Emma

**“***This is literally the worst day to start this internship***”**
— **Emma on the TV crew's starting troubles**

**Emma** is a playable character and the main protagonist in *Murder House*, as well as its novelisation of the same name.

## Description

### Appearance

Emma is a young Caucasian woman in her late teens to early 20's with short brown hair worn in a bob cut with bangs. She wears a black-and-white striped sweater, light blue jean shorts, black-and-white sneakers, and black horn-rimmed glasses.

### Personality

Resourceful and pragmatic, Emma begrudgingly put up with the condescending attitude and demands of her superiors at work, whom she would appease to the best of her ability, no matter how trivial or strenuous the task. Though she seemed displeased with her job, she was willing to do whatever duties were assigned to her and complained little in spite of the uneven split in workload. When the Easter Ripper trapped them inside and forced them on his deadly egg hunt, Emma used her survival instincts to outsmart the killer.

### History

Not much is revealed about Emma's background, except that she works as an intern for Channel 9, a minor TV station near Monroe, Michigan. When examining the station van, Emma comments that she hopes to have her own news crew, showing she has interest in pursuing a journalistic career, something Emma likely intended to jumpstart by taking the Internship. Emma also mentions that she runs track and field, meaning that she attends either high school or college.

## *Murder House*

On May 1st 1988, Emma, as part of a four-person film crew, arrives at an abandoned house to illegally shoot an amateur documentary about its former occupant, an executed mass murderer known as the Easter Ripper, called "*Silenced Tears - Inside the home of serial killer Anthony Smith*". Things don't go as planned from the get-go, when Jerry, the real estate agent her boss Gary bribed to enter the home, is not there, prompting him to order Emma to find a way in and open the front door. She manages to climb through a narrow basement window and unlocks the main entrance, before she is given her next task, carrying the equipment in from the van. From there, Emma does several more odd jobs for Gary and on-site presenter Dana, such as reactivating the power, serving as Dana's personal assistant and standby sound technician, playing the role of Anthony's ghost in front of the camera to bring a more sensationalist element into the story and unlocking rooms to film the report in. On one occasion, Dana confides in her that she suspects something more significant may be hidden in the manor and encourages Emma to keep her eyes peeled while exploring.

After finishing the first few shots, Gary tells her to drive into town to get some pizza, only to find the gate locked and the news van dismantled, with a threatening note taped to the windshield, announcing that the Easter Ripper's egg hunt, an ill-famed death game for his unfortunate victims, had begun. She shares this worrisome turn of events with the crew, who, while unnerved, continue with their piece, despite cameraman Tom having gone missing. Emma goes looking for him, eventually finding him in the basement, before the electricity shuts down. During her search for the eggs, Emma witnesses as Dana, Gary and Tom are brutally murdered by the Easter Ripper, all the while being hunted down herself. She also stumbles upon his torture chamber in the basement, which still houses the skeletonized corpses of six children who died from the Ripper's maltreatment.

In the end, she beats the odds, placing all four eggs in the pre-placed basket, triggering an exit to open, leading into the property's greenhouse. There, she faces the Easter Ripper, who is revealed to be Tom. Shocked, Emma asks why he killed Gary and Dana, receiving the response that it was to avenge his brother Anthony, who had willingly taken the fall for his crimes. He further rants that his homicidal impulses had got the better of him and that he was now going to kill her too. Grabbing a shotgun off a shelf, Emma fires dozens of shells into him, with Tom eventually dropping dead to the floor. Before Emma can reach the door, Tom gets back up and tries to finish her off, just as the ground begins to shake and undead children rise from their graves to devour their tormentor. She uses this distraction to run outside to safety, barely escaping a massive energy building up within the greenhouse.

### Extended ending

Emma, as well as the entire incident at the house, are revealed to be part of a movie. After Emma's actress, Sarah, criticises the sudden script change, as well as the low budget nature of the movie, she sticks around to explore the film set. She talks with all the crew members and decides to leave early, but realizes that she lost her keys somewhere around the filming premises. She ends up finding them in the torture basement set and proceeds to skip the planned party for the movie's wrap-up. As Sarah drives home, the camera slowly moves to the trunk of the car, revealing the unmoving Easter Ripper stowed away inside.

## Murder House: The Book

Emma's character remains almost entirely unchanged, barring some additional scenes preceding and following the events of the game, with only minor discrepancies.

* Emma's ambitions in journalism are elaborated on, as well as how she came to be an intern at Channel 9. She wants to become an investigative journalist and is trying to build up a rap in the industry. It's implied that she was inspired by the Watergate Scandal and the reporters who exposed the cover-up by the Nixon administration, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whom she explicitly references.
* Emma mentions having worked part-time prior to her internship and is confirmed to be enrolled in college, long enough for her professors to make glowing job recommendation on her behalf.
* Some information in Emma's background is given, such as that she has a younger brother and an older sister, and that she is in her 20's.
* She hoped to join their rival network Channel 5, but she had been rejected thrice due to their exceedingly high standards, since their popularity has surpassed Channel 9 after the death of one of their reporters, Chip Winston, in 1980, when Emma was still in high school.
	+ This is a reference to Regina Watts' previous novelisation of *Babysitter Bloodbath*, in which Chip Winston was murdered by Neokalus Burr. This appears to be a continuity error, as this took place in Monroe, Washington, not Monroe, Michigan.
* Emma is shown to have been well-acquainted with Gary, Dana, and Tom before the events of *Murder House*, and is shown to have been good friends with Tom, though she notes this was largely because he was the only other employee around her age and that they didn't associate at all outside of work, since Tom wasn't very social and not especially open about his private life.
* Besides being an intern assistant, Emma was also Channel 9's unoffical janitor.
* TBA

## Trivia

* Emma's limited stamina is explained to be the result of a pulled tendon. This may be a play on words with Achilles' heel, as it also serves as her weak spot, proving fatal when it prevents Emma from outrunning the Easter Ripper.
* Emma bears a strong resemblance to Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo, both being bespectacled, bob-haired young women with an investigative streak and generally regarded as the "brains" of their groups.
* In the updated version of the game, Emma and Janitor Jack are the only base game characters that don't have an alternate outfit.
* The reasons for her hallucinations of Gary and Dana's deaths and later with the Easter Ripper spider are never explained.
* In the alternate ending, Emma is portrayed by an in-universe version of Sarah Nowak, her voice actress. The final scene implies that she has either become the target of the actual Easter Ripper or that she was responsible for the death of a missing fellow actor named Nick, mentioned numerous times in the epilogue, who originally played the part of the Easter Ripper.