A voice boomed all throughout the theater. “Oh, Fourth Wing.. Time to awaken. A long, long journey awaits you. But be careful! You may not like how it ends..”
Emily’s eyes shot open, her hand covered in ink. In front of her was her sketchbook, with strange but vaguely familiar symbols across the page. She recognized them from somewhere, and went to her father’s home office to search through the different documents. “There!” she thought aloud as she grabbed a single decorated file.
Emily fondly remembered her father letting her decorate one of his old files. She had used glittery markers and bright color pencils. A flowery pattern and writing using some of the symbols marked on the papers inside. She brought the file back to her room as she flipped through the various papers, looking for a translator key for the symbols. Finding one, she reads aloud “Hello, Fourth Wing. What’s a Fourth Wing?”
Emily swore she could see something in the corner of her eye, whipping her head around in surprise. Nothing strange seemed to be in her room, but faint laughter could be heard, playful yet unnerving.
“The first act of a long, long show begins. Your brother awaits, little one. Don’t keep him waiting too long, now.”
A girl sat in her room, brushing her long blonde hair, the air hanging with a dead feeling. As she brushed, a deep feeling of unknown dread settled into her, as if something important was supposed to happen soon. Once she was done, she sat at her desk and began drawing. Drawing her mother. Drawing her brother. Drawing the Beast.
After about half an hour, a middle aged man stands in the doorway of the room, a bag holding various tools and trinkets over his shoulder and lunch in hand. “Emily, sweetie, I’m going to work. Lunch and dinner are both in the microwave, or oven, whichever one I put it in because I can’t remember. Bye!”
Emily waved her father goodbye and continued with what had become routine. Draw them. Remember them. Miss them. Nine years ago. Nine years old. She was nine. Nine when her family fell apart. Nine when the accident happened.
A multitude of powerful feelings washed over Emily, seemingly out of nowhere. Anger. Grief. Sadness. Indifference. Loneliness. Regret. Every single thought and emotion felt like it was rushing by at an incomprehensible speed. And then suddenly, it all stopped, and she felt absolutely exhausted. As Emily closed her eyes, sleep settled in, and then there was a grand stage before her. Puppets fell from above the stage, acting out various events.
A happy couple raising two children. A man who was a scientist who seemed very important. A woman who was an illustrator who made beautiful art pieces for various authors to use in their books. The children played together all day, the older one being a blonde girl like their mother, and the younger one being a dark haired boy like their father. Then one day, an enormous monster caused an accident that killed both the mother and the boy. And Emily realized that this was her life.
She hadn’t been there when they died. She hadn’t even seen what the wreckage looked like. Emily hadn’t even looked at her mother’s body in the coffin. She refused to. When she had the chance to, Emily refused to look, she refused to face the truth. The truth being her mother’s corpse in the casket. And now she would never see her mom again. She passed up her final chance. And Joseph? His body was never even found. “Probably scooped up by some hungry forest animal,” the police had reasoned.
And then everything fell apart. Emily’s father began to bury himself in his research. Emily began to draw constantly to distract herself. They barely interacted. And it’s been this way for nine years.
