The Once Upon a Time Virtual Series
presents
Virtual Season 3
Episode 12
"As Good As Dead"
Executive Producer: Silverbluemoon
Story By: RebelByrdie and Silverbluemoon
Written By: Amy-Tabby
Illustrated By: Napfreak
Edited By: NotEvilDear-Wicked
Advisors and Consultants
Characterization: Rushemiiaah
Continuity and Consistency: AsraiaySoph
Research and Development Assistant: Archaeomedic
This series is Rated M for language, violence, drug references, and adult situations.
It is not intended for all audiences. Please use discretion.
Publication Date: 04/17/2015
The scream—Charming's scream—cut into Snow like a barbed arrow, headed straight for her heart. Her own cry mirrored it in panic—every step she took seemed to take an eternity, even though she was through the opening and into the passage in a moment. She saw his back, muscle and craggy rock, the one arm that still moved well windmilling desperately. The other arm was curled into David's chest. His body, once so strong, was outlined with a demonic halo of red light as a pool of magma churned, weak and injured. He was mere inches from the ledge, still fighting to keep from falling to his death.
"Charming!" Snow cried, and she grabbed the back of his shirt. Emma snatched him by the good arm. Mother and daughter towed him back from the molten pit. Snow looked over him, checking every inch of him over—no new injuries. No new problems.
No new problems. Just plenty of ones that were already there, she thought, thoroughly disgusted to and with herself. The island, Gods damned Neverland, could not have her family. Would not have her family.
Charming fought to catch his breath in labored gulps and managed a grin as he looked at his family.
"I think we should try the other way."
"Definitely," Emma replied.
Snow glanced at Emma briefly, but she hadn't quite been able to stop checking Charming for any fresh wounds or signs of damage. It was just like old times, she thought bitterly. Snow cut her eyes at her sarcastic child, who sounded too much like Regina, and forced a smile. Neither of them managed to make their eyes as cheery and stalwart as their voices.
The three trudged back to the cave opening, and upon seeing them, Hook solemnly scratched an X into the side of the wall. Rock and steel hook rasped against one another, and the sound set Snow's teeth on edge. The five of them looked at one another, willing one of the party to lead into the next tunnel. The pause, the hesitation, and the wait, bothered Snow almost as much as the sound.
Emma sighed, almost too softly for others to notice, and stepped forward into the next tunnel. Snow would have been right behind her if she could have managed to drag David faster. She wondered, briefly, if he was getting heavier or if her arms were just getting tired. The strength and stamina of her bandit days seemed long gone, faded away and covered over by twenty-eight years of teaching school children. David slowly crept before her, and the passage grew narrow. Snow gulped back her claustrophobia and followed, peeping over her husband's shoulder to see what her golden-haired daughter was doing. Once again, a hellish red light bloomed in front of the group, lighting the passage as it opened up.
"What's going on?" Neal called from behind Snow.
"It looks like a hallway," Emma responded. Snow saw her slowly put weight onto one leg as Charming inched out behind her. Snow could feel Neal right behind her, practically breathing down her neck, as she tried to peer out from her stalwart and stony husband. Emma's face turned to the passage, one eyebrow cocked for what was going to inevitably be a quip.
"Looks like there's no giant boulders or forbidden tiki statues, but the jury's out on One Eyed Willie's fortune."
Snow narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, while Charming let out an audible "Huh?" Neal, however, seemed to be in on the joke and tilted his head back for a big laugh. The noise sounded too eager to be genuine.
"Oh, eighties," Neal mumbled and shook his head. He let out a fake sigh. Hook pushed past him with a roll of his kohl-lined eyes. Snow felt his frustration on a spiritual level.
She stepped around Charming the first chance she got in order to get a good look at the corridor they were in. The walls pulsed with veins of magma, and the hellish light made the floor shine as if it were slick with blood. Perhaps it had been, once upon a time. A regular pattern of what seemed like tiles led to the end of the passage, where the tiles became hard-hewn cave rock once more.
