Chapter 1: Realization

 "Emily, your father, Aunt Christina, and I will leave the house at 10 and Kate will leave the house at 10:30, so you better bring the key with you."
 Emily nodded for what seemed like the millionth time at her mother's stern order, without tearing her eyes away from the computer screen. Rose probably gave out orders more than the amount of times Emily had nodded her head...

 "Here are two five dollar bills for you. They are your lunch money. You can go to Mos Burger and order curry..." she said as she struggled to open the lid off the can where it held a small amount of our money.

 "Okay, okay." Emily said with a trace of annoyance. "I'm fine."

Her mother was silent, crouched in an awkward position trying to open the lid off. Emily roller her cursors everywhere trying to find something on the Forum to answer. She glanced at the clock on her computer screen. 8:27AM. Wow, already, she thought. She hadn't slept at all the day before...Last time, she looked at the clock, it was only 6AM. 1 hour is just too fast. Oh, someone, please just stop the time. She finally found a question worth answering - for her, anyways.

Question: What's the one thing us humans NEVER stop doing?

Hm. I think breathing...yeah, humans never stop breathing.

Answer : Breathing

Wait, but once we are dead, we just don't breathe anymore. So it's not right. And we do hold our breaths sometimes.

She quickly deleted her answer.

So it has to be something we never stop doing. Blinking? Um...nope. We will die, after all. Um...beating our hearts? Um, after dying? Gosh, it's just...hard. Then she thought about something she learned at school, something about mind, body, and spirit.

Answer : Our Souls

But wait. It's supposed to be something we're doing. Soul is a noun. Doesn't make sense. It exists but...
She deleted the answer.

After pondering another few answers such as eating, and thinking, she decided on one answer.

Answer: dying.

She felt satisfied and clicked on submit. Only to find that there were already 87 answers before her! Her answers will get lost in the crowd somewhere...Questions that are worth for her to answer just get a lot of answers...No chance for Best Answer then. She rolled her eyes.

"Emily! Are you listening to me?"

Oh! Had she been sucked into this question she did not even hear her own mother calling her? Ah, well, it wouldn't be the first time. Emily finally tore her eyes away from the computer screen and turned to look at her mother. Rose looked like she was getting angry. It looked like she had finally managed to open the can.

"Yes, I was." Emily lied, though she didn't hear any of what her mother said.

"What did you say?" Emily asked stupidly. She changed her mind. Honest is the best policy, she repeated to herself.

"I said you can go to Natural Food Sources to buy a lunch pack if you want..or curry there. I said I will put the money in your coat pocket so you won't forget it."

Rose took Emily's coat which was on the chair she was sitting and put the two five dollar bills inside. She patted the pocket, as if to emphasise that the money was there.

"Those money will be enough."
"Okay."

Silence.

"So do you know when the library opens?" Emily had planned to do homework in the library that day.

"No, I will look it up now." Emily said, going on http://www.google.com/ and typed in Mayfield Library Center.

"9:00AM to 5:00PM." Emily said. "Because today's Sunday."

"Oh, I see." Rose said. "You better get going now," she suggested.

Emily put all her breakfast plates in the sink, grabbed her house key from her school bag, putting it inside her right coat pocket, and went to the washroom to brush her teeth. She wondered whether if her break stunk or not. As she brushed her teeth, she thought out what she was going to do that day.

Okay, so I will finish math until page 80 and then I will go to Natural Food Resources and buy a lunch pack...then go home and ask on Forum about questions I don't know on math, and then do more math and English homework...I wonder if I can feel motivated to do all that.

"Mom, I'm going, okay?" Emily shouted from the bathroom. Rose came out from the living room to follow Emily to the doorsteps.
"Bye bye"
"Bye, be careful. You have the house key right?"
"I have it," Emily said, feeling her pocket. " Bye mom,"
"Bye."

And the door was shut.
Emily continued her way toward the library.