Entry for the March Writing Challenge Contest for The Review Game.
Prompt: "I'm not done yet"
Words: 1,036

Please read and review. If You're confused about anything, please do ask.

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Emily; Not Our Emily

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
– Emily Dickinson

"I'll always be here for you, no matter what."

Her smile scribbled itself out a thousand times, her eyes bleeding out the last false happiness with the next.

"We'll find a solution; the doctors will figure it out some day."

His voice trembled with deep desperation, messily masked with a childish eagerness.

"But, even if they don't, it's okay."

She added hastily, swallowing hard from the bitterness of her words.

"I'm sure they will."

He fought back. No, it's not okay! His heart screamed; his mind carved hope onto his face.

"Lester."

There was warning in her voice.

"B-but we will still love you," his heavy breath froze the words that barely escaped his tongue, "no matter what."

"I know, daddy, and I love you too." Inside herself, a little voice whispered to Emily's heart. Her lips were stapled together, and her eyes ripped apart the world. The angel on her shoulder gently slipped a knife across its throat, its sparkling tears watching the descent of death upon her heart.

Slowly, Emily Wineheart felt her body lift from the warmed wooden chair. Cold sweat stuck her shirt to her skin. She looked ahead. Darkness. She turned her head to the side. Darkness. She looked inside herself.

She began to cry.

"Emmy! Oh, Emmy, sweetheart, I'm so sorry!" Shaky arms locked around Emily's frail body, and warm moisture dampened her soft hair. Her voice was too soft, too high, too dramatic, and too eager – as if this moment was all that the woman lived for. Emily breathed. It was the bitter scent of alcohol, chewing and swallowing the lingering comfort of cinnamon-scented motherhood.

A large and callused hand caressed Emily's tear-stained cheek. A familiar whiff of cigarettes and printer ink flared her nostrils. Her father didn't say anything. Emily's heart smiled to itself – her father always knew the right things to say to himself at the right time, yet the words wronged everybody else.

"You don't love me! You don't enjoy taking care of me! You know it too; you hate my existence and curse every breath I take – the only reason I'm still alive is because you will be even more miserable if you didn't take care of me!"

Emily wanted to speak, she wanted to rip her infectious heart out and throw it at her parents. She wanted them to see every single thought that ran through her head, every single curse, every single tear, and every single angel that writhed in its own blood. She wanted them to drown in the darkness that shrouded her every single breath.

Die.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Emmy sweetie, are you tired? It's getting dark outside, do you want to go to sleep now?" cooed the cinnamon-flavored alcoholic.

"It's always dark mom, inside and out."

A large hand enveloped Emily's tiny fingers.

"Do you want me to carry you, sweetie?" printer-malfunction nudged Emily with his deep voice. He cleared his throat nervously.

"Dad, we're all miserable, and treating your fifteen-year-old daughter like she's five is not going to help anyone."

Emily attempted to snatch her hand out of his grasp, but the weak action came as nothing more than a twitch. She sighed and began walking forward, only to be stopped by a hard arm.

"Oh no, honey; to the left, not the right."

"LESTER!" Mother's shrill outburst arrived without warning, though it was nothing new. She cleared her throat quickly.

Father's arm tensed at the sharp scolding, and Emily jumped inside of her skin.

"Mom, I'm blind, not retarded. I can tell the difference between left and right." Emily refused to admit to herself that, to her, left and right failed to exist at all. The devil on her other shoulder shot itself full of morphine. Her father took her hand, and slowly they began to move forward.

"I-I mean… just, not that way. W-well, if you don't want to be carried, then I'll walk you up. Watch your step–"

Bump.

It took them a good ten minutes to climb up the flight of stairs. Emily stepped carefully, lifting her foot each time only after the familiar crash between foot and carpet tingled her toes.

"There's a good girl."

Emily felt the soft sheets melt into her skin, and the softness of down feather duvet comforters slowly suffocate her pores.

"Emily, sweetheart, mommy and daddy love you very much."

"Yes, we love you more than you will ever know."

"For once, mom and dad agreed on something." Emily sank back into the bottomless pit of cotton and cool softness. "You're getting better at lying."

