"Em! Emmmmmmm!"
The sound of her mother's voice echoed strangely in Emma's ears. Her eyes were still closed. Why did the voice sound so far away? So out in the open, like they were outside? Emma knew that she was snuggled up in her old room, under the covers, next to Daniel. She sighed out and smacked her lips softly, her movements still heavy with sleep. She didn't want to be woken up just yet...more snuggle time with Daniel. Still with her eyes closed, she reached over for him in the bed. A splitting sound cut through the air as Emma felt her hand smack into something hard. Her brow furrowed, pausing her motions. The gentle prickle of something became more and more obvious all over her skin...hay. That's what it was -- she was lying on a huge bale of hay...and right then, everything came flooding back into Emma's head. She wasn't inside at all -- she wasn't sleeping in a bed, and she wasn't with Daniel. She was outside in the barn, sleeping on the hay like a freaking animal. She opened her eyes and saw that she had unwittingly put her hand through the barn wall, leaving a gaping, splintered hole.
"Oh god damn it," she muttered, feeling annoyed at everything. Her body was still aching mightily, and she was so hungry that her stomach hurt.
"What?" she called out at the ceiling, in response to her mother's voice. She hadn't intended on speaking so loudly, but she saw, from the disturbed dust that kicked up from the rafters above her, that her voice had literally shook the barn. It was a good thing for her spirits that she hadn't seen her mother stagger back a little in response to her voice, or the rest of her family wince in unison as they ate breakfast in a circle outside the barn.
"Uhh...j-just...just letting you know that we have breakfast all ready!" Maisy responded a few seconds later, after recovering herself. Emma closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath, blowing it out into the barn air as she pulled her hand back in through the hole it had made in her sleep. Her hand made a loud series of cracking noises as it broke and splintered more stray, jagged edges of wood, noises which startled her family. Daniel and Daisy exchanged concerned looks as they heard Emma shuffling around inside. As Emma exhaled, both Daniel and Daisy had turned towards the barn, and were shocked to see that the barn roof was actually shaking.
"E-Emma!" called Daniel, the concern cutting through his voice like a knife.
"Em!" joined Daisy, almost in unison with Daniel, and with no less worry. They simply didn't know what was going on in there. Was the roof about to collapse in on her!? Maisy and Jim looked stonily on, their eyes wide and penetrating in their disquiet.
'God, what is with them?' Emma thought to herself, perturbed. 'It's like mom and dad nagging me to get up for school all over again.
"Whaaat!?" she called out again, this time with a little more edge to it. A family of nesting birds in the corner of the barn scattered, and the horses bowed and raised their heads, neighing nervously. The barn roof shook still more, and a fine cloud of dust levitated off the old exterior, unshaken and unmoved for so many years previously.
"Oh my god, Daniel!" whispered Daisy, grabbing ahold of his arm as she stared aghast.
"The barn's about to collapse on her," Daniel muttered, even as he registered that he was slightly taken aback by the sudden grasping touch from Daisy. "Emma...Emma!!"
Together with Daisy, he leapt to his feet, and they started running together, with Daisy still partially holding onto him, toward the barn. Their actions were irrational, since if the barn had been collapsing, they wouldn't have had any hope, either in preventing its disintegration or in helping Emma escape. But they were both acting on pure, protective instinct. Maisy and Jim had struggled to their feet as well, watching in fear as the scene unfolded.
"Oh my god, what's the deal?" sighed Emma in irritation, reaching out her arms up towards the barn ceiling as she stretched the sleep from her limbs. She felt the large pile of hay beneath her give way as she stretched, and she sank all the way down into it, so that it gathered in clumps around her face. She chuckled to herself, rolling her eyes at the silliness of her situation. After a few seconds she sat up, straw in her hair and a little grin on her face, and she saw Daniel and Daisy standing in the entranceway of the barn, grasping onto each other, staring up at her in evident distress.
Immediately, the grin dropped from Emma's face. A primal urge shot through her in reaction to seeing her boyfriend and her sister holding each other like that. In that moment, it didn't matter why they were acting that way -- what mattered to Emma was that they looked like two peas in a pod, just the right size for each other, with Daniel rising over Daisy by a good 8 inches or so. That was what she and Daniel used to look like, before all of this had happened. That was what she and her boyfriend should look like. And they were rubbing it in her face.
"E-Emma...Emma are you...are you ok?!" came Daniel's shaking voice. Emma just sat there, straw in her hair, as she blinked blankly.
"What?" she asked flatly, with no humor in her voice whatsoever. "What are you talking about?"
"The...the barn, Em," said Daisy timidly, extricating herself from Daniel as she stepped forward, "We were...it looked like it was about to...to --"
"To collapse," finished Daniel, stepping forward with her.
"Huh?" asked Emma, crinkling her eyes in puzzlement as she let out a confused sigh. "Why would it collapse?"
"Because you were moving around and being so lou--" began Daisy, but Daniel had reached out to touch her arm, giving her a cautioning glance.
"It...uh, just looked like as you were...waking up," said Daniel carefully as he looked up, "That the barn roof, um...was shaking a little."
Emma just sat there in her pile of hay, staring back and forth at Daniel and Daisy. She could feel the anger and resentment building up in her, even as she recognized it as unfair and misplaced. She tried to distract herself from these emotions by honing in on the absurdity of what Daniel was saying.