Prologue

Eighteen-year old Emma Swan stepped out of the prison facility, with a small backpack with her personal belongings hanging on her shoulder, with fear and dread written across her face. Life had all been too cruel to her from the beginning, but seriously was it too much to ask to give her a break for once in her life and simply allow her a piece of happiness?

Apparently, considering that she was an unloved orphan that had been abandoned by her birth parents, bounced around the foster system unclaimed and unloved by many, and finally falling in love with a man who betrayed her and sent her in jail for his crime. But the real kicker was that the man had gotten her pregnant in the process, so she had to give birth to her son in prison and afterwards give him up to adoption in order for him to get the best chance. So yeah, life was an evil bitch, at least to her anyways.

Now that she was finally free, she was completely clueless as to where and what she was going to do from here. With no friends or family there wasn't many places she could go, and even if she decided to try and track down Neal again she wouldn't be completely confident that she wouldn't try to murder him for betraying and abandoning not only her, but also their son who neither of them were ever going to get the chance of meeting ever again.

Maybe I should go to Neverland? She thought to herself. That's where the lost boys go. What's the big different besides gender? Silly thought, Emma, you can't go somewhere it doesn't exist.

She sighed heavily, and ran a tired hand through her long curly blond hair. Then with a confused and insecure frown on her face she began trekking down to the parking lot where Neal had ditched their 'stolen' car for her.

Why bother taking anything that bastard gave her? He was the one who left and betrayed her, so why did he leave the car for her? The car wasn't a consolation price, if it was then she would have to say it was a crappy one considering everything he had done, but what else was she going to do. She couldn't just continue remain standing there outside the prison facility, hoping for some kind of miraculous clue as to where she was supposed to go from here. Her life was anything but a fairytale, so she wasn't going to start hoping for something that was never going to happen.

When she arrived at the empty parking lot she didn't expect much, especially didn't she expect finding and seeing an orange spiraling vortex floating in mid-air either. From the moment her gaze laid eyes on that strange thing every part in her body was screaming to run. Even her head was screaming and forcefully trying to pull her away, but something was stopping her for doing what it said. Blame it on curiosity or plain stupidity, but Emma carefully approached the vortex. It felt like it was calling for her and almost inviting her to stand so close to it. Against all better judgment she was close enough that if she made one wrong move she would fall straight into the vortex with little hope of returning back.

But would it matter if I did fall in? There is no one out there who cares or would miss me the slightest if I did disappear to the oblivion. Besides, I might not believe in hope and miracles, but she needed somewhere to run or in this case go. Why not just see where this will take me?

So before her head got the chance to argue and come up with a seemingly reasonable explanation not to fall into the vortex, she jumped in and fell. Shortly afterwards the vortex simply evaporated and vanished from sight, almost like it had never once been there at all.

After what seemed like a lifetime of falling she finally reached the end of the vortex, but what she hadn't counted on was the impact of falling and landed not so graciously with her entire body and head implanted to the hard and dirty ground. When she looked up her eyes widen in surprise to find herself in the middle of a forest. It was apparent that the vortex had not brought her to Kansas or Oz, not that she had any expectation of such, but she didn't think she would have ended in a unknown forest, especially considering the fact that the prison facility had not been anywhere near the woods, mountain or any kind of nature scenery.

"Nice work, Emma. That's what you get for ignoring reason and jump into a strange vortex." She mumbled frustrated as she stood up on her feet, brushing the dirt from her pants, and looked around with hope that something might strike as familiar to her. Unfortunately it didn't.

So what now? I may not be a psychic, but I'm pretty sure that vortexes, portals or whatever she intentionally fell into wasn't something easy to come by. The best chance I have of getting back is to first find someone who can tell me where I am and then work from there. The question is however where can I find someone who may help me give the answers that I seek?

Emma had no clue, but she wasn't going to stand in the middle of the forest waiting for the answer either. She was no damsel in distress, and besides, who knew what could be lurking in the forest. She may have been stupid once, shame on her, but being stupid twice that was just a plain death wish on her part.

So she adjusted the grip on her backpack before she began trekking away in the woods, hoping to find some kind of road that would eventually lead her to people. However what she didn't know was that due to her decision, her fate had changed and she was now on the path of a completely different adventure then she could ever anticipate.

.

.

.

Hope you guys like the prologue. The next chapter will be out probably the same day next week, so stay tuned for that.

This is the beginning of an AU, Canon/Divergence story, so don't throw flames at me for whatever reason you believe I have insulted you. If there are grammar errors in the story, then I'll apologize. I don't have a Beta, and I have no intention of getting one, so if you find this story fascinating then just bear with me here. My main purpose with the story is to entertain you, and also release my brain from creative/imagination overdrive.

And as you all know, but the site requires I remind you, I don't own OUAT and the series belong to their respective owners.

For other news, I learned today that OUAT is being renewed for another season. Yeah! Now I can't wait for the premiere on Sunday :)

Anyways please review, favorite and/or follow this story.

Yours truly,

xXrebelgirlXx