A/N: this is an AU where Wendy and Peter Pan are together and turned to living in Storybrooke.
While shadows danced across my room as the candlelight flickered, my fingers flicked through the charred black pages. So many images of my parents but how could all of these moments have been captured with a camera? The clothes they mostly wore didn't even look like they were from nowadays to boot. There was a photo on each page and things like floral or leafy patterns surrounded it. From the looksee, the photos marked each stage of their relationship…literally! So you can imagine the amount of times I had to close my eyes and quickly skip some pages. It was almost like the photos were taken from their memories and turned into photos. Why hadn't they showed me this scrapbook and just kept it tucked away under their bed? Was it that some of the photos were too explicit? They could always temporarily remove them – it wasn't like the photos were stuck on the pages with superglue (more like stuck down at the corners with small, thin strips of masking tape). Some photos were actually quite moving and so sweet, they made me want to cry. But I didn't dare, unless I wanted to wake my parents and bust myself, causing me to get grounded for at least a week. My favourite photo was on the ninth page, which captured their first kiss.
Winter was slowly melting to Spring in Storybrooke but frost still stained the glass on windows at night. A draught crept its way somewhere through a tiny gap in the window and made its way over to my bed. After a shiver, I yawned softly. Although I was tired, I wanted to look at more photos, reading their captions at the same time. Unfortunately, as I reached the twelfth page, I was disturbed by the photo slightly and the caption made up my mind: "Peter and Wendy, first sensual kiss". Nothing's worse than either catching your parents at the most indecent of times or looking at cringe-worthy photos like the one in front of me and so, my heart agreed with my head. It was time to sleep. The photo was of daddy holding mummy against a tree for support with her legs bent at the knees, which were on either side of his waist, as they kissed. Di…sgu…sting!
So I buried the brown leather bound scrapbook under my pillow, leaned across and turned out the candle before I nestled into the covers, turned on my side, facing the wall with my head on my hands and closed my eyes. I hated my eyes, if I'm being completely honest. The feature only made it harder for me to fit in with the other kids at school. My left eye was brown and the right was green. Mummy and daddy told me they loved my eye colours and claimed they wished they had my eyes. I appreciated their efforts but they didn't have to lie to me. After all, I was their daughter and they were my parents.
It was my birthday in only five hours (I was born at five in the morning). I would be eleven. I couldn't wait to see my cake – the one made at Granny's and the one mummy and daddy refused to give any hints as to what it looked like. Daddy challenged me, said that he betted I couldn't blow out all eleven candles on the cake in one single breath. I couldn't wait to prove him wrong! Mummy and daddy don't have a clue but I already knew the main present they'd bought me: a dress – a white dress with a piece of thick red silken ribbon at the waist and roses along the pentagon-shaped neckline.
I knew that my birthday would come faster if I slept. But I found it incredibly difficult – and it had nothing to do with excitement. The quicker I went to sleep, the sooner I would open my eyes and find that the dark shadows of the night had given way to the soft golden rays of the morning.
Suddenly, almost supernatural like it didn't belong, the draught grew stronger. Had my window flung open? I hated getting up in the dark, the night would play tricks on me, so I laid still and just gripped the covers tighter around me, deciding it best to keep my eyes open and let them close on their own. However, when I opened my eyes, I could see shadows danced on the walls again. Hadn't I turned out the candle? Had mummy or daddy decided to check up on me? I never heard the door open and I never heard footsteps walk across the floor to turn on the candle. I knew that daddy had magic but not even he would use it for something as simple as that.
My heart started drumming heavily in my chest as every possibility of what could be causing these disturbances became impossibilities. It did cross my mind to call out for my parents but then I quickly put the thought from my mind. I had school tomorrow, daddy had work and mummy was, without a doubt, exhausted after she'd finally got Angelina, my baby sister, to sleep. No, I had to brave the night on my own. I'd have to learn at some point in my life anyway.
Snapping me away from my thoughts, I heard a fluttering above, circling the ceiling. Now adrenaline was causing through my veins. A bat! A winged rodent with no fur, no cuteness and claws that tug on your hair was in my room! I tried to calm myself, trying to silence that screaming voice inside my head. There was no way it would land on my bed, I decided, it had no reason to, there wasn't food of any kind on it anyway.
Then, the noise sounded nearer, halfway between the ceiling and where I was laying. I sucked in a rasping breath, waiting for the sound to fly lower. Indeed, it got much closer, just next to the head of my bed. I knew that if I were to turn around, I'd be staring into its bulbous rounded, emotionless eyes and bare black face with pointed fangs hooking over its lip.
I had to get up. I could run to my parents' room, say that I'd woken up to a bat in my room and they might let me sleep in their room. Oh, but what if my honey brown hair got caught in its claws before I could even sit up? What if I brushed past it as I shot up off the bed? What if it chased me all the way?
Just when I thought things couldn't get any more terrifying, I felt a tug at my pillow and something slide out from under my head. I tried to sit up but the most I could do was turn around. When I saw the creature, the confusion and paralysis overwhelmed me: I was staring into the face of an ugly bat, but its tail wasn't short like other bats'. The tail was long and had a pointy cluster of bristly fur sprouting out at the end. It had a small thin neck and where the neck connected to its body, it was lined with fur. It looked like a bat but at the same time, would look like a rat had it no wings or a bat's head. It was a mixture of two of the most filthy and ugly creatures I knew of! I tried to let out a scream of repulsion and fright but when I opened my mouth, no sound escaped my lips.
