Emelie Comic draft -done-

Lightning flashed across the New York City skyline as freezing rain fell on the city streets below. The city was quiet – quieter than usual – as most preferred to be indoors and in bed to avoid the cold weather. However, in an alleyway off of Madison Avenue, crumpled against a dumpster lay a lump of wet clothing, shivering as the rain pooled around it.

The lumped mass of soggy wet clothes began to stir. “Ugggh,” the girl underneath tried to cry out, holding her hand to her head. But no sound came. She was freezing, wet, hungry, and her vision seemed a little blotchy. She stood slowly, placing a hand against the brick wall beside her to maintain her balance. She was in an alleyway. What was she doing here? She lowered the hand from her head – it was covered in blood. Her forehead was bleeding. She could recall nothing – where she was, what she was doing there…not even her own name.

It didn’t matter, not at the moment. She simply wanted out of the rain. Her clothes were completely drenched. She turned the corner at the edge of the alleyway. There was a Chik-fil-A, a home-cooking restaurant, and a Laundromat. Only the last had their light on this late at night. Without thinking, the girl pushed her way in. There were only two people inside - the owner watching television and a customer reading a magazine. Keeping her head bowed, the girl moved from dryer to dryer until she came upon one that looked as if it had just finished.

The clothes she pulled out were warm. Maybe a little tight, but at this point she wasn’t picky. She shot a glance at both people, neither of which were paying any attention to her, and moved to the bathroom. Locking herself in a stall, she began exchanging her wet clothes for the warm, dry ones. As she did so, the questions began to arise - who was she? Where was she? How had she gotten into the alleyway? Was anyone concerned, anyone looking for her? Nearby, a stall door opened as someone left the bathroom.

Now in the dry clothes, she ruffled through her other clothing. No identification. Just twelve dollars, dripping wet, and three bobby pins. She re-pocketed the items into her new jeans. There was one additional item – a rope necklace with a bead on it, tied around her neck. She couldn’t untie the knot on the back and the necklace was too small to examine. She needed a mirror.

She didn’t bother bringing her clothes out of the bathroom, opting to simply leave them on the floor. She exited the stall, examining herself in the mirror. Shoulder length light brown hair, a pale complexion, blue eyes…and a gash on her right temple. Aside from the gash, she was cute, she thought. Was such a thought self-serving?

After pulling some paper towels from the box on the wall and tending to her wound, she examined the rope necklace around her neck. The bead read “Emelie.”with a birthstone or what appeared to be. Surely referring to the zodiac – she was likely born in late April, early May. That was another hint.

Re-entering the lobby, she immediately noticed that a third person was there. It was quite hard to miss - it was a distraught girl, slightly smaller than the amnesiac, standing before a now-empty dryer. The amnesiac looked down at her stolen clothes and black hoodie. Looking back up, the two women locked eyes.

Immediately, the amnesiac bolted for the door, running back to the alleyway. The distraught woman gave chase, yelling for her to stop. It looked as if the amnesiac wasn’t going to have a choice - she was almost at the dead end. Instead of stopping though, she leapt up on to a dumpster, kicked off the brick wall, and pulled herself up on to a fire escape above her. Not stopping to admire her amazing feat, the amnesiac continued climbing.

Unable to follow, the distraught girl could do nothing but yell, “Thief!"

The amnesiac paused on the rooftop, looking down below. She wasn’t even panting – was this the sort of workout she was used to? Was she a thief? It was an uncomforting thought. She didn’t want that to be her past life, she wanted to be the hero – like Superman or Batman.

The comparison struck her as odd. She must have been a comic book fan, for that to be the first choice in her mind. But wasn’t that what she was like – something out of a comic book? How had she climbed up that wall? What else could she do? And, still, who was she? As she turned her head, her hair caught on her necklace.

Emelie. I am Emelie,the Taurus she decided. The zodiac sign had been the only identification that she had and, while it wasn't really a name, she had to admit - it had a nice ring to it.

