The cool whisper of the wind brushed up against her shoulders as she pulled a robe across her. The sun was setting beyond the horizon and the clouds seemingly brought themselves apart to showcase this very sight. Before her death, she wanted to see one last sunset, and her closest benefactors granted this wish. It would be only moments until death swept in to take her soul, but until that time would come, the calming glow of the sun as it disappeared would keep her grounded to the earth, for one thing Emily realized throughout her short life, was that memory would always be eternal, no matter your state, be it dead or living, matter or energy. And this... This was okay.
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Waking from her slumber, Emily Newt-Hobson would appear to be your typical seventeen year old girl. Looking around, you would find clothes scattered across the floor, various colourful belts slung over her door knob, and an assortment of bras and thongs in a rather visible open drawer. Magazines of common celeb gossip were spread around her bed, signaling that they are read when the reader should actually be asleep and using her imagination in a rather different reality. The pink curtains wouldn't fully cover the window, and the seemingly random rays of light would shine directly onto the bed, which were adorned with pink sheets. If you were to dissect the walls of this room, you would find posters upon posters of movie star hunks and her favourite movies, along with several photos of her posing with high school friends and post it notes meant to remind but simply wasting away with no eyes reading them.
Emily was not a typical seventeen year old girl, though. Behind the superficial teenage behavior, there was a brilliant woman that was seeking the truth behind her origin and with the wandering thought that there were others, just like her. One may see the teenager in her room, but another may see the advanced biology and scientific texts hidden away under the magazines, and normal, refined clothing under the rather provocative apparel scattered around. Her deepest desire may appear to be dating that new hunk from the football team and becoming a national cheerleader, but in retrospect you'd realize that she's a simple intellectual seeking only the truth with no real career-based goal.
See, Emily is what you would call special. Or, as men from the past eras would refer to them, a witch. Since an early age, she was capable of something people would call odd at the least. One of the best examples of this would be the time one of her classmates pushed her off a swing during play time, and she arose with a deep gash on her face which seemingly was gone within days. Her parents, and of course her doctors, dismissed it as a child's way of rapidly healing due to their ever growing and maturing body. It only got better as time passed however, and soon her wounds would disappear within moments. Her parents took notice of this, and in fear of the locals discovering the oddity behind their little girl, they moved away to a rather isolated cabin far in the Canadian north for a year, in an attempt to teach their child how to hide her talent, even though it was an unavoidable thing.
Even though her parents shared the opinion with the rest of the common populace that individuals with a special set of talents were freaks, their love and selfishness drove them to stow her away to keep her secret safe from the rest. Somewhere deep down in their minds, they thought that if she were capable of healing her own wounds rapidly, perhaps she could prolong life in others, which would eventually drive to the concept of immortality. It is a tempting concept, indeed, but they soon lost grip of this potential as Emily grew older and entered puberty, also known as the time people grow their own opinions.
It did not take long for Emily to discover what she was, and to find out what her parents were hoping/planning for. Her response was typical to say the least, she simply lashed out aggressively and rebelled to the best extent she knew of; doing everything illegal she could within her power during high school. Her first three years of school were spent boozing and smoking, dressing in provocative apparel and seemingly selling her body except without the money. Her parents responded with heavy restrictions on her daily requirements, as one day they removed her bed and replaced it with an old musty mattress on the floor, removed the light in her room, and boarded up her window.
When she arrived home that night, she was bewildered at what she saw. Regardless of her own rebelling, she did not expect her parents to take such a drastic action against her. Promptly confronting them, she discovered that they were not only making her room a living Hell, but they were rationing her food too. They would only feed her twice a week if she behaved, which obviously she would not. This was no longer about disciplining a child, this was now a rather foul feeling of contempt. If mother and father could not receive the benefits of their child's talent, no one would. They would rather bury their daughter than guide her into a better life.
Ultimately, this was their downfall. Although Emily began stealing food to survive, she eventually got caught and one of her high school friends that was perhaps her only true friend as she tried to push her away from the drugs and bad life seemed to know something more was up, and told the school and authorities about her suspicions. A day later, Emily's parents were escorted into a police cruiser, as Emily herself was brought to her friend's house. While this could be considered a terrible moment in one's life, it seemed to make something click inside her mind. Her negative life style was, rather clearly to her mind at that moment, pointless, and instead of resenting what her parents did to her and ruining her own life, she'd be better off seeking the truth about herself and becoming a respectable individual.
The moment she had stepped into her friend's home, she embraced her in tears and thanked her for a full five minutes. The friend thought she was simply doing her service to a friend and as a human, but what she did not know is that indirectly she saved Emily's life. Life changed rather rapidly for Emily and her friend, who, for sake of story telling, was called Tessa. At first it was for the worst, as the foster care house could not find a suitable home for Emily, and thus she was forced to stay at Tess's a bit longer, meaning life in the (Tessa) Rowland house would have to keep being altered to accommodate their visitor. However, this changed within a month when Emily had fully changed her reputation in her local community and had begun doing chores for the neighbours in an attempt to earn money as she sought after a job.
Within weeks, Emily was offered a placement at a local clinic, as the doctor had just fired his assistant and needed a new one as shots were coming up and his facility was expanding so he needed more hands to work. She took the offer immediately, unaware that it fit in perfectly with her rather hidden talent, and she only realized the correlation after her first week on the job when she was present to an allergy attack gone wrong. The doctor had left for a minute to get an injector to treat the flare up, and Emily absentmindedly put her hand on the patient's forehead, and watched with surprise as the man suddenly brightened up and his hives seemingly disappeared. She knew she was capable of naturally healing on herself, but not on another. This experience was both interesting and frightening. The man had experienced her talent, and that meant the locals would soon know.
