[b] Emma - New Orleans [/b]

To say the least, Emma Jane Crowe was not the same person she had been two months ago. However, witnessing the murder and burial of the last member of one's family tended to do awful things to the mind of a fifteen-year-old girl. Said girl would face many trials, which included nightmares, extreme depression, social withdraw, and several other symptoms you would find listed in a drug commercial. Emma had dubbed this particular drug, "loneliness". If Emma had gone to Doctor O'Connor with all of these side affects, he'd have quite the fit.

Loneliness contributed to the reason Emma walked beside her friends without speaking a word. She'd not spoken a single syllable to Shannon, James or Valentina since they'd exited the gates of Haywood. Loneliness was the main reason that she spotted a walker, raises her pistol, and pulled the trigger without so much as a flinch. 

Loneliness was also the reason she had been seeing apparitions of her dead father, Lionel Crowe. The last time first time she'd seen Lionel was on her birthday, December 18th. Of course she knew he was only in her mind, but she decided to take advantage of that and talk to what was most likely her conscience telling her to get it together. 

That night, Lionel stayed away, leaving his daughter to ponder her life. As Emma was woken in her tent, she stood from her sleeping place beside Valentina and picked up her jacket off of the tent floor. As she crawled from the tent, she zipped her coat and sat in front of the measly fire pit that Shannon had built, leaving the woman to sleep in her and James' tent.

Emma sat with her pistol hanging on her hip, and her eyes gazing into the fire. The girl pulled her knife from her belt and held it in her hands. She inspected the engravings, [i]EJ Crowe[/i]. Part of her wished she'd left the knife in Haywood, as it bore heart wrenching memories. However, the latter half of her cherished it, as it had been a gift from Daniel on her fourteenth birthday. It was her single remainder of her late brother, so it was a dear possession and a burden at the same time.

To her surprise, she started crying, her tears running down her cheeks and chilling her skin. She fell to what she did when she began to feel emotional; she checked out of reality and zoned into her own thoughts, so much that she didn't see nor hear Valentina run away. It was a complete shock when Shannon shook her violently. She didn't know what was going; she was too disoriented. So Shannon and James darted off into the woods and Emma became suddenly aware of how alone she was. She kept looking around, drawing her pistol, hoping that Lionel would show up to take her mind off the fear... A screamed echoed in the woods, but it cut quickly. 

When all went quiet again, Emma found herself sinking to the ground, tears streaming from her eyes... she was such a mess...