Time to test the limits, she decided. And to get out of this rain. Emelie turned and sprinted across the rooftop, leaping for the next building, where she landed with a roll and continued, unaffected.

The rain had stopped. Finally. Emelie sat inside of a greenhouse, peering out into the night sky, willing for the rain to clear up. She still had no idea who she was, though she had found out that she had some interesting parkour moves and knew how to jimmy a lock - which had allowed her access to the greenhouse and out of the rain for the past hour or so.

But this brought forth the older question - was she a thief? She knew how to get away. She knew how to pick locks. Had she been a criminal before? Even now, as her stomach rumbled for food, she contemplated how she would get said food. Twelve dollars wasn't much - and it certainly wouldn't buy more than one, maybe two meals. She would have to resort to stealing if she wanted to be fed.

Emelie slowly stood, making her way out of the greenhouse and to the side of the building where she knew a fire escape awaited her. She clambered over the edge, lowering herself floor-by-floor until she came upon a window with no lights on inside. Pulling her head close to the glass, she peered in. It was a neat and tidy kitchen - clearly the handiwork of a woman.

The window was locked. It would take much more than a simple bobby pin to unlock it. Should she break it? She placed her hand against the window, pondering. The window suddenly disappeared, seemingly turning to vapor. Shocked, Emelie pulled her hand away. Immediately, the window pane returned to normal.

What sort of magic was this? Emelie placed her hand against the window again and, once more, the window seemed to turn to vapor. Curious, she placed her free hand against the window, pushing in. Her free hand passed through the vapor and she tumbled in through the window, falling to the floor below.

She ended in a roll, softening the noise of the fall. Behind her, the window glass returned to normal. Emelie lay on the floor for a moment, listening. No one seemed to be stirring, so she moved for the refrigerator. Cracking the door slightly, her stomach lurched as her eyes feel on the food within.

Opening the door wider, she began grabbing various items. It would be a fantastic meal, it would... But she paused, seeing a children's lunchbox. A tin metal box with a Batman and Robin image on the front. Emelie looked guiltily down at the food in her arms. She wanted to be a hero - she had this amazing powers, these abilities - yet, here she was, stealing the food that was going to go to some children.

Emelie hastily began putting the food back, opting for a banana, two apples, and two juice packs. Her eyed the remainder of the food longingly for a moment, but shut the refrigerator door, returning to the window. Placing her hand on it, she passed through once more, returning to the greenhouse above.

Munching on an apple, she contemplated - what next? Well, if she were "Batman," per se, it seemed only normal that she needed to find a "Commissioner Gordon." In a sense, it seemed natural...if not a bit childish. But this was New York City. Drug dealers, rapists, murderers ran amock in a city of millions. She could make a difference.

But why did it need to be her? Why couldn't she just go on with her life? Because, she thought, I have the power. And the idea that she was potentially a criminal beforehand was horrifying. She needed to redeem her past actions. She needed to be the good guy.

But first, she would find an insider - a cop - she could trust. But in a city of so many, how would she narrow it down? Emelie sipped on a juice box, the possibilities flowing through her mind.

Hush little baby, don't say a word.
Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird.

Maybe it was only a song and maybe he was already sleeping in her arms, but how could Emelie tell her own child to hush when she could barely keep the tears falling from her own eyes?

At first it had been all about Emelie. She had been so concerned with herself, she realized - she needed the satisfaction of knowing that she was the "good guy," that whatever her previous life had been didn't matter. But now it did, in the form a little bundle in her arms that she rocked back and forth, sheltering it from the stormy weather. She held him close, mentally projecting her nursery rhyme to the baby as he slept.

And if that mockingbird don't sing,
Mama's gonna buy you a golden ring.

Emelie had a son. She had discovered this. She had found him. She had taken him with her. But why? She couldn't remember anything about the boy, other than faint flashbacks of giving birth. The name on the records was "Isaac." There was no knowledge of who he belonged to, thus it was simply the name that the orphanage had given him.

And if that golden ring turns brass,
Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass.

