WHISPERS OF LOVE

1. Emma

🎧 Listen to 🎶Breathe Me by Sia🎵

***

"I didn't do it, Mommy, I swear..." I pleadedly cry to my mother, who's angrily throwing things all over.

"She did it, Mommy, I saw it," my older sister by three years, Madison, slyly says, and I see my mother turn to face me.

She's angry.

The only loose change she had from selling all kinds of drugs on the street was gone, and I was the one to blame.

I didn't take her money.

Yes, I was hungry; she hardly feeds me, but I'm used to it. To the hard life.

Funny, all this coming from seven-year-old me.

"Emma! Where's my cash!"

I'm about to explain myself when I feel the hard sting of a slap on my right cheek. A punishment for a crime I did not commit.

"Mom!"

***

I wake up with a start, greeted by an overwhelming sense of peace and tranquility. However, the serenity was contrasted against the stark reality of finding myself in an unfamiliar room.

Instinctively, my first thought was to scream out of sheer confusion—where on earth was I ? Yet, a calmer voice within urged me to take deep breaths and piece together the puzzle of my surroundings.

Recalling the events leading up to this moment, my memory took me back to the studio where I work. I had requested my boss for an early closure, driven by the urgency to complete a particular painting. It was a piece that demanded immediate attention, a creation I feared would slip away if left unfinished.

After a thoughtful internal debate, my boss had relented, allowing me to close up the studio. That was the last clear memory I held.

It takes me ten minutes to actually come to terms with the fact that I'm not home. I'm in an unknown room, with no memory of how I got there.

Scanning the room, I see three doors. I pull the white comforter away from me and let out a relieved sigh, seeing I'm still in the jeans and oversized hoodie I went to work with. Getting off the bed, I fall on the floor, realizing I'm a bit dizzy and weak. That's when I start to wonder if I was drugged, and that's why I'm in this situation right now.

Deep breaths give me the strength to get up and walk towards one of the doors.

I'm barefoot, but that doesn't seem to be a worry to me. As I reach one of the doors, I turn the knob, but it's locked.

Shit!

I walk to the other door. It's open. I smile, but all that fades when I see it's a bathroom. There's nothing special about it, other than it's quite huge compared to the general bathroom. Under normal circumstances, I would be awed and impressed, but right now isn't the time.

I turn to leave, but something catches my eye.

My shampoo.

The one that I love so much is peeking from a slightly open cabinet.

I walk towards the cabinet and I'm shocked beyond.

All my products are there, from my toothbrush, toothpaste, conditioner, my hair treatment.

Everything. Even my prescribed rash cream.

What the heck is going on!

Without any other thoughts, I sprint and run towards the third door, praying and hoping it isn't what I think it is.

I find the door open. Turning the knob, I push myself inside and come face to face with a neatly arranged closet. It's the size of the bedroom I have in my apartment. An apartment I'm not sure I'll ever go back to.

There are clothes neatly arranged in cabinets. Coats and hoodies arranged in hangers and sneakers color-coordinated in shoe racks.

These are not my clothes, not my shoes, but they are my style.

Growing up poor, I didn't have the luxury of buying what I want. I was used to buying what I need and what I can afford, and that is jeans and hoodies, comfortable shorts, and baggy T-shirts. That was my so-called style. Something I was comfortable in, and that is what this closet was stocked with.

Clothes I wear.

I walk towards them and upon deep investigation realize they're all new, considering they all have their price tags.

What kind of sick joke is this?

It's at this moment that my hands begin to shake because I realize I'm in a space that seems to hold secrets of its own, leaving me in a state of profound bewilderment.

I walk back to the main room and fall to my knees. I want to scream and cry. I'm about to when a movement catches the corner of my eye. I quickly turn to see a guy at the corner of the room, smiling at me.

"Hello, Emma," he says in a deep tone.

Wait!!!

I get up from the floor and move away from him until my back hits the wall.

Has he been in the room this whole time, watching me?! Like some sick psycho?!

It's at that moment that I lose it and scream my lungs out.