Emalie might say something nice about you this time

You scoot up to Emalie. "Great," Jorrel says, "I'll take the stairs and check out the dungeon. Emalie, you and Shiva go explore the spooky noise hallway. Mute--"

Mute interrupts, "I know. You really don't have to spell it out. Three ways to go. Not an idiot." Before Jorrel can reply, Mute has already slipped out the door, closing it behind him. Emalie rolls her eyes and walks down the hallway.

Jorrel looks at you. "Was it something I said?" Shrugging apologetically, you dip out and catch up with Emalie. Apparently, she's fine with finding her way in complete darkness. If it wasn't for your glow-sticks, there'd be no light right now.

Slowly matching her stomping pace, you can almost feel the fumes reverberating from Emalie's angry footsteps. Without looking, or specifically talking to you, she rants, "He's so fricking dense. Like..." She doesn't finish her sentence, instead strangling an invisible Jorrel in front of her and outpacing you.

"You know what the most annoying part is?" Emalie's hair sweeps through the air, as you halt to a stop, her index finger digging into your chest. "If you explained him why Mute, like, fucking hates it when he acts like that - he'd listen. I'd bet you he'd listen. But when it comes from his partner - oh! - suddenly, it's a whole ordeal and he has to defend his pride."

Nostrils flaring, Emalie is breathing righteous fury and exhaling fire. No, this is worse. You'd rather be on fire right now.

"Over and over, I say, 'Puppy, listen - all you have to do is make sure you say that you need to state that shit out for yourself.' I love Mute, but he can be a self-absorbed ass sometimes. Too much in his head. If friends can't even show, like, a miniscule amount of understand for each-other, then, like, what the fuck! Immature jack-asses. Both." She might not pretend to strangle you, as in for realsies **** the life out of you, judging by the look in her eye. At least you'd die with skin to skin contact.

Emalie turns to face a wall and whispers to it, "I will punch you. Punch you right through. Punch all my anger right through you, and then I'll rip out your yellow innards and make it into fancy pillow stuffing. All my hate. Right onto you, wall." Her hands curl into fists, "Pow, pow," she hisses, gently punching the wall twice.

Breathing deeply, she tips forward and rests her forehead against the wall. Still taking deep, measured breaths.

You're an amazing friend. Just standing there. Really great. This was a moment to prove that you could be there for her and you totally succeeded. At the very least, you could've let Emalie punch you instead. When she does this... ritual? You always want to offer being a punching bag. Would help more than softly caressing a wall, that's for certain.

"I'm good. It's out." Emalie pats herself down. Brushing of residual anger. "Don't take offence, but, like, I had hoped you'd scadoodle off with Mute, so I could have done this in peace. I'm a grown adult. I don't need a peppy side-kick."

"It's okay."

"Of course it's okay," Emalie says coolly, "It's just less awkward when you're not there to gape at me like the terrible, staring eye of a deer. Also, like, you're not really a peppy side-kick. You're more of a... a constant reminder of my inevitable demise."

Seeing the look in your eyes, she adds, "That's a good thing, girl. Life is short. No point in reminiscing or being mopey when life is constantly throwing weird shit at you. You keep on remind me of that. I mean, look at you, if you'd told me you were coming straight off work, I would have brought you some clothes. I know how you get all weird in your head."

You don't get all weird in your head. What? Just because you're a living grease stain on your family name, a social extinction event, and if children weren't raised polite these days, they'd flee screaming when you'd wander into town. You don't get weird in your head. You get sad. Sad about clothes. Sad about tripping. Sad about being sad. Sa-- okay she has a point.

"I would have appreciated that, actually."

"I know you would," Emalie says, whacking her flash-light twice. It sputters to life like a lazy serf under the crack of a whip. "I'd brought you that stocking/miniskirt thing you've been secretly sewing for the last year and a half. Maybe that'd get you to stop fiddling with it and actually wearing it." She starts walking down the hallway and after repeatedly kicking yourself mentally, you follow.

You settle into a comfortable pace, now that the anger has left Emalie. "By the way, It's not a skirt. I mean, maybe it would be a mini-skirt on you, but not me." Emalie - two years your superior - has always been two heads taller than you, too. When you think about it, actually, you're the smallest of the group. Always looking up.

Barely breaking her stride, Emalie breaks out in a grunting laughter.

"What's so funny," you ask her.

"Girl, seriously? That's not how reality works. We're almost the same size."

Confused, you say, "N- No we're not?"

Stopping again, Emalie sighs, resting her arms on her sides. "God, this is going to take forever if we keep stopping, but..." Emalie kicks off her shoes and motions for you to do the same. "Okay, now stand stand behind me. Like that. Heel to heel."

Doing so, you can barely feel her butt touch yours through the layers of work clothes you're wearing.

"See," Emalie pushes your messy hair down, resting half of her hand on your scalp and half on hers. "You're taller."

What? You rest half of your hand on your head and half your hand on... empty air. You put a hand on her head and slam said hand directly into the back of your skull.

Both turning to face each other all you manage to express is a confused, woah.

"I swear I'm not kidding or pulling a prank on you. When I compare myself, you're all taller than me!"

"You know what they say, confidence adds an inch." Emalie says, as she wriggles back into her shoes. "Like, I guess the lack of confidence nicks a couple of inches then."

Brain hurting. Your brain is hurting. "No, what? This is crazy! Not me, though. This! Why would my brain do that? Seriously, for real, I mean it, I look at you and you're still taller than me - even though I know you're not."

"Brains are weird. Bodies are weird." Emalie states with finality and start moving again. "Thinking too much won't do any good. Come on, I want to know what's making that spooky noise."

Lightly running to catch up - again - your bare feet patter on the linoleum floor and dissipates as a reminder of that important thing you had to do, now going unnoticed in a whirl-wind of post-it notes.

Eventually you make it to a large room with... several smaller rooms. You can feel the carpet tickling your feet, as you step in. Something terrible must have happened here. Staring straight ahead from the door you came in from, you can barely make out the inside of one of the smaller rooms.

Desk, a chair, and a couple of half-shelves. Where did they sleep? Must have been some sort of commune. Each in their own tiny square, until- well, you presume some sort of deadly laser wielding robot came by and cut off the top half of every squarible's wall.

Emalie raises her flash-light, probably thinking the same as you, sweeping it across the field of squarible's. Finally, she asks, "Soooo... Where's that spooky noise coming from?"

Right now, what you hear, is a static noise. Jorrel swore he hard someone talking. Mute disagreed and pointed out that it was clearly music playing. Emalie told them to stop making assumptions and volunteered to check it out when no one else did. Stuff like that happens to you all the time- remembering things you were around for, but weren't paying attention to, popping up at convenient times. Man, if some rude asshole ever wrote your life-story, that would be an extremely lazy way to fill gaps in the narrative.

"I think I see something," You exclaim, point at a white glow, coming from an island resting in a sea of squareibles.

Emalie smiles and nods respectfully. "Nice. Shiva large and in charge, taking point. I'm loving it! Hey, wait for me!"

For once she has to catch up to you.