Isaac was beautiful. But Emelie had no idea how to be a mother. What would she do? She had no job, no steady income. What little she did have, she stole. How could she possibly be a good mother this way? She stole enough for herself to get by...would she not have to steal more for her child? Wouldn't it - another tear fell down her cheek as she questioned - wouldn't it have been best just to leave him at the orphanage? Emelie had acted rather rashly, stealing him way, hadn't she?

And if that looking glass gets broke,
Mama's gonna buy you a billy goat.

And that woman. That bitch. Another tear fell from her face, accompanied by a soft sob. Because of her, Emelie could no longer touch her child. She could touch no one. Whenever her skin came in contact with another person's, they would freeze - as if they were paralyzed by her touch - and she could feel it. She could feel their life force draining away and into her as she stole away their life, even when she did not want to do so. But restricting a mother from touching her own child? Maybe it really was best to have just left Isaac at the orphanage, for another family to adopt.

And if that billy goat doesn't pull,
Mama's gonna buy you a cart and bull.

It was a little too late for that. What would she do, break in and return the baby? Emelie didn't want that. Was it so selfish that she simply wanted him to be hers and hers alone? To take care of, to raise, to caress, to love, and to cherish like every mother should be able to do for their child? She had to figure all of this out.

She would seemingly pass out from the trauma of it all and awaken in a weird place. Where was she.....The wind swept fiercely through the withered old trees, with such force that it would be easy to imagine the very forest simply falling over, swept away by the power of nature. But the forest did not collapse, it simply creaked and swayed, the elderly trees bowing to the wind, but never breaking. They had been there for hundreds of years previous, and so they would remain for many years yet. Old, sturdy, stubborn oak that wasn't quite willing to give up on life just yet. The forest was dense, the moonlight able to penetrate through the upper canopy only sporadically. Throughout the forest, animals of all kinds sought shelter from the elements. It was a cold night, one of the coldest in recent memory. And with the cold, came the snow. It would only be a matter of time til a blizzard of white flakes came sweeping through the forest, covering the trees, coating the forest floor in a crisp, cool carpet.

Emelie did not find herself a part of any of this. Perhaps, if she were not carrying such a heavy weight upon her shoulders. Perhaps then, she might be able to appreciate the secret complexities of nature. But no, tonight she had something else on her mind, as she took each slow, tentative step through the forest undergrowth. In the distance, the faint howl of a wolf sounded almost serene, as if it were saying goodbye. If it could have heard her, she might have been inclined to howl back, to acknowledge it's sentiment. She was close now, to the lake. If the weather continued to get colder, then by tomorrow morning, the lake would have frozen to ice. She had determined that she would find her peace there, beneath the water. Emelie did not plan to leave the forest.

Her bare feet should have all accounts been frozen. She should have been crying out in pain, unable to take another step. But Emelie felt nothing more than a quiet numbness. It could just have easily have been a pleasant summers day, and she would have felt no different. She had left something behind in that snow field, something that she knew she could never get back. Her soul? No, Emelie did not want to think like that. But something, something had changed within her. It was as if a snake had slithered it's way inside of her that day, had taken root within her body. It had grown a separate consciousness, coiled it's away around her little heart. Like a leech, it would squeeze when it wanted food. Emelie would have to oblige, would have to... do something. But what did she do? What had she done? She had woken up covered in blood on a regular basis.

Even if her memory did not allow her to recall the dark deeds that she had most certainly committed, Emelie's conscience was unable to handle the grief and regret that had built up inside of her. She had nobody else in the world to call family, everything she knew had been lost to her. Even though the unfortunate circumstances that had led her down this path could not have been prevented, Emelie felt that she had herself to blame for everything. It was a desperate state of mind to be in, and yet the little girl found herself hopelessly lost. She just wanted it to be over. She should have died next to Jakob in that field, she should have been able to join her Mama.. and Papa. Tonight, she would correct that mistake.

