Chapter Text
Emma walks on the street in the chilly night air. She pulls her sleeves down, and her scarf tighter around her.
Emma ran from her recent foster home because one of the guys there made a move on her one time too many and she couldn’t bear to stay there any longer. Now though, she’s on the road with nowhere to go.
Emma’s running through all the ideas in her head of what she can do. She finally decides on stealing something expensive enough, selling it, and getting money to rent a place. She would get a job but no one wants to hire a high school dropout.
Emma goes to Times Square, a place full of tourists and happening even at night.
No one will notice a watch or bracelet or both off a wrist.
She disappears into the crowd, walks along with them for a while, and keeps her eyes open for anything expensive in sight and to make sure no one’s looking. Soon enough, she spots a bracelet on a woman’s wrist. She looks rich, it’ll work.
Emma goes closer to her and walks diagonally behind her for a while before bending over and snapping the bracelet off the woman’s wrist.
And she’s about to run off when someone bangs into her from behind her and pushes her into the woman.
Multiple things happen at once. Emma shouts, the woman turns, and the bracelet goes flying from Emma’s hand and drops to the ground.
“Hey, that’s mine!” The woman says.
Emma dashes over to the bracelet and picks it up. The woman catches her forearm and holds it in a tight grip. “What do you think you’re doing?” She demands.
“I’m sorry,” Emma says. She stomps her foot on the woman’s, hard, and takes off.
Apparently, she has a man tagging along with her, probably her husband, who decides it’s best to run after Emma.
“Stop, thief!” He shouts.
Emma runs as fast as her legs can take her. She just needs to outrun him, and then she’s safe.
She makes it out of Times Square, the man still shouting after her.
Emma sees a door in the middle of the sidewalk ahead. She runs toward it, opens it, and steps inside.
Except her feet never touch a floor. Instead, she goes falling down, down. And lands on open grassland. Emma falls in a heap onto the ground. She groans in pain, gets up, and looks around. There are mountains, trees, and greenery as far as she can see.
She looks behind to see the door she came from standing there. She opens it but she can only see the other side of the mysterious place she’s landed in and not an NYC sidewalk.
Where the hell is she?