This is my first serious fanfiction and I honestly needed after Once Upon a Time finale. I'm gonna go wild with the Dark One reason to exist, you might not understand everything from the beginning but I assure you I'll try to do my best.

Thanks to pistachawoman, to Alicia and goddesspurrilla. And of course, thank you, whoever you are! Please if you think I can improve leave it in the comments or tell me in Twitter or Tumblr. As you wish. Please, have a pleasant lecture!

How many days had passed...? What was the meaning of "day"..?

Where am I? Why there is so much.. information.. why there is darkness.. I believe..

I believe I tried to fight darkness.. Is this darkness? I don't see nothing. I feel.. power.. but I can't light myself..

Can I escape? I just see.. souls.. or magic..? Light with tails.. like they were comets.. I can't breathe..

. . .

Again... darkness... I feel my skin hardened.. like it is leather.. rough.. who am I now? I remember... being a child of slavery.. did I have will..? I cut my wings.. but I wasn't me..then he... he came.. the writer... he ravaged me.. he destroyed me.. he took my magic.. the Author... I became I..

And then, for the centuries.. I kept becoming I.. until the last one.. he ravaged the free will of others, he destroyed the lifes of others.. he destroyed me, I. He destroyed.. R..

. . .

I remember. I just feel asphyxia. But I remember.

She wasn't running out of breath. She didn't need to breath. She realized she was underwater, and she had the feeling she had been there a long time. Emma couldn't move a lot, her muscles felt sore, but nontheless, she felt powerful. The newborn woman fighted the soreness on her body and began swimming in direction to the water surface.

The last thing she remembers is grabbing a dagger, kissing a man and be embraced by darkness. She also remembers the last face she saw. Regina. She remembered that face and that name, but there were no memories aside from that.

Emma choked when finally got to the coast. She felt anxious, out of control. But there was no one to help. And the memories from I told her that her power would be enough on any dangerous situation. But she couldn't trust herself. Not after being swallowed by darkness.

The human in her tried to find a sign, a location, a name to guide her, to help her take the first step and return home, or decide to never come again. Storybrooke Harbor. Those words had a reminiscence of that face she saw after dying.

Emma heard her name. Not her name, but its name. And now, she was it. It was a woman's voice, but she couldn't find the origin, until it became so strong she fell on the ground, and anxious began running towards the forest.

Emma felt like she could run more. Maybe the soreness was gone, but running she felt free. Escaping from the voices, thoughts, whatever she was hearing, feeling, felt free.

After some time running, she got to the cementery. She couldn't stay there, because the anxiety, the danger, hadn't disappeared. But at the right of the cementery, deep, between some trees, there was a house. Or a temple. Whatever it was, it could serve as a haven.

Emma entered. It was a cript. And she saw a coffin. It was a cript. It was written HENRY. Next to it there were other two coffins.

CORA.

DANIEL.

Regina had counted 147 days since Emma turned dark. She had disappeared in a dark smoke, and the only thing she left was the dagger. EMMA SWAN. It had been so much time that when she closed her eyes, Emma's face was beginning to fade. And she hated that sensatition. She had lost her physically, and now the memories were saying goodbye as well.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe she could forget what she had felt those last months. Maybe she could begin a new life, with Henry, like she wanted on the beginning, without a biological mother to take her kid away. But they had developed their friendship so much. It was her who in her vault begged Regina to be friends. Emma promised her happy ending. With Robin, with Henry, at the cost of her life.

Henry didn't leave the house. He only talked to her, Snow White and Lily, and Regina was quite sure the last was because Henry wanted to know more about her mother. Snow White didn't sleep, she had been at the hospital few times already. David was almost everytime in his own mind, thinking about where Emma could be. Regina had offered him the sheriff position, but he rejected it even before the Mayor could finish. And she understood, because David taking the badge meant no one had more hopes for Emma to appear.

Robin had left with Zelena, as the coward he was, Regina thought. The only thing Regina was thankful to him was discovering she was indeed in love with another person. Who was, at least, missing, and at the most...

Shivers came down her spine, she tried not to think about that possibility, although the failure on her investigations and the summonings showed what could be a reality. Emma is dead. Her hands feel sleepy. Everytime she thought Emma could have passed away, she stopped working. That's why she was always working.

And sometimes, when she felt sorrow, loneliness.. solitude, she would come down to the crypt, talk to his father, to Daniel, about what she felt. And silence was the only answer she got. Other times, once in a while, she would hear her mother's voice. Loser, loner. You are just a coward, pretending to be strong. You weren't strong without magic, and without love you are even weaker.

She was strong, but there were days where she just stared at the dagger. EMMA SWAN. And she would repeat, hour after hour, minute after minute, "Dark One, I summon thee." and at the end, she always ended in the ground, shaking, screaming internally. Alone.

She decided it was time for a drink. The strongest one, if it was possible. Whisky. She laughed when she realized how many cider and whisky bottles she drank over these 147 days on her office, as she was doing now. Get back to work, Regina. And so she did. Regina had to take a look on the Storybrooke CCTV cameras. Usually, that would be Emma's task, but Emma.. and Regina didn't want to put more weight on David's shoulders. He had enough with his own and Snow' sorrow, and thankfully the the cameras made laugh to Regina once a day.

Although, she had a secret camera which did not bring laughter on her. After what happened with Daniel's body, she made calls to install 3 CCTV cameras on her crypt, at the cementery. Not that she continued to do unethical things there, but the emotional valour of the place was to much to seen it as mess again.

So she sat again on her armchair, left the whisky on the table and took a look on the cameras. Nothing out of the normal, gladly. She would rage if something strange happened. And she actived the other closed circuit, the one on the crypt, while reclining on the chair. Nothing was out of normal. Nothing moved.

Until it moved. Regina choked and spit out the whisky, making her work table a mess. It looked like a person. Maybe is a thief. It looked tall, and had long hair. Is definitely a thief, and it looks like a woman, or a girl. Regina didn't have anything more of valor in that crypt, aside from the coffins and what those meant to her.

Suddenly, the individual jumped on one of the coffins. It had a mask on its face, a black one, and it looks like it was using the camera to have at least a reflection. She couldn't remove it, it seems, not easily. She was trying to brake it piece by piece, and suddenly, it got close to the camera, letting Regina see the eyes.Green. She remembered Emma's eyes, but it wasn't that kind of green. It could not be her.

On spur of moment, part of the mask fell off. You could see the jaw of the woman, the chin, the skin. The white skin. And the hair. It was white, long. Blonde.

Green. Long. Blonde.

Regina was already shivering, sweating, eyes teary, gazing at the woman movements. And she heard it, while she tried to poof on the crypt without luck.

"Henry?"

And finally, the only thing left on the Mayor's office was smoke.