A Little Faith

- "A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking because its trust is not on the branch but on its own wings" -

~ Anonymous

"Emma!" someone screamed.

She struggled, straining her neck in all directions she could to see the person responsible for the voice. Someone was standing at the door but their figure was distorted, melting with the loud, surrounding colours of the room. She struggled to make them out through a half-lidded gaze. Dotting a few eyes and crossing a few t's, she produced a mental sketch of the person using the minute fuzzy details in record time. It was Nanna, the only one who showed she cared. It was the best assumption, observing the legendary brown slip-on shoes.

"Emma. what the hell did you do??! Look at this mess!"

Her eyelids, heavy as pennies, slowly draped over her eyelids. The moment they closed shut, she was transcended to another dimension where a seething mass of people walked across and along a square hall. Some of them had missing limbs and body parts and others had extra. No eyes, six legs, lips where nipples should be. She, on the other hand, miraculously had two God-given legs. Their hostile glances pricked her skin. She was strange, someone that shouldn't exist - an abomination.

Soon enough, a sudden earthquake rocked the ground and disrupted the seconds-before mundane hustle and bustle. Chaos unfolded. Waves of people, wired to walk along a particular pathway in a loop in the confined space came crashing to the floor. Some collided with each other and the audible crack of bones breaking left her weak in the knees. For others, the ground opened beneath them and swallowed them whole. Somehow, the gods looking on somewhere pitied her and she managed to survive. Only she was left standing.

Then, a single golden cherry blossom petal appeared out of thin air, drifting aimlessly across the realm in her direction. She looked heavenward and though trembling, her lips gathered into a small smile. She felt the sudden urge arise in her chest to catch it and reached out with her feeble hands but it only fell straight through them as if she were nothing but a hologram.

"Emma! Don't die on me!"

She tried again to catch the petal and kept failing, falling to her knees, and bruising her palms. On her last try, she tripped and her right knee collided with the floor at a weird angle. Instantly, a sharp pain shot up her leg. With eyes squeezed shut, a stifled guttural scream escaped through her teeth. Her heart galloped in her chest. Gradually, her leg grew number and number until it left like nothing. She clenched her teeth and made fits. It couldn't end this way, she thought. Not in such a pathetic way.

"Emma!"

There was no way she could just give up. The fire sparking in her chest told her so. Then, despite the pain, she pushed her body off the ground, the broken leg a burdensome heavy mass keeping her down. She swung an arm at the air. It was another failed attempt. She tried again and she missed, falling face flat. Funnily, it was only then that the petal fell and landed right into the open palm of her hand. Its light touch tickled her skin, bringing somewhat of a smile to her face. She clutched it tightly and felt the back of her throat burn. She couldn't hold it back. It felt like the only thing precious she had left in the world and she cried blissfully.

"Emma!"

Her eyes flew open and she felt the consciousness rush through her body. Feeling the carpet graze the back of her bare legs, she guessed that someone had dragged her out of the bathtub and into the bedroom. Her face was moist with a mixture of her own tears and someone else's. Foreign hands held and cradled her compassionately in just the right places. Nanna was truly all she had left. She'd always come to her rescue in whatever way she could- but then, when did Nanna become so youthful that she could hear the energy pulsating in her veins and feel her throbbing heart rock both their bodies. She hadn't taken the time to observe the face but when she did, she became speechless, unable to move a muscle.

"Teresia?" she dragged in a croak.

The long dirty blonde locks that cascaded down her back and the few that were gathered into a messy bun on her head were the first things that entered her line of vision. She developed an instant headache. Her well-crafted face was quite the opposite of her vile mannerisms and it made her muscles tense up as if she had run a marathon without stretching. Teresia's gaze was without any distinct emotion yet tears crawled down her rosy cheeks. What was the point of the act, Emma thought to herself.

"You, pitiful thing," Teresia cried, "-causing us trouble all the time."

Emma was bleeding from the cuts she made on her upper thigh. Both their clothes were stained red in different places with her blood. She felt heavy and empty like a body about to be buried, rinsed of life and desire. A numb soul that painted a picture to the world that everyone believed to be true.

"When would you care?" she kept her eyes on Emma's and hooked the hairs bothering her face behind her ear.

