Emily, whist in High School, managed to be a part of the highest tier of clique. The Popular Girls.
She grew up with girls looking up to her and boys wanting her. She really had it all when it came to high school.
Unlike her friends, however. When it came to her Exams, she studied hard. She passed all of them, getting herself into College and exiting with a job she actually enjoyed. Her friends, on the other hand, didn’t do quite so well.
She lost contact with a lot of them, half expecting to never see them again. But one day, whilst browsing her email, she saw an invite to a High School Reunion. She wondered how 10 years had gone by so fast.
She planned her week out, for the weekend she would be driving back to her home town and meeting with a lot of old friends.
Excited, she arrived to find almost half her previous peers hadn’t shown up. That or they were late. Immediately she was bombarded by a swarm of hugs from her old friends. All of them looked pretty much the same as they used to. They wore the same makeup, roughly the same clothes. They hadn’t changed a bit.
Emily had always been the sore thumb of that group. She liked Sci-Fi stuff and was always interested in politics, liking to debate. The other girls always talked about makeup and boys and drama, she usually zoned out while they did. She didn’t bring up the topics she liked because she knew they wouldn’t care and likely would judge her for it. The girls seemed to talk about pretty much the exact same things. It seemed like Emily was the only one to change. The only big difference between Emily and the girls was that she wasn’t pregnant. She hadn’t been in a relationship since the start of College and hadn’t even considered it for a few years. Almost every single one of her friends was pregnant, excluding two. One already had two children and the other was going through a divorce.
As 2 hours approached, Emily found herself getting incredibly bored. She tried her best to discreetly leave the table, which she succeeded in doing. If they asked, she went to the bathroom. Instead, she wandered around. She saw tables filled with groups of people she recognised but hadn’t spoken to. She saw one of her 3 Ex’s make eye contact with her. She quickly stepped out of view and let out a sigh. That was when she saw a man, she recognised him. She remembered talking to him about a movie that had come out. It was a conversation that she had forgotten about but quickly remembered. She approached him, and introduced herself. Before she even said her name, however. He said it to her. He seemed to remember her.
They got to talking, they had a lot I’m common. He told her that his old group of friends weren’t the kind of people he would be friends with nowadays, Emily found this funny, she explained how she felt exactly the same way with her old friends.
They decided they were bored of the whole get together, it wasn’t worth sitting around a bunch of embarrassing memories and made their way to a Café. They sat and spoke for a couple hours. He realised he hadn’t told her his name, he assumed she remembered, he told her his name was Max. He explained to her that he created an app when he was 24, the app was so innovative that it was one of the in the top 3 highest rated apps for over 2 years. Sitting in the top spot for a whole 6 months. But he didn’t own the app. A company bought the app from him, they asked for complete credit for it. He accepted the deal under the condition that he got 35% of the money for it. The company reluctantly agreed to this. He was swimming in millions. He told Emily that he hadn’t told anyone that before, except his sister. He hadn’t even told his parents.
Emily and Max became good friends, deciding that living alone was boring. Emily moved in with Max. He had a large apartment and got her own room. He let her live rent free, despite Emily saying she could pay, he wouldn’t let her.
Over the course of two years, Max and Emily continued living together. Becoming closer as friends.
One night, Emily admitted to Max that she had started developing feelings for him. Max said it was about time and kissed her. Not 6 months later, Max proposed to Emily. Exclaiming that she was the perfect friend and the exact person he wanted to spend his life with. Emily, of course, said yes.
They got married and had a great ceremony.
A year later, Max proposed they got a new place to live, a proper house. They decided to have a house built for them, their dream house.
—
Sunday,
“Max, what time have we gotta be out of here?” Emily asked, heaving a big box of stuff to the front door of the apartment,
“In 40 minutes!” Max yelled back, doing the same.
Emily and Max were packing up their things. Ready to move out. To Emily’s annoyance, the house wasn’t built yet, so they had to keep all their things in storage and rent a home for two weeks. The house was just underneath where the house was being built. A not-so great neighbourhood, in the shadow of the three incredibly rich and powerful families living above them. Emily wasn’t so happy about the placement of their house, the scenery was wonderful and everything, but to be around a bunch of rich, most likely arrogant, people wasn’t her dream.
The drive was pretty long, she didn’t to have a lot of time to look at the apartment she had lived in for those 3 years. So she wasn’t in the best of moods. Max picked up on this and played her favourite song, but her mood wasn’t changing all to much, Max did what any husband would fear their lives doing, and asked what was wrong,
“So, Em... what’s up?”
“Huh?” She replied, pretending she was caught off guard,
“What’s wrong? I know when you’re angry, and you’re definitely not angry. So I can only guess you’re upset,”
“Well...” she said, she had her arms crossed over her brown leather jacket and button up blue shirt, “I guess... I mean. I just don’t know if this is gonna be as good as I expect it to be,” she said,
Max, in his chilled out, calm way, said, “no I don’t think it’s gonna be as good as you expect it to be.” She made Emily raise an eyebrow, “it’s gonna be better. You’ll see the house, and realise how great it looks in person.”
“Yeah, I guess,” she said, trying to accept that it wouldn’t be that bad, “but. Maybe it’s just where it is. All these famous or rich people. That’s not us,”
“You’re saying we’re not rich? Because I’ve got a bank account that can prove you pretty damn wrong,” Max joked. Emily couldn’t help but laugh a little at him. He was so cute and charming. Like no one she had ever met before. He had a scruffy red beard and hair to match. He was quite tubby but not fat. He had a good layer of muscle underneath a fair bit of fat, that’s what made up his overall size. He wore dorky glasses that Emily picked out for him when they were engaged because she found him super cute in them.
