Moments turned into minutes, and these precious minutes have never felt so surreal. My mother had her arms wrapped around me so tightly and my father's shoulder burying my face I had forgotten there was even a world out there. Not to mention the world staring at us. As I lifted my head I saw a crowd beginning to swarm around. People laughing, smiling, some even crying. But there wasn't one eye not locked on the Royal family's reunion. My eyes scanned the crowds. She was standing there. Just a minute ago she had been calling for me. Now she's gone. My heart ached slightly.
"Uh…I think this belongs to you." I pulled the sword from my side and handed it to David. His eyes settled in mine. He smiled and took it from my hand.
"I think you deserve this more than I do." His fingers ran along the crested handle and handed it back to me. "How did you find this?"
"Actually, it found me…" I couldn't help but laugh a little.
Mary Margaret ran her hand along my cheek and was memorizing every inch of me. Every time I imagined this moment, I pictured myself being one hundred percent blissful. Right now, I'm anything but. All I can think about is how this woman and this man are characters from a story and how my mom is the villain. It just doesn't feel real.
"What happens now?" I ask Mary Margaret. She looks back at David.
"I'm not sure…But I do know, that we're together now… So everything is going to be okay."
But before I had time to think, a purple mist started to gather in the distance. It was growing thicker and coming closer. Mary Margaret reached for David and both of their arms reached for me. I could see where it was coming from. I knew it wasn't far away. If I knew my mom, like I think I do, she was behind this. I pulled away from their arms, looked at August, and we were both off running. We ran faster and faster. Eventually we found ourselves in the thick of the forest, jumping over roots and limbs. August was slightly ahead of me, his hands in balled fists. Not far behind I could hear Mary Margaret and David running. Augusts' eyes lit up with a firing redish-purple and I could tell we were racing the fog.
Our legs stopped in our tracks as we saw Gold standing only a matter of ten feet in front of us. He was bent over a well. Mary Margaret and David crashed into me. Her arms pulled me in like a straight jacket.
"What have you done?!" David yelled.
Gold turned around with a smirk pasted on his face. The purple fog swept over us. Mary Margaret placed her hands over my face and I instinctually buried myself in her shoulder. But as soon as it came over us was as soon as it left. We couldn't see a visible difference, but if felt different. In fact, it felt very different.
"You're too late, Prince Charming." Gold said with a chuckle.
Without asking David grabbed the sword on my hip and ran towards Gold. Mary Margaret pleaded with him to stop, reminding him that Rumpel was never worth it. August even told him to stop. But David was in his own world.
"What did you bring here?!" He placed the tip of the sword at Gold's neck. Like a joke, Gold began to laugh. His laugh was demonic. Gold waved his hand, so effortlessly, and the sword went flying. Mary Margaret yelped.
"Just a little balance to this world, Deary!" Gold glared right through David and directly at Mary Margaret and me. "You don't understand how much it warms my heart to see you all reunited. It truly is beautiful." Gold took a step towards us, but David stood in front of him.
"You stay away from my family." He grumbled.
"It's not me that you need to be worried about."
"Then who?" Mary Margaret asked.
But it was obvious who he was speaking of. We all knew. August put his head down the water well. But he came back up even more puzzled. I tried shaking Mary Margaret's hands from my jacket, but it was like a death grip.
"The Queen, of course. You thought she had a score to settle with you before? Now that you have her daughter, I think it's going to get a little bloodier."
"Where is she?" David pushed the recovered sword in Gold's face again.
"If I had to guess I would say trying to survive." He chuckled to himself as he wrung his hands. With a snap of his fingers he was gone. Nothing left of him, but his eerie laughing still ringing through the trees.
"What does he mean? Where's my mom?" I looked at Mary Margaret, but she looked just as dumbfounded as me. August kicked a pile of rocks. We all felt defeated.
David agreed that there was nothing left for us to do here. We all started heading back towards the center of town. Everyone was still standing where we had left them. Granny and Ruby were talking amongst a crowd of dwarves. Mary Margaret, David, and August rejoined their friends. I stayed back and looked around. This town I grew up in, the one I felt I was growing out of, looked so diffierent. It didn't feel as safe. It didn't seem as sweet. This broken curse tainted everything so quaint. It didn't make sense to me why my mother would run. She isn't scared of anything. She wouldn't run from fear. She must have been running towards something. I looked at the group of people talking and plotting. I used that time to slip out unnoticed. If they knew I wanted to see Regina then they would insist on coming with me.
As soon as I was out of their sight I took the back roads. Climbing over fences, running through backyards, and going down alleys, I was able to make my way home without anyone ever seeing me. Throwing my front door open, I walked into my very quiet house. I wasn't even sure she was here. A soft thump echoed from upstairs. She was in her office. Jumping the steps two at a time, I walked through the bare hallway until I came to her office door. It was cracked open. I knocked lightly and pushed it open. The whole room had been torn apart. The door slammed behind me, and a startled Regina stood there.
"Oh, Emma! I thought it was someone else…" She threw her arms around me. She lightly kissed the side of my head. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah…yeah, I'm fine." She smiled and grabbed a box off of the floor.
