Hiya, guys! So this is because I actually miss OUAT and decided to have a little fun with the story. You're a more than welcome to join me.

This is a retelling of the TV Show with a few major differences and semi-original characters such as Hannah and Flynn Rider (original to the story, I mean). I'm using a single point of view, so a whole bunch of things will have to be cut off as well. Again, this is just for fun, so of course it has some holes all in all.

Hope you like it all the same! XOXO

Act I — The Dark Curse

"The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before they are to die, having been silent during most of their lifetime."

At first, I found nothing out of the ordinary. To my childish eyes, it certainly made no difference the oddities of my everyday life. I can't tell you when I started to notice that things weren't quite right with the people around me; one day, it just dawned on me—that lonely feeling of being the only one who can see the truth and still not quite understand it.

Children don't grow up. Not like me. When the grownups see me about, they often have that same surprised reaction, like it's the first time they are seeing me properly, like it took them this long to notice the changes about me.

"Dear God, girl, you've grown!"

"Hannah banana, look at you, you're so big!"

"Won't you ever stop growin', lass? Ha ha!"

The aftermath of that is the inadequate feeling I get, like I'm doing something wrong. Like there is something wrong with me. Like I am the strange one. I grow up when others don't. I change while everyone else stays the same.

It can drive you crazy.

September 2nd. Never fails to arrive. It is my mother's birthday. The Madam Mayor is thirty-five years old. Every September 2nd. Of every year. I started to notice that when I was seven, and to comment on it, but Regina only gives me that look that says I'm losing my mind and she's not quite sure how to deal with it.

"I turned thirty-four last year," she tells me but we both know that isn't true. She can't stand the heartbreak that gives me—the lies—so she turns away and avoids talking to me until I've decided to let the subject go. But however gullible I try to be, the truth still haunts me because I get to remember her turning thirty-five again and again and again.

Regina is not all bad, I don't think. She isn't around much anymore, but when I was young, when I didn't notice the inertia around me, we used to do everything together. She read me books and sang my lullabies. She took care of me whenever I was sick and not once did she complain about my moods. It was only when I started questioning her that she drew back, that she pushed me away.

We barely talk anymore. She denies my accusations with such skill I always end up doubting myself. Maybe there is something wrong with me—maybe I am crazy. I got mixed up. I can very well repeat the lies my mother tells me until it becomes easier to just believe it and to forget how eerie life truly is in Storybrooke.

When I was eight, I begged Regina to take me on a trip. "Anywhere," I told her. It didn't matter. I just knew I had to get out of Storybrooke for a while. I had to be away from those people frozen in time, doing the same thing every day like it was their first time at it.

Regina did everything to try and change my mind. But I was decided. I needed a break. Regina, of course, refused so vehemently that I was forced to think she had another reason for not wanting to leave Storybrooke. It couldn't be work; it is a small town, they would survive a few days without Madam Mayor. But Regina didn't give in and turned snappy whenever the subject was brought up again.

It was then that, alone in my room, I sat in front of the computer and googled 'Storybrooke, Maine'. There were no results. It is a small town, but it isn't possible that there is absolutely nothing about it out there. No records. No prints. It's like it doesn't exist. And for a moment back then, I remember I started to panic.

What if it doesn't exist? What if my life is a lie? What if none of it is actually happening? It is like being trapped inside a bubble, floating in outer space, just waiting for it to explode.

That must be when I die. When there is nothing left.

I have no one to talk about it either. I tried Regina, who must have been my best friend at one point or another, perhaps my only friend. But Madam Mayor doesn't tolerate children's foolishness. She doesn't tolerate curiosity, or stubbornness, or insistence, while I, on the other hand, don't tolerate resistance, stubbornness and lies. We yell at each other and I would end up slamming my bedroom's door in her face, and crying, and wishing I had been adopted by literally anyone else in the whole world, anyone as long as they don't live in Storybrooke, Hell.

Why can't Regina believe me? I never found out. That might have been the real issue that estranged the two of us. All I've ever truly wanted was for someone to believe me. Someone to listen, to take me seriously. Someone who doesn't exist in these parts. And there is zero hope of ever meeting someone new because nobody ever comes to Storybrooke.

It's like a curse.

That's what I believed at ten years old. But when I was twelve, I met a girl who was new in town. Lily. She was wild and strong, and had this really cool birthmark on her wrist in the shape of a star. She was the most interesting person I had ever known. She was everything I wanted to be. Lily would do what she wanted, never answering to anybody, never afraid of anything. She had come to Storybrooke in a bus from New York City. She was running away from her parents. She'd come from a home situation much like my own—adopted and misunderstood. Lily knew what it was like to live in a place where nobody cared about her. She knew what it was like to not fit in.

Lily was the best friend I never had. After a whole month of acquaintance, in which I skillfully hid her in my house without Regina noticing, her adoptive parents found her and took her back to New York. Both of us tried to keep in touch for a while, but things got complicated. I tried to run away from home once, too, I tried to go be with Lily in New York, but I can't leave Storybrooke. The town itself won't let me. The curse won't let me.

It is my own personal piece of hell.

It was around this time I started to have private sessions with Dr. Hopper. According to everyone, I am utterly crazy and I need professional help. There is something wrong with me after all. So Regina had to do something before the situation got out of hand. Like me, she knows the doctor can't help, but I suppose we both realize this is better than pretending nothing is the matter.

Some old wounds are opened when I visit with Dr. Hopper. He suggests that perhaps I am acting out because deep down I want to leave to go find my birth parents. He makes me ask painful questions aloud. Why have they given me away? Why have they given up on me? Why didn't they want me? Why did they condemn me to a life of watching the clock tower needles that will never move? Who are they? And what did I do to be discarded like a sack of bad potatoes?

The matter is taken with Regina as well. With every question, with every presented possibility, the edge between us grows, until there is nothing else between us except feign civility.

I've only known one person in Storybrooke with whom I don't have to pretend. I don't have to lie or be afraid that she'll think I'm crazy. She doesn't. Ms. Blanchard, the sweet school teacher, is who I go to whenever Regina acts less like a mother and more like an evil stepmother. Ms. Blanchard always knows what to say; she's never too busy to help. She has the true eyes of a loving friend—she is a comfort, a reward, a privilege.

When I was a child, she helped with stories. She would tell me of far-off kingdoms, magic spells, princes in disguise. Monsters and heroes. Fantastic lands. Things every little girl needs. When I grew up, her subjects became more honest. We discuss real things. Usually we end up talking about myself because Ms. Blanchard doesn't know—or can't remember—anything about her own past. That's not surprising. Ask anyone here any personal questions and their minds go blank.

I have given up hope that someday I'll get to move forward. I have accepted my fate. Here I am: Hannah Mills, adoptive daughter, likes pianos and flowers, reads lots of books, is decidedly crazy and honestly a bit of a bore. This is who I am going to be forever.

This is my curse.

Unbeknownst to me, however, things do start to change. With their arrival. The two dark strangers. Mysterious youths that comes to Storybrooke in old-school motorcycles that wakes up the whole neighborhood. They ask for rooms at Granny's B&B. And they follow me with their eyes like they expect something interesting to burst out of me.

They make everything change—and the clock's needle finally moves.