Her slow, solemn procession had brought her to the lake, in the eastern quarter of the forest. The moonlight gleamed on the water, allowing her to see her reflection clearly as she stood upon the rocky beach leading down into it. She was wearing a plain white shirt, and pants that were several sizes too big for her. They were hardly funeral clothes, but Emelie was past the point of caring. She closed her eyes, little frosted tears running down her cheeks, and began to walk forward. The sting of the cold water did not come, she simply felt nothing, as she began to descend into the water. Soon, she had vanished underneath, never to come out again.

Or so she thought.

Beams of moonlight reflected from the surface of the ice, piercing through the thick layer of crystallized water particles, like searchlights probing through a black, stormy sea. Except this particular sea could not have been any more calm. The lake had frozen over within hours three days previous, to such an extent that one could have swung a sledgehammer at the surface and failed to break through. Beyond the reach of the moonlight, the depths of the lake were utter darkness, like being sucked into a black hole. Anything that had ended up at the bottom of the river, that didn't belong there, would never be coming up again. At least, nothing normal. The few fish and other wildlife that dwelled inside of the river had avoided the tiny figure at the bottom of the lakebed, with the reverence they might have for the dead.

But Emelie was not dead. Just sleeping. For three full days, since she had first made her way into the river and allowed herself to drift to the bottom, she had slept. A combination of the all engulfing cold and her will to simply drift away and not return had kept her under, but her eternal sleep was not to last for much longer. Her dreams had been of many things. She had felt that she had died, surely, and had dreamt of being reunited with her family in the afterlife. Despite how she tried to convince herself that the dream was real, however, Emelie knew that something was wrong. There was something about her blurred visions of the land beyond death that seemed too wishful, too removed from reality. Increasingly, she began to realise that her dreams were not the truth, and that she had not truly joined them. When the horrible truth began to set in, she couldn't sleep any longer.

It was just after midnight when her eyes opened. The cold. She had not been able to feel anything beforehand, the numbness she had felt over her entire body had guaranteed that. But now, that numbness was gone. The pain felt akin to a thousand daggers stabbing into her body all at once. Gasping, screaming out for air, feEmelieng as if her entire body was going to rupture and explode, Emelie had thrashed her way out from the black depths of the lake, towards the surface, only to find a thick, icy sheet in her path. Before, Emelie had felt as if she were simply going to sleep, and her 'death' had been without pain, and suffering.. but now, she knew different. This was what it truly felt like to die. It was painful, it was terrifying, and she suddenly became aware that she didn't want to die, not like this.

Her tiny fist had smashed against the thick canopy of ice, once, twice, countless times. The pain that she felt was unimaginable, it seemed as if the lake itself had risen up against her, grasping her slender frame with it's watery tendrils, attempting to pull her feet first back down into the depths, to make sure she never escaped the watery grave that she had envisioned for herself. It seemed like she spent five minutes hammering on that sheet of ice without making any sort of headway whatsoever. Just as she felt as if her strength was leaving her, something gave way, and the ice broke. A single hand, so warped by cold exposure that it's skin was blue, burst out from the ice. Forcing the rest of her body through the hole she had made, she climbed out, feEmelieng her lungs gasping and spluttering out for air.

Curled up into a ball on the surface of the ice, her entire body feEmelieng too weakened to even contemplate trying to move elsewhere, Emelie shivered and sobbed for a good hour after her narrow escape. It didn't make sense. How had she not died long before then? Why now was she only feEmelieng the effects of the cold? And then, with a grim thought, she realised that there was something else that she felt. A feEmelieng that had rapidly began to overwhelm any thoughts she had of the cold, or the pain. Hunger. She needed to feed, or she would keep feEmelieng this pain. It was as if a seperate consciousness had sprung up from the ice along with her, a guiding hand that told her what she needed to do next. Slowly but surely, too weak to stand or even think about running, she crawled off the frozen over lake, her mind fixated around one thing, and one thing alone.

Blood.