“What were we talking about again?” Emily asked, she had a smile on her face. Just remembering how lucky she is to have such a great person by her side always. She couldn’t remember what it was like without him.
They approached the house. They could see it from a distance. Emily looked at the surroundings, they were gorgeous. Everything about this place was so great. The house was massive. It looked fantastic and it wasn’t even finished yet.
They drove down the road and approached the house they’d be staying at for the next couple weeks. It was... acceptable. Max spoke to the woman who owned it, she gave Emily a look that didn’t make her feel to easy. Emily exited the car. She grabbed a few boxes out of the back of the truck. She brought them inside. Max told her he’d get the remaining boxes. She realised just how small this house was compared to her last apartment. There were three rooms total. The kitchen and the living room were the same, the hallway connecting them didn’t have really have any walls. From the front door, on the right was the bedroom, after that was the bathroom. Then the hallway opened up and revealed on couch and a small TV on a table. On the left of that room was the kitchen. It was small. A door at the end of it opened to the backyard, which seemed to be an extension of the front yard. Emily wasn’t used to living in houses like these. Not that they were bad, she was just not prepared for the serious contrast.
Max entered, “what a lovely place. You know, the previous owner of this place actually turned into that couch right there,” he pointed at it. Emily smiled at the joke. It lightened her mood a little bit.
—
A week passed,
Emily hadn’t done anything. The lights were too dim to make her feel any kind of emotion at all. She was utterly drained by doing nothing at all. She didn’t have her laptop with her. All she’d been doing was playing board games and card games with Max that he’d bought at a local convenience store.
She decided to get some fresh air. She walked her way out of the door in the kitchen and into the back yard. She sat with her back to the wall. Even her thoughts were bored. That’s when she heard a strange voice,
“Emily.”
She quickly rose to her feet and looked around. She didn’t see anyone else nearby. All she saw was the boring looking house, the boring looking street, and a boring looking Sundial.
“Emily. I know who you are, and I know what you desire,”
She was freaked out by all of this, then suddenly realised what was going on. She looked around, nobody. She quickly walked into the house,
“Max. You really freaked me out there,” she said. Max looked up from his phone,
“Huh?”
“Very funny. But you genuinely scared me,”
“Yeah... I’m so scary I don’t know I’m doing it. Emily, I don’t know what you’re talking about, seriously,” he said in the serious tone he tends to use when he’s, you guessed it, being serious.
“Really?” Emily asked, “because...” she said, “you know what, nevermind, I think I’m just crazy,”
The whole night, trying to get to sleep, Emily couldn’t manage to fall. She rose from her bed and grabbed her jacket. She was only wearing pyjamas. She wrapped herself in the jacket and made her way out of the bedroom. She looked around,
“Creepy,” she whispered to herself. She flicked the light switch, nothing happened. She flicked it up and down again and again. She looked at the switch. Above it was taped a little note that read,
‘Power shuts off automatically from 11pm to 6am.’
Emily sighed, “no wonder it’s so god damn cold in this place,” she whispered to herself again. She walked to the kitchen to check her phone, having to charge it in there since there were no other outlets in the house. But knowing the information she had just found out, she wouldn’t be surprised if it was dead.
And she was right, half right. Her phone wasn’t charging, it read 27% at the top. Emily let out another sigh,
“Never in my life have I craved alcohol more than right now,” she said to herself.
She looked at the door on her right, remembering the voice she head earlier. Still not entirely convinced it wasn’t Max messing with her. She opened the door gently, trying not to make too much noise. She walked outside, Lea in the door open just a crack to not lock herself out,
“Hello?” She asked, trying to be quiet,
“Hello, Emily,” the voice said immediately, “I am still here,”
Emily without hesitation ran into the house, opening the door pretty hard and going back into the bedroom, expecting/hoping to see Max with his phone in his hand trying to freak her out. But nothing, she saw nothing. Max was laying in bed, completely asleep.
Emily closed the door again. She took a deep breath, she looked back. The back door was wide open.
She couldn’t deny it, she was scared. She quickly went to the door to close it. With her hand on the handle,
“Emily. Please, do not shut the door. Let me speak to you, I have everything you desire,”
“W-what do you mean,” Emily finally responded, ready to close the door at any second,
“I mean what I say. Anything you want, I can give you. Just tell me,”
“Yeah, well I want something that you can’t give me.”
“That is just it,” the voice said, not sounding desperate or villainous, sounding neutral, “I can give you anything. Whether you desire a loving husband, I can give it to you. You desire wealth, I can give it to you,”
“Yeah, well I have both of those,”
“That is because you are a lucky person. Someone who has everything desires more. That is a true desire,”
“Y-you can’t give me anything like that, anyways, it’s impossible,”
“I can prove to you my truth. Ask me for anything, anything small. I will give it to you without a price, I promise,”
“You say anything, I doubt it. And what do you mean by price,”
“I will explain everything, but first I want your trust. Ask me for anything,”
“Okay, fine. I want to be wearing a black dress,” she said. Expecting nothing, “see, I told you you’re just trying to sca-” Emily cut herself off. Looking down. She saw a long, silk, black dress covering her body. It looked amazing, she looked amazing.
“H-how did you...”
“As I said. Anything you desire I can give to you,”
“I can’t believe this. This doesn’t make sense,”
“A lot of people I have encountered have said the same thing. I am here to gift you your desires. Very few people experience this, you are incredibly lucky.”
“I can have anything. Oh my...”
“I can tell you have something in mind.” The voice said. Emily had stepped outside, she had the door closed behind her, “so Emily. Tell me what you desire?”