"Hold this for me." It was a hat box.
She had taken everything out of its place. She had burned papers. She was preparing to leave. She grabbed a necklace from her safe and ushered me out of the room. She was running from room to room collecting all of her belongings. I watched as she piled meaningless things into a suitcase. She grabbed my backpack and told me to pack whatever I wanted to bring with me. There was nothing I could say to bring her back to reality. She was leaving, and in her mind she was leaving with me. But I think we both knew it wasn't going to be that simple. I did as she said and packed a few things I couldn't stand to be apart from, like my blanket, a few pairs of clothes, my phone, and the book August had given me. With one last look at my house I descended down the staircase and found her ransacking the kitchen.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Far away. Somewhere they will never find us."
Everything felt so rushed. One second I'm celebrating my sixteenth birthday and the next I've found my biological parents Snow White and Prince Charming, my mother is the Evil Queen and there is now magic in this world. It was too fast. My allegiance couldn't swing so quickly. Of course, I loved my mom. And of course I wanted to protect her. But there was a huge part of me that was scared of who she is capable of being.
"We can't leave now. What about everyone else?" Her eyes burned right through me.
"Everyone else? They plan on killing me, Emma. I need to protect us. We can't stay here."
It seemed like she was prepared. She had a bag and was holding the hat box. I had my backpack over my shoulder, nervous to breathe out of line. She was infuriated, anxious and spiteful. Her master plan was to keep me away from Mary Margaret and David. She didn't care how I felt, or who I was leaving behind. In her opinion I was property. Without even looking back she grabbed my hand and led us out the back door. We were like rodents creeping underneath trees and along sidewalks. I'm not even sure where we were headed. She kept pulling me along. The whole time my heart was palpitating. It felt like any second my world was going to be turned upside down again. The whole town was in an uprise. Chants and screams were coming from every direction. I could see the fear in Mom's eyes.
"Where are we going Mom?" She looked back at me. Her hand waved me in front of her as we heard the mob get closer. "Why are we running?"
"Enough questions!" Her tone got harsh and she wagged her finger in my face. From my prior experience, that usually means she's reaching a point where she will snap if I don't stop.
She led us into a cemetery. We maneuvered around headstones and headed straight towards a tomb. She grabbed a ring of keys from her bag and started trying every key to unlock the front doors of this mausoleum. It was too late, though. They had found us and everyone began running through the cemetery. Mom pushed me inside once she had finagled the door open. She slammed the door, locking it behind us. She yelled at me to help her push a coffin to the side, but I froze.
"This isn't right, Mom…" Her only response was to yell at me to help her.
With a wave of her hand she had moved the tomb with simple magic. But now everyone was banging on the doors and screaming. I couldn't tell if they were after Mom or me, or both of us. When she moved the coffin, it revealed a staircase. She basically dragged me down the stairs. I took my backpack and threw it in the corner.
"Do you want them to kill us?! Do you want them to take you away from me?" She yelled.
"They won't hurt you. I promise! Mom, we can stop all of this!"
She placed the hat box in the center of the dungeon and began opening it. Her fingers hurriedly pulled out an old, dusty hat with a broken brim.
"I am stopping all of this, Emma." She tried spinning the hat. But it wouldn't spin.
She tried again and again. It sounded as though they had broken through the front door. We could hear the rumblings from above of everyone trying to push the coffin aside. My stomach was in my throat. I wanted to reach her. I just wanted to tell her to stop, but when my hand touched her shoulder the hat began to spin, and spin fast. A suction- hole took control of the floor. Mom handed me my backpack and grabbed my hand. Mary Margaret and David jumped off the staircase. Mary Margaret reached as far as she could for me, but her arms were too short.
"You're too late, Snow!" Mom yelled from across the hole to them.
Tears began running down her face. As Mom's legs bent to jump, we were hit backwards. My eyes turned to see the Blue Fairy with balls of electric blue energy in her palms. Mom tried to pull herself up but David and Mary Margaret had made their way over and David had her down by her neck. Mary Margaret pulled me up, but restrained me as I lunged to help my mom.
"Don't hurt her!" I yelled at David. As soon as those words left my mouth he was sent flying into the wall. Mom stood up, her hands now had a ball of electric red fire and no one was protected from her wrath.
"Jump in, Emma….Emma, listen to your me! Jump in and I will follow." Her eyes were different. She wasn't Mom anymore. I could see it in her eyes, she was the Evil Queen. Her hands were held high with a burning fire, threatening Mary Margaret. But I couldn't move. My heart was racing, but for the first time my feet stood still. It was just Mary Margaret and me standing against her. We were all that was left of the hoards of people.
"I will never let you take my child, Regina. Not again."
One of Regina's hands rose and the other one used an invisible rope to pull me from Mary Margaret's embrace. She threw a ball of fire towards Mary Margaret, but on instinct and without really thinking, I leapt in front of it.
The last thing I can really remember after being hit was a burning sensation running through my blood stream and down my entire body. Slowly I felt my body slipping and as the burning took control over my entirety I felt weightless. The last thing I could feel was a hand grabbing mine.