"It was broken, but she was determined to fix..."

It was broken, but she was determined to fix it; that's what kept Emmiline Grey kneeling on the rough floorboards of the small cabin, even after the scream of police sirens in the distance had risen in tandem with the howling of the winds outside.

And so that's where they found her. The rescue workers were first on the scene, rushing in and jostling past her in their haste to attempt the impossible; to bring a man back from the dead. Whatever questions they asked fell on deaf ears as Emmiline ran her fingers over the shattered pieces of the antique jewelry box, her slim hands hovering over the remains of what had once been the complex inner workings safe inside their pretty carved rosewood shell. Cracked open, now. Smashed like an egg.

Nothing else existed. The world of her awareness started and stopped with the object in front of her. The thump of footsteps causing dust motes to swirl up from the floor, the hum of voices seeming to come from far away, and the crumpled, lifeless body not ten feet away- all of those things were irrelevant, as insubstantial as wisps of white smoke.

Emmiline had to fix it; of that, she was certain.
But she had no idea of how to do it.