if a massive hellhound prowled around her.

In the fog of her dysfunctional cognition, Emma almost missed the unmistakableclickof a door closing. Hell, in its layered rings of misery, couldn't have doors, could it?

It took all of her focus, but when she did, the soft sounds of a crackling fire met her ears, and, farther away, a whistling kettle filled the air.

Her eyelashes clumped together, only breaking apart when she finally pried one eye, then both, open. She did indeed see flames, contained in a simple, unadorned fireplace. It cast flickering shadows across the worn wood floor and up the narrow bed she rested on. It glinted against the ring on her middle finger, the gold breaking through the muck encrusted on it.

The same muck clung to her. It covered her hands, dug under her nails, and stained the sleeve of her once-lilac dress a murky green-brown.Shame, she thought distantly. It had been one of her favorites.

It was much the same underneath the patchwork quilt that covered her.

"Where am I?" Emma's tongue hung dry and heavy in her mouth. With great effort, her brain threatening to drum right out of her skull, she struggled to her elbows. To mock her struggle, the very moment she was able to prop herself up, her stomach flipped over and her nausea came to its natural conclusion.

In a show of more strength than she knew she had, Emma threw her head over the side of the bed, getting no further before her stomach emptied onto the floor.

The noises that came from her throat were far from becoming, loud and bemoaning, but she hardly had a choice. It was happening with or without her permission.

From the corner of her tear-filled eyes, Emma saw a door on the far wall fly open and crash against the wood paneling. The massive shadow that swung into the room must have been a trick of the mind, but she was far too distracted to truly confirm.

As her body continued to reject anything currently within it, a warm hand came to her back, gently rubbing between her wet shoulders. While it was indeed large, it at least felt human and not a clawed hellion. They spoke as well, quiet, unintelligible but soft and comforting mumbling washed over her.

In the wake of her new internal emptiness, shame replaced the contents. Suddenly, soberly aware, Emma was left with an eyeful of her own mess. To make matters worse, what she can only assume must be the owner of the floor she had just soiled was forced to act as her caretaker.

"I am so sorry, I'll-"

Emma was cut off by her own scream.

It was no child of man whose hand laid upon her back.

Sickly moss-green skin made the creature look like it was born from pond coating, and its flat face reminded her of a gargoyle.

The resemblance was only furthered with the terrifying, thick matching tusks, like a boar, curving out from its bottom lip. While the heavy brow was furrowed in concern, the deep black pools of its eyes, lacking any white and glimmering like onyx even in the low light, made it impossible to know the thing's true intentions.

And it wasenormous. Her scream forced it upright, showing off its full height, heads higher than any man she had ever known and at least twice as broad.

Scrambling as quickly as her sore body would allow, Emma shoved herself into the far corner of the bed, bringing the plush pillow before her as the world's worst shield.

"What are you?" She demanded, voice trembling. "What do you want with me?"

As she was scurrying away, the creature threw up its far too human-like hands, despite the enhanced size, pushing its back against the wall. It was the farthest it could be in the small room. Only then did Emma see it dressed in men's clothes, not dissimilar to Jonathan's.

"I know this is a shock-"

"You can speak?!"

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