Emma's mind was a spotless canvas, her tongue had lost its list of vocabulary she'd gained over the years of life she lived. There was nothing she could say, nothing she wanted to say. Her clothes were messy, clung to her sticky skin and her leg was still bleeding.

"Would you just let yourself die in there if I didn't come? What if you died? Then what?"

She didn't have an answer for that either.

"Why be so gentle with life? Why let it have its way? Why let us be the right ones? When would you care!" Teresia screamed in tears so aggressively that she was certain she would rip her nose right off with her teeth.

"What... do you mean?" she replied weakly under her breath.

She grabbed a fistful of Emma's hair and forced her to look her in the eyes. Emma winced in pain.

"Must you act as an invalid all the time even if life makes you to be? Will you forever keep proving us right? That you really are just an inconvenience all the time? For the most, have some dignity!"

There was a twinkle in her eyes when she said that and for the first time, she felt the slightest bit of love from one of her older siblings that she knew would quickly vanish again. Besides, Teresia was stronger than her, prettier than her and was the best gymnast she had ever known, capable of twisting and contorting her body which looked so rigid, into bizarre shapes. She, unlike her, was a born invalid, weak, frail and a try hard that was yet to make it.

"What's with the act?" Emma managed a chuckle.

"I mean what I say. You need to have just the slightest faith in yourself when everyone else doesn't. This isn't the way."

"It's people like you I hate."

Teresia bit down on her lower lip and felt the tears coming again. Emma knew that those incoming tears weren't for her and quivered under the thought of it. They were for her, the her that everyone else thought of when they heard the name 'Emma'. The 'her' she could never understand.

"You're all great actors and I'm sick of it," Emma croaked, cloaked in a coat of annoyance, "Why don't you do us both a favor and get rid of me while you can."

"When would you get it! You never get it!" Teresia screamed, "When would you care!"

"Get your hands off me!" Emma held her wrists and tried jerking her away but she was too weak.

"You freaking pathetic instrument that never works!" Teresia yelled, grabbing more tufts of jet black aggressively.

"Release me or I'll make you!"

"You waste of space!"

"Stop it this instant!" a commanding voice resonated throughout the room and simultaneously, both their heads spun in the direction of the voice. At the doorway of Emma's bedroom stood a mighty soldier, with a tray of hot soup held carefully in both hands and for the first time, with a serious face. Emma swallowed hard. There was never a time that Nanna wasn't smiling, even in times like those when she had anxiety attacks or when they insulted each other. Could it be that something happened?

Teresia laid Emma on the floor and rose to her feet, gazing at Nanna softly. She respected Nanna. She did and meant a lot to their family and so, there was no point in continuing to argue if she had demanded them to stop. She excused herself and vanished from the room in minutes, leaving the two alone in a stare-off battle. Emma's eyes filled with tears the longer she kept Nanna's unusual cold-like glance and wondered whether Nanna had also joined the others and left her side.

"My sweet, Emmie," she said all the while maintaining a wooden expression.

She rested the tray on the nightstand beside her bed and got on her knees, crawling towards the pale girl lying on the floor as lifeless as a floorboard.

"Misaki, why must you do this to yourself?" Nanna began, running her fingers along her forehead, "Don't you believe me when I tell you that you are too beautiful to hate yourself so much? Don't you believe me when I tell you that you are special and just as important, if not even more important, like everyone else in the world?"

The tears slid down her cheeks and she never felt any kind of guilt like she did then when she called her Misaki. It was a name that was special, a name that Nanna gave her herself.

"Emmie, I love you and even if you look another way tomorrow, I'll still love you. If you change and become an alien later today, I'll still love you. Believe in yourself dear and forget the negative world. Give room to the positive things."

The old woman wrapped her arms around her and watched her cry endlessly. Her blouse grew wetter and wetter and it only made her smile. Even while Emma was but a fifteen year old, a grumpy fifteen year old at times, she reminded her of a cat, refusing to be given attention at one time and then craving it another time. Her smile lasted for a short time, however, and she abruptly stopped patting Emma's head. Sensing the drop in her emotions, she looked up at her, seeing the stiff expression make its way there again.

"Is something wrong?" Emma decided to ask.

Nanna gazed down at her with sorry eyes. "I'm so sorry, Emma. The doctor visited again and he said Robert is only getting worse."