Not a Clue

Skyward

She saw Emeran only once after that. He was at a pawn shop. And he disappeared out of thin air right after she saw him. It could have just been a vision. But something was so real that time...
"Emery! Pay attention to what you're doing!"
She snapped out of her little daydream and turned down the burner on the stove. Apparently she had been leaning on the burner knob and she turned up the fire way too high. She giggled nervously as her grandmother glared at her.
"Uh... Whoops," she said as she ran up the steps into her room. She had to do something about Emeran. She had to find him. Help him. Because he needed her. And she needed him.

~.*.~

"Where was it..." She said as she searched the ground for a pebble that looked similar to the one she kicked in her dream.
"Ah hah! Found you, rock!"
She sprinted forward expecting to fall in a hole any moment. But it never happened. She never fell in the magical home in her dream. She walked slowly back up to her house when something caught her eye.
"It's- a pencil?"
Excitement rushed through her body as she ran through the forest looking for more pencils. She found 3 when she ran into the one and only Marco.
"Augh. What are you doing here?" She said, disgusted.
"Um. This is my part of the forest. So I'm the one whose supposed to ask you that," he said, trying to smirk but failing miserably.
"Go away. No one has 'their side of the forest'."
"Yes, they do," he said as he grabbed a stick from the ground. (And that stick happened to be very sharp), "LET'S GET HER, BOYS!"
He instincts told her to run. But something else told her to stay there and try to fight back. She could take on a few 5th graders, right?
She knocked one of them in the head. (A 2nd grader, probably.) And kicked one of them in the shins. There was 3 left. C'mon Emery. You can do this, she told herself.
Marco scratched her in the face with his stick and blood flew everywhere. She cried out in pain and instinctively made a run for it. She clasped her face while she ran all the way to her house. She quickly jumped the fence and ran into her house. Although her grandmother made many protests, she hopped into her room and slammed the door.

~.*.~

She hummed while she walked through the woods. She had to think. He had to be somewhere!
She had been looking for more pencils the last 2 weeks. (And she dodged Marco and his buddies) But whatever luck she had, it was long gone by now.
She came home to pounding and screams. She ran up to the porch to find the front door smashed down. She heard her grandmother's cries for mercy as Emery tip-toed into the living room.
"Where is she!" A man said. He had a goatee and was about a foot taller than her grandmother.
"S-she is gone. I do not know!"
"You LAIR!" He said as he threw her grandmother to the ground.
Emery squeaked as the man's focus turned to her hiding behind the door.
He laughed and grabbed her grandmother by the hair.
"Oh lookie here, Rose," at her name he yanked her hair out.
She screamed and fell to the ground. He scalp was bleeding badly as he chuckled happily at the sight.
"NO! Stop it, you monster!" She said as the next moments were a blur.
The man was gone. Her grandmother had been stabbed and was bleeding. He had missed Emery by inches but had scratched the back of her neck.
Emery fell down to her grandmother whose face was pale. Blood was all over the carpet.
"Grandmother. No. Please. Stay with me. Don't leave me!"
Her next words had made Emery cry harder than she ever had.
"Run. Emery, I love you very much,but you have to run. Far away from this place."
"No," she said, sniffing, "I'm not leaving you!"
"Emery. RUN!"