"I'm Emma" she states with a deep breath, her momentary deflation dissipating as she quickly recovers her imposing and confident bearing. "And that's my mom and...and...she died three months ago."
With her statement, there is a pregnant pause as it feels the air is drained from the room. I stand there dumb-struck, watching as the tall slender young woman tries to maintain her imposing and dignified posture despite the roiling emotions twisting her up inside.
"I..." I manage to stammer, the gears in my head grinding to a halt as I try to square up what she is saying with the reality of our situation. The whole idea of a long-lost sister was still on the table, but then why did she think my mother was dead? Why had my mom responded to her so casually, wouldn't she have been surprised to hear a girl's voice on the call? "That's..." I begin to croak, my sentence being cut short by the young woman supposedly named Emma.
"Impossible? Yeah I..." she blurts out, choking back a faint quivering in her voice as she maintains her composure. Her eyes dart around the room a little, her brow furrowing in a distracted manner as she takes in the drab and outdated surroundings. "And so is... this is too weird" she mutters, staring at the open door and its mirrored counterpart on her own side.
For a moment here is another bout of silence, with me staring at her and her staring at the warped doorway that we had torn open. All the anger and indignant rage from before seems to drain away from her as she tries to work out what was going on just as much as I was.
As I watch her eyes dart about, mentally in search of something or anything that made sense, I notice the towel shift slightly. The thick plush and fluffy towel looked ever so slightly flatter and more coarse than before, the faint blue tinting having also deepened slightly. Her readjusting seems to ease up though, mostly focusing on keeping it covering her perky chest as the lower half appears more eager to cover her slender hips and firm thighs.
Suddenly Emma pivots in place, turning with exceptional grace to face me with a hand outstretched.
"Let me call her" she demands, her confident voice conveying that she was used to getting what she wants.
"I don't think that's a good..." I begin to explain. However, I'm caught off guard as she lunges towards me. In one swift motion she snatches my phone from my hand, her eye twitching in a slight wince of discomfort as her hand comes into contact with the black hard-case.
"Ouch" Emma whimpers, shaking her hand slightly and by extension my phone "Stupid static."
"H...Hey!" I call back, taking a step towards her as she backs away. "Give that back, it's locked anyway so you're..." I say, pausing in shock as I watch her fiddle with my phone.
She fumbles for a moment in search of where to place her thumb, not really thinking that it wouldn't unlock for her. "Urgh, what's the deal with this old piece of..." she mutters to herself, obviously not listening to me as she struggles with the older model phone in her hands. Eventually she manages to glide her thumb across the right spot, the lock screen freezing up for a moment as it tries to read her fingerprint.
My eyes are drawn to her hands as she struggles to get access to my phone, her need and desire to call the person she thought was her deceased mother only growing worse as she found herself so close to her goal. Her slender and delicate hands seem extremely well-maintained, with her fingers ending in a set of neatly styled ballerina nails with a coat of lemonade pink polish.
However, much to my shock, as she holds my phone in her right-hand something begins to shift. The subdued yet still energetic pink color coating the tapered nail on her thumb quickly begins to fade, the overall shape of the styled surface flattening down as it shifts to a more trimmed state. With Emma still staring at the screen, eagerly waiting for it to respond, I watch as her thumb begins to shake slightly, the whole digit growing as it becomes larger and thicker in comparison to the digit on her other hand.
I'm snapped from my staring as the phone vibrates loudly, telling us all that it didn't recognize the thumbprint. With a loud huff, Emma immediately tries again, not caring if she locked a phone that wasn't hers. However, as she glides her engorged thumb over the phone once again it unlocks without hesitation.
Beaming ear to ear she stares down at the contacts page, my mother's name sitting front and center where I had left it. Her joy is short-lived however as she moves to press the call button. Her eyes immediately go wide as she notices her hand, and more importantly her thumb, as she tries to use the phone. Squealing in shock she tosses the phone away with it thankfully landing on the bed. Holding up both her hands she quickly makes her inspection, whimpering slightly as the potentially quite expensive manicure she had gotten appeared to slowly disappear from her dominant hand.
"What the fuck" she hisses, wriggling her right hand as she stares in awe at her slightly longer and certainly less well-moisturized fingers.
I'm unable to even respond, my eyes darting between her and my now unlocked phone as I try to grapple with what was even happening. It was all happening too quickly, from the window of a mirror, to the strange door and the young woman claiming to be my mother's daughter, to that same young woman somehow unlocking my phone.
Suddenly it hits the two of us, our eyes going wide at the same time as I lift my own right hand. Emma quickly claps her left hand over her mouth, stifling a scream in horror as she compares the now identical digits residing on both our hands. My own heart skips a beat, my mind struggling to hold it together as I'm left completely dumbfounded.
"I have...gross...oh my god this is..." she squeaks and stammers, her dignified bearing collapsing et again as the reality of our situation begins to sink in. Her eyes dart over to the doorway, every instinct in her body begging her to race back through and end this nightmare. However, before she can act on any of those feelings her gaze returns to the phone on the bed, a last chance to talk to her late mother from beyond the grave.
With a deep breath she tries to calm herself, her hands still shaking despite her stoic seeming expression. Without so much as looking down she struggles with the towel once again, finding it harder to keep up over her chest than ever before. My own eyes are briefly drawn to the problem, a moment of confusion hitting me as the hem of the once soft and plush towel appeared to be more like denim than anything else.
"I'm going to call my mother" she declares, announcing her plan more so for her own benefit than my own as she struggles to overcome her own terror at this point. "We can work out what...this all is after that and...and..." she continues, trailing off into groans as the towel attempts one last time to slip down past her chest.
With a disgruntled and maddened groan, she nods towards the doorway before looking at me. "Can you...get me a fucking top or something from my room" she barks, obviously not making a question out of her demand. "I mean, after what you did in the bathroom you're lucky I'm just asking for that."
"Why can't you..." I called back, only to have my slightly taken aback protest get cut short by a menacing glare.
"Because" she snaps, waltzing over to the bed with her graceful strides. "I have a call to make, and you owe me for perving on me in the bathroom. Would you like that to come up when I call your..." she explains, taking a seat on the side of the bed before issuing her threat.
Swallowing hard I turn to head to her room, knowing that it wasn't much of a request and not wanting to deal with any retaliation from the stuck-up young woman.
As I walk towards the doorway I hear Emma quickly dial my mother's phone number, the ringing only lasting a few seconds before the receiver is picked up on the other end.
"Hi sweetheart" coos my mother once more, a slight gasp and whimper coming from Emma as she hears the aging yet warm voice on the other end of the line.
"H...Hi mom" whimpers Emma, her voice shaking as she cokes back her emotions in the moment. "It's me" she says, her voice being little more than a whisper as she grows ever more vulnerable.
A bit of a chuckle comes from the other end of the line. "Well of course it's you, I know my own son's voice you dope" she explains, obviously finding the situation amusing. "I'm not your grandmother, I don't need to be reminded of who called"
"No...I mean..." Emma calls back, her voice filled with shock as she struggles with the fact the woman she knows as her mother didn't recognize her voice as she expected. However, after that brief moment of hurt I hear a small gasp.
"Wait...Gran Gran's not..." Emma shouts in surprise, the end of her sentence getting cut short as I step through the doorway.
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