She wondered if the world faded into dreams yet. The darkness lasted all the time – it carried no beginning and swore no end. Consciousness hacked at her nerves periodically, leaking black poison into her muscles until the strange sensation of motion reverberated like the twitch of a dying bug across her skin.

Suddenly, her lungs constricted.

Emily began to gasp. The darkness was eating away at her throat.

She couldn't breathe.

"I'm sorry, so sorry sweetheart."

There was pressure crushing against her face. She coughed, choking on the vile acidity of her own saliva.

Suddenly, the sharp throbbing pain of her heart rampaged through her veins like a derailed bullet train. She released her jaw, her lungs crashing violently against her ribcage, squeezing and pumping, attempting to draw air. The darkness is solidifying.

Panic.

"HELP ME!"

"It'll get better soon. I promise. Emmy, honey, sweetheart, baby – It'll get better..." salty moisture smashed into Emily's bare neck, their bitterness seeping deep beneath her skin. Intoxication and insomnia danced with sweetly scented fantasies, ripping their way through the woman's sanity.

"Sorry," the large palm of stress and indignity caressed Emily's soft golden strands, its cruel warmth scorching her skull.

"Kyra, she was so beautiful," a low and rough voice whispered with a proud sadness.

"You're right Lester. She was the most beautiful baby in the world," a shakily cheerful chirp echoed.

"No! Wait, you can't! I'M NOT DONE Y–"

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Note: YES! Made it! Completed 11:45PM, 3/7/09. EPIC. no sorry, not really. Well, to me, it's epic. So. SHH.

Anyway... about the story. Yes, I decided to open with part of an Emily Dickinson poem. I am a HUGE fan of Emily Dickinson. :]

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Below are just random rants from a crazy writer... pay no attention, unless you have bunches of free time and want to be entertained.

Notice that neither of her parents ever refers to her by her real name "Emily".

This whole story is a bit ambiguous, and every detail is up to the reader's own interpretation. Though just for kicks, this is my intended interpretation of the story. You're absolutely welcome to interpret it your own way (I'd actually very much love to hear about it):

Emily is a very intelligent but resentful child. She was born blind, but is mute by choice. She rarely shows any physical emotions, and finds the outside world to be a repulsive place. She wants to reach out, but never could bring herself to. In the end, she realized she had sank so far into her own mind that she couldn't even connect with the world enough to scream.

Her mother Kyra Wineheart was a typical house wife who baked cinnamon buns and loved her husband and daughter. She has always envisioned a perfect family with a beautiful and sweet daughter. She was obsessive over her pregnancy, practically bouncing off the walls in happiness and fulfillment. However, having a blind and mute daughter who never showed as much emotion as a smile, she is emotionally traumatized and turned to alcohol to drown her sorrows. She is a nervous woman (hence the sudden outbursts of 'Lester!').

Her father Lester Wineheart was a typical office worker, but soon the stress of work and a new baby drove him to the all popular cigarettes. The stress piled on, with his increasinglyly mentally unstable wife and disabled daughter at home, and his high-demand, low-reward job. The fact that her daughter, which he boasted about the office for the whole nine weeks of pregnancy, grew up to be a blind, mute, and emotionless hollow shell of a person, brought him endless humiliation from his coworkers.

Finally, Lester and Kyra's thoughts twisted against themselves. They began to see the Kyra now as a different entity from their beautiful newborn baby, with a pure complexion and saintly golden blond hair, which was everything they had imagined. Eventually, they began to see the Emily now as an impersonation. Finally, they set out to get rid out of this horrible creature that stole away their baby, so that the "real" Emily may come back, and they will all be a happy and perfect family.

The last "Emily" they say addresses their perfect little baby Emily when it was born and seemingly healthy.

Because of my crazy imagination, I just thought up a Sci-fi interpretation.

The Emily that always sees darkness and talks to her parents through thoughts is the real Emily, unable to get out. While the emotionless shell is an alien who has taken over Emily's body. Now her parents are trying to kill the alien to rescue real Emily! :D yay! No? haha.