Her name rustled through the dawn in a hoarse wheeze. It seemed to be called from in all directions. This time she was in a swamp. It was early morning and only a few rays of sun bled through hazy gray clouds. The murk and slime swirling around her ankles. The water reeks of the same foul odor as the mist had. It assaulted her nose mercilessly. She tried to move walk, but the bog seemed to have her feet suctioned into the mud. At last she pried herself free of the thick sludge, but the same velocity that had freed her, had sent her sprawling face first into the bog goop. She heaved herself up and coughed up a bile of mud and tiny pebbles. It dripped down her chin, bringing her hand up to wipe it away only served to smear it. Somehow she knew something was coming for her, it scuttled deep beneath the surface. She expected it to tug her by the ankle beneath the surface. Ignoring the grime on coating her face she began a stumbling run. The rocks beneath the stagnant water shredded her heels and allowed the swamp to ebb into her body. Sheer revulsion alone had her scoping out land…a bounder…a tree, anything to get her open soars out of that vile water.
She saw him then, out of the corner of her eye. That beaten plague mask—she can now identify the bird it was modeled after. He wasn't waiting for her in the depths. No, he was lurking behind a tree. Something about his lack of subtlety unsettled her even more. In an instant he is gone, but she could see other hooded figures emerging from behind the trees.
They don't surround her, they don't even try.
She moved herself even faster—if she could just put some distance between herself and them…
The rocks were growing sharper and she began to fear the state of her feet. Her stomach lurched and the need to vomit hits her horrifically. She fought the feeling, having no time for it. Knowing well that it was a bad idea, she looked back. The members of the Cyrcle had grown distant but they are fully away from the trees and exposed, gathered more closely where the swamp murk was particularly dense. Regina was breathless by the time she felt as if she'd put enough distance between she and the Cyrcle. She leaned herself against the tree, but only for a moment because she noticed a peculiar rippling beneath the waves. She began her sprint all over again. It didn't help her nauseous feeling. All of her movements only seemed to be making the sensation come on stronger. Everything that brushed against her ankles had her skin crawling. She pictured tentacles and bony fingers. Leeches and the bloated, water-logged hands of the pig-faced being.
At last the water grew shallow, Regina stepped onto the slimy sand like someone who'd been stranded at sea for months. Her feet were stinging madly so she sat down to assess the damage. Regina saw what appeared to be leech-like bodies wriggling into the broken skin of her heels. With a muffled cry she yanked each one out and tossed them back into the water. She was a mess, mud clung to her hair and seemed to plaster every inch of her body. She stood up and tried to brush it off, but it was caked on so thickly. The sickly feeling, Regina realized, had not subsided. And when the putrid scent of the sludge on her skin finally reached her nose, she doubled over, unable to hold it back any longer.
Her mouth was filled with a thick black ooze with the consistency of the rotten apple Emma had once crushed in her nightmares so long ago. It ran down her chin and began collecting in a small pool below her. Hunched completely over, on her hands and knees, she chokes up more of the stuff—anything to dispel it from her body. But the more of this black ooze she coughed up, the more it filled her stomach, threatening to drown her from within. Her sides ached and her throat burned, and still the ooze spilled out from between her lips. She couldn't seem to expel it fast enough. So it dripped from her nose and leaked from her ears. She swore she could feel it building up behind her eyes. And she screams—silently begging it to stop, begging for mercy.
She just barely noticed the figures emerging from behind various trees. The thing in the plague mask came to stand before her, doing nothing.
Nothing but observing.
She realizes now what had happened. They wanted her to run. But they didn't want to catch her. No, they wanted her to tear up her skin so that the swamp could get in and destroy her for them. The web-infested woman cocked her head as if she was watching the most fascinating spectacle she'd ever seen. The pseudo-man in the plague mask cupped Regina's chin in his palm and turned her head up so she could look him in the face.
Regina woke up unable to breathe, her heart racing much faster than ever. She could still see his face, at first looming over her. But then, by some indescribable movement, at the edge of the tree line. She squeezed her eyes shut as firmly as she could manage and waited until she could no longer sense the creature's ungodly aura. She scanned the dark spaces between the trees, but couldn't find any trace of that lurid thing. Her head was spinning with so much terror she couldn't think straight. She could only listen to a choir of crickets, toad croaks, and owl hoots—sounds that she would have found soothing if she were in her own back yard.
In that moment she longed for her mansion, much safer by comparison. Even if her nightmares had begun within its walls. At least it had walls.
Home. She wanted home. But she—with Emma, Henry, and Zelena—over roasting smores, agreed that they would spend the entire week camping. Initially Emma was pushing for two weeks and Regina was pushing for two days. But they decided that Henry would enjoy the last of his summer vacation out in nature and Regina would take her much needed vacation week. Some vacation, Regina grumbled to herself. She was finally beginning to get it together. She heard a noise, the rustle of cloth on cloth. She looked over and observed Henry sleeping soundly between she and Emma. Zelena, as agreed since they were sleeping outside of their tent, lay on the other side of Regina. With that she regained her composure more or less completely. She remembered her magic, remembered her ability to fight. She was not in a swamp leaking unidentified fluid, she was in a forest recovering from the ridiculous amount of smores Emma insisted she eat. She mustered up a tired smile at the absurdity of it all. "I'll have a story to tell in the morning." She muttered aloud. Or for when Swan breaks my no scary campfire stories rule, she added silently.
She shuffled closer to Henry and put an arm over him. Perhaps she could work a little more sleep in before the sun gets to rising. She had at least an hour more. She nuzzled her head atop Henry and falls back asleep, blissfully unaware of the branch the snapped by her head and the shadow that loomed over her.
