Writing Excerpt

I don't pretend to be good at writing by any means. I certainly enjoy it, but I know my writing lacks elements of grandeur (not to mention proper grammer and punctutaion). Despite lacking excellence in writing, I have decided to do this, National Novel Writing Month. I have been playing around with a few ideas and have this excerpt from one of them. For anyone who actually reads this, I would love for you to comment on whether or not you think this would be a good storyline. Obviously, it is just a little teaser. Be completely and utterly honest. Having had a remarkable set of English profs, I know how to take that red lined criticism. I have another promising story line Sel is helping me with/pretty much came up with that I can fine tune if this one isn't quite meeting your fancy. Whelp, here it is.

My niece Emma is lying on the floor of my apartment. Her tiny body curled in the fetal position with her soft, silky curls splayed across her face, hiding those sparkling sapphire gems she inherited from her father. She’s wearing the pale pink nightgown with her favorite Disney princess on it that I bought her two years ago for Christmas. Since she has grown quite a few inches since then, the knee length nightgown now hangs teasingly around her upper thigh. I hadn’t seen her in that nightie ever since my sister, Mel, stashed it in the basement for fear Emma would think she was the next MTV mini-skirt wearing icon. I didn’t think Emma was old enough to know or really care what a mini skirt or MTV was, but I usually try not to interfere with any of Mel’s parenting. “Focus!” my mind shouts at me. My heart pounds at an unbearable rate as I stumble clumsily to her lifeless body. I kneel down next to her and place my hand on her rib cage. Her warm side slowly rises and falls against my hand. A rush of air slips swiftly across my lips in relief. Breathing. Emma is alive! In fact, she looks more peaceful on my carpet in desperate need of vacuuming than she normally does under her fluffy fuscia comforter at my sister’s house. I gently roll Emma over to check for any bleeding or bruising. Spotless. Even her knees, an area of usual weekly scraping, appear blemish free. I place two fingers against her neck and feel the steady, quick rhythm of blood coursing through her carotid. Emma makes a tiny muttering sound and rolls back on her side. I continue to kneel next to her trying to process that the dreadful situation I imagined is not a reality. Emma is not dead. Emma is simply asleep on my floor. Emma is asleep on MY floor. The adrenaline masking thoughts more complex than survival starts to dissipate. How did Emma get here? I had spoken with my sister ten minutes before I pulled into my driveway and she didn’t mention anything about dropping Emma off at my place. In fact, I remember Mel saying she had tucked Emma and my nephew, James, into bed at 7:00PM. She had rather abruptly ended our conversation when my brother-in-law hollered at her that their favorite TV show was on and told me she would call me tomorrow. I glance at the antique clock hanging above my fireplace. 10:30PM. Three and a half hours past the time my sister said she put Emma to bed. I exhale deeply again and sit back off my knees. How did my barely six-year-old niece manage to leave Mel’s house unnoticed, walk ten miles from her house, and break into my locked apartment? I notice Emma isn’t even wearing shoes. I reach over and check the bottom of her feet. I have never seen her feet look this clean. Usually they are slightly blackened from running around barefoot with her neighborhood friends. I know Mel puts Emma and James in the bath right before bed which explains Emma’s squeaky clean feet, but certainly doesn’t shed light on how she got here. “Emma? Sweetheart?” I murmur softly against her ear. She doesn’t stir. I gently shake her shoulder. Emma turns her head and peers at me with squinted eyes. “Aunt Lizzy?” she asks dubiously. Her eyes slide in and out of focus for a few seconds before she rolls over excitedly and wraps her hands around my waist. “Aunt Lizzy! I tried to stay awake until you got home, but I was just so tired! We played t-ball at school today and I played real hard. Real, real hard. I was the best t-ball player probably in ever. And then my teacher..” I cut her off with a smile, “Sweetie, do you know where you are?”. She pauses for a second and looks around my apartment. “Duh Aunt Lizzy! We are at your house. Don’t you know where you are?” She giggles and I wrinkle my nose at her. “I need you to think really hard sweetheart and tell me if you remember how you got here.” She beams back at me, “I don’t need to think really hard. Your friend dropped me off!”  I rack my brain thinking of which of my few friends would have kidnapped my niece from her bed, snuck her into my apartment and dumped her on my floor. I try and reign in the panic I feel slowly itching along my skin. “Which friend Em?” She playfully grasps a wisp of my hair and twirls it around her hand. “Well, he said you guys had been friends for a long time, ecept you didn’t ‘member him the other day, so he was kinda in a fight with you. And then, um, and then he said he was gunna find a new best friend who, um, ‘preciated him and then he taught me the trick” she smiled back at me. A sour taste has formed at the back of my throat. Warning bells had been going off from the moment I walked in the door. Those bells had become so deafeningly loud during those few sentences Emma said. Friends for a long time? I didn’t remember him the other day? It sounded eerily like an obsessive stalker of some sort, but my mind had jumped from stalker to child molester at that last part. ‘He taught me a trick’. My heart rate begins to spike sickeningly and a red haze pulses at the corner of my eyes. Some pervert had taught my sweet, innocent little niece ‘a trick’. I know I should be asking Emma more about this friend. Questions about what he looked like, how she met him, and other questions that would help the police find this sicko. I can’t think logically right now though. Too many emotions are running rampantly through me washing my logic swiftly away. It takes me a second to refocus on the situation and realize Emma is talking again, “Wanna see the trick, Lizzy? Wanna see it?” I force myself to hold back tears as I wait for her to show me what this real life monster did to my Emma. “Yes,” I choke out, “show me the trick.” She pulls a few inches away from me and rearranges her expression into the face she does when she pretends she is a “grown-up”. “Hold out your hands” she commands. I curl my fingers into my palms and hold my fists out to her. “No, no, no!” she says as she energetically shakes her curls back and forth, “Like this!” Emma turns her palms face up and pushes her pale wrists together. I flip my hands over to mimic hers in confusion. I am trying to stay a few steps ahead, but I cannot see where this “trick” is going. Emma reaches behind her and holds up her stuffed zebra, Spots. When she first got the zebra she couldn’t say ‘stripes’ and whenever she tried, it sounded a whole lot like Spots. I hadn’t realized she had brought Spots along until now. “Close your eyes!” she chimes playfully. I pretend to close my eyes all the way, but peek at her through my lashes. “No peeking Aunt Lizzy! I can’t show you the trick unless you close your eyes!”. “Did my friend make you close your eyes too Emma?” She reaches her fingers up and pushes my lids forcefully closed before answering. “Well, he just showed me how to do the trick to someone else. He said the most important two parts are that Aunt Lizzy’s eyes are all the way closed and…” she trails off distractedly. “And what was the other important part Em?” A sudden flash of heat spills across my wrist and my eyes flutter open in surprise. “Well, he said make sure you slice the knife as hard as you can across her wrists” Emma says with a huge grin.