The creature flew a little closer and now I realised it was trying to pull the scrapbook out from under my pillow. I tried lifting my hand to either swat it away or snatch the book out from under the pillow, but my arm wouldn't budge let alone my hand. Angry eyes pierced into my frightened ones as it finally dragged the last edge of the scrapbook, the spine, away from the pillow. The creature straggled through the air with the book. I tried to make a noise, any noise at all, but nothing came out. It headed for the window but then fell on the sill.
Then, something new occurred, even more petrifying. It looked like the creature was growing bigger, the wings wrapping into arms as it sat on the sill. How was that possible? How could a normal creature take on a different shape? That was the thing though – this was Storybrooke, an abnormal town, and this creature clearly wasn't ordinary either and didn't belong in this world.
I watched with an open mouth as it opened the book with small hands and flicked through the pages. It scowled at every photo and all I heard its tiny, throaty high-pitched voice hiss was, "Where is it? Where is that memory? Where is it…"
By the silvery moonlight, I could see its expression contorted with hatred and anguish. But at what? Just what could be so intriguing that a creature would sneak into a girl's room at night, take her parents' scrapbook and flick through the pages, obviously hunting for a specific photo? Why was it so important? Who was I kidding? The more important question I should've been asking myself was: what was that thing perched under the luminescent moonbeams?
Stranger still about this creature, its eyes glowed red in the moon's light. Its glare was vivid as it examined the contents of the scrapbook's pages. Those eyes then turned from the book and glared over at me.
Dumping the scrapbook on the sill, the creature's arms melted back into wings and flew over to me, hovering above me. It lowered to sit on my chest. The weight of such a creature was surprisingly and worryingly heavy. All of a sudden, those fangs that hooked over the creature's lip bit into my neck. Long, thin needles of pain pierced my neck. Only a silent scream escaped my lips. It was like I was slipping away, my life draining from my body as I could feel myself drifting away from the world I knew and drifting towards a deepest darkness no one could know of until they experienced death.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the pain, hoping it would soon fade away.
Before I knew it, I sat bolt upright in bed and found the weight on my chest gone. That wasn't all that disappeared with the creature. My head turned towards the sill…where was the scrapbook? Sound finally found its way out of my throat and I cried hard, hugging my knees and burrowing my face into my arms as if that would protect me.
Soon after, something pounded across the floor in the hallway. Before I even had time to process what could be making that noise, the door flung open and daddy entered, flicking the switch to the ceiling light on. Not a second later, he was sitting on the edge of my bed, holding me in his arms and soothingly cradling the back of my head. I sobbed into his chest and he stroked my hair in reassurance.
"It's all right, darling," he said gently, "It was just a dream – only a nightmare, nothing that will hurt you."
But then he held me at arm's length, carefully studying my face, my shoulders, then finally, his eyes rested on my neck. He took my handkerchief from my nightstand and dabbed it gently on my neck. He tried to hide it but he stared at the handkerchief for a few seconds, something in his green eyes that I couldn't quite comprehend. It looked like a mixture of confusion, anger and, altogether, worry as he looked back at me. Seeing my anxious expression, he smiled warmly and tucked it in his pocket. Although not so fast that I didn't catch sight of the specs of blood.
Before I could open my mouth to ask, mummy came into the room, standing just in front of the doorway.
"What happened?" she asked, her voice like silk.
Daddy looked a little irritated and turned his head to face her.
"Thought I told you to stay in bed."
Mummy shook her head and heaved a sigh.
"How am I supposed to sleep when our daughter's clearly upset?" With that, mummy smiled softly at me as she took her seat on the bed next to daddy.
"It was a nightmare, mummy," I told her.
"What about, sweetheart?"
"It…there was a creature that flew in my room. I-it hovered above me for some time before coming down and sitting on me…" I trailed off as my lips trembled and I buried my face in my hands. "It sucked my blood!"
Daddy pulled me back into his arms, kissing the top of my head.
"It was only a dream," mummy assured me, "Nothing can hurt you in a dream."
Contrary to what she promised, I looked up and saw mummy and daddy exchanging worried and puzzled glances. What was that about?
All the same, when they were satisfied that I was calm, mummy and daddy both planted a kiss on my forehead before they filed out of the room. Before she'd completely left, mummy turned back to me and gave me one last smile before flicking off the switch and softly closing the door behind her. I could hear muffled voices as footsteps creaked away from my room.
At first, I believed my parents when they called it a nightmare. But then, as I laid back down, a thought came to mind and so I reached behind me, feeling all under the pillow for that book. It really was gone! The creature wasn't in my room anymore but where could it have gone? Creatures don't just vanish into thin air!
A part of me wanted to believe my parents and call it a nightmare.
The other part of me knew better.
After all, the book was nowhere in sight and daddy had wiped off blood from my neck.
You don't get those in a nightmare…
A/N: just a silver of a starter to give you a more detailed idea of what this story is going to be about. So do you think the creature was working on its own accord? If not, who do you think it was working for? I know it's 'just a scrapbook' but later on you'll see why it's so important. Please leave your thoughts in a review, I'm interested to see what you think and who the culprit is.