It had been months since Emelie had felt so acutely aware of her own heartbeat. Indeed, prior to this night, she had almost thought that her heart had stopped beating. But no, Emelie was clearly aware that her heart was now most definitely beating, at a highly accelerated rate. Her young heart had never beaten so hard in her entire life, and she could only think that something was very seriously wrong with her. Since her narrow escape from the lake, she'd crawled through the forest, the freezing water still clinging to her form, prolonging the agony she felt from the cold. The closer she got towards the nearby village, the worse she felt. She remembered this feEmelieng too well, she had felt this way after Jakob's death, when she herself had been dying.

Everything hurt, it felt as if every muscle in her body had simply just stopped working. The only part of her body that seemed to still work was her brain, and it didn't want to die just yet. She was relying on pure willpower to drag her frozen, broken body down the hill, towards civilisation. Somehow, her subconscious was very much aware that if she succeeded in feeding, in getting the substance she felt suddenly fixated upon, then she would get better. She knew that she would survive, and Emelie no longer wanted to die. Her dream of heaven and her parents was nothing more than a false illusion created by her mind to comfort her, she knew that now. And she'd felt what it was like to die. No, never in her life did she want to experience that ever again.

There was only so far that Emelie's body would allow her to drag herself. She made it into the village, right next to a snow-covered bridge, and felt herself unable to move another inch. The fact that she had managed to make it this far alone was simply.. superhuman. Emelie was only a child, she didn't understand what was possible and what was impossible, but she could tell that there was something about her that was different now. She should have drowned under the water, she should have frozen to death, but she was still very much alive. It may have felt like she was dying now, but she had somehow survived her own attempt at suicide, something that went against every sort of logic she knew. Her father had always told her to stay away from frozen over lakes because if she fell in, she would drown, but she had done a whole lot more than just fall in, and here she was.. alive.

It seemed that Emelie lay there, prone and barely conscious, for several hours. How much time really went by, she couldn't have been sure, but every second of every minute of every hour was nothing but agony. Her body felt as though it were breaking down, decomposing somehow. She felt herself regressing into the state she had been before she had bitten into her dead brother, and been dEmelievered from the hands of death by.. something. Her senses had dulled to such an extent that she had only been vaguely aware when she heard footsteps approaching. Strong arms wrapping around her, lifting her up the ground. The burly touch of a man's gloved hand upon her head, holding her close to his shoulder. To his throat. She had seemed to draw a semblance of strength then, wrapping her arms around his neck, leaning closer, sniffing.. nuzzling, sensing that this man had something that would make her happy.

She couldn't remember what the man had said to her, as he began to walk away from the bridge. All she could remember was his smell. The way in which her eyes watered as she kissed, licked, snuggled.. and finally, bit into his throat. And when she bit down, she did not let go. Her muscles seemed to twitch back into life, one at a time, her limbs growing strong enough to wrap around him, cling on for dear life as he tried to swat her aside like a particularly vicious insect. But Emelie wasn't going anywhere. She had sounded like a wildcat, letting out feral snarls, the suckling sound repulsive to her ears but feEmelieng so good at the same time, as his blood flowed freely into her mouth. This, she realised, was what she needed. This was why she had woken up with no memory of anything, this was what she had been doing.

It had been a few minutes, and already the coldness, the pain, it had vanished without a trace. Her wax-like skin had became healthy in texture once more, the colour of her skin turning away from that deathly blue, becoming pale once again, but healthy. Her withered frame returned to it's slim, childish size, and Emelie knew what it was to feel strong once again. She found herself sitting upon the dead man's chest, staring down at his bloodied throat. He was still alive.. though somehow, her newly heightened senses told her that he wasn't going to last much longer. Gurgling, hoarse whispers from his ripped open neck.. he was suffering. An instinct took hold of her, and she reached to his neck, twisting it around like she might twist the head of a doll. Snap. Emelie twisted his head around a full 360 degrees, putting him out of his misery. Staring down, now that the haze of her bloodlust had faded away, she realised fully what she had done.. and burst into tears.

What am I?