At night, as you lie down to bed, if you listen closely you can hear it.
When you wake up to the stillness of your loft at 2 a.m. it's not a dream that wakes you, it's mother's intuition. Your daughter is screaming but you can't hear her. You can't hear her until it's too late and the quiet has consumed you. You cry as you hold your son, because you can't save his sister.
As you lie your head on the pillow next to your wife and the day's events slowly fade from your mind it stirs you, just slightly it stirs the recesses of your mind. The screaming you can't hear, you can only feel it's torment.
You're up late studying in a room that you had abandoned when the first storm of darkness had hit Storybrooke, you had seeked shelter with another mother. Another mother whom now you are seeking shelter from. Your eyes wander from the notes before you and focus aimlessly on the spider in the corner of the wall. It's in the mindlessness that you can barely hear the screaming. It echoes inside of you, the only problem is you don't register the pain soon enough.
You watch the stars because it's the only way you can bare to look at a swan. You try to lose yourself in the constellations when you hear the screaming. It's a tickle to your soul, like a marionette doll having its strings pulled. All the strings have been stretched and damaged, leaving only a vague sense of recognition in it's wake. The feeling of being haunted doesn't leave you, the echo of the agony resounds in you. If only you could find the source.
You know it's coming with nightfall, the pain is worse in the darkness. That's why you create the dreamcatchers, to distract yourself from the light. The light that can't be reached because the dark has become too deep. So it screams, you scream, in agony your soul calls out for help. The darkness is suffocating but you can't save your breath to breathe or the dark might encroach in your silence. So you scream, only no one can hear you.
When they find the source of the screaming it had already been silent for too long.