"Let's keep our eyes open for more of Pan's tricks," Snow began as she stepped forwards onto the tile. She eyed the walls cautiously in case they collapsed, and the hall became flooded with lava.
She heard the sharp hiss before she felt the jet of steam shoot up her left side, which in turn brought a shrill cry as she pushed her family to get them away from the geyser.
Her face burned, her neck sizzled, and her hand throbbed when she tried to clench it into a fist. It was painful, terrible, she could smell her own cooked flesh.
"Stupid secret lair volcano maze and its freaking-" Emma started grumbling loudly, until Hook stepped on another tile and got hit in the chest and neck with the same sizzling vapors that had just cooked her mother. The pirate winced and growled an obscenity under his breath. The Princess in Snow was offended by his language; the woman who had just been scalded heartily agreed.
"Oh come on!" Emma screamed in frustration. "Is the whole floor rigged?" Emma waved her arms in exasperation, before she slumped in on herself and sighed. "Of course it is. We're hiking through Mount Death Trap."
"Looks like it's just the light tiles we have to avoid," Charming offered. Snow looked again—true enough, some of the tiles were a duller, lighter shade of "Mount Death Trap," to quote her daughter.
Snow felt daring, but mostly just done, and decided to move forward. Snow toed a darker tile to her left before settling her weight onto it. No steam. She beamed a reassuring grin to the group that she didn't feel on the inside. They didn't know, or need to know, that Snow would be fine sitting down and not moving for a few hours, instead of finding out what was in the next chamber. Of course, she was Snow White. No point in letting her family know she had had it with this island. Or that she was no longer convinced it was even survivable.
After an excruciating ten minutes or so of hopping from one stone to the next, one tile to the next without triggering any light tiles, and utterly failing to come up with a good enough "steamed fish" joke to crack at Hook, Neal and Emma managed to get to the next part of the maze first. It was a great big vault with a ton of different passageways. Of course there were, Neal mused. Pan liked to make you think you had a choice, that you had control, even and especially when you didn't. Emma seemed stiff and ready to snap at any given moment. David was limping on, barely faster than a turtle. Her mom was almost worse, with a grin painted onto her face that she obviously didn't feel. It was like she was baring her teeth at the cave.
Neal tried to shake the goosebumps out of his shoulders, but mostly just made his arm itch and burn from the movement. He scratched idly at his bad shoulder with his good hand as the rest of the group trickled in, everyone looking in every direction at once to determine which was the least deadly option. Choose the form of your destructor. Because there were all deadly. Because of course there was a least deadly option. It would lead to the next trap: then the next, and the next, until they were all dead and Pan could giggle at them at the exit that they almost made it to. Or at least the exit that four out of five managed to get to. He wasn't a liar, and Pan had said one of them would die.
One in five odds aren't actually that bad, a little voice in Neal's head whispered. Let's vote Hook off the island, the voice continued. Neal grinned with dark, foul humor gleaming in his eyes. The only kind of humor that survived Neverland. Survive until he got some pixie dust, like last time, because dying might get him off of this island but he just plain old didn't feel like it. After all, sometimes death and pixie dust didn't work to escape this hellhole.
His shoulder hurt too much to keep scratching it as he wandered further into the cave. Lost boys would have helped make this cave. Building random puzzle mazes were a "fun way" to liven up island living 'round these parts. Especially when the boys made some unlucky victim run through them. Some were made specifically so they could hoot and holler as some little boy scrambled for his life. Anyone who survived them got some glory, sure, but mostly Pan liked watching the weakest of his little cult suffer for the amusement of the many. It kept them in line and in awe of him.
"So I guess we each pick a cave and hope for the best?" Emma offered. Neal twisted his neck around to look at her—didn't they just do that and almost barbeque her dad? He sighed. They didn't have much choice. They all knew it.
"Good a plan as any," Neal said, and walked into one of the caviest-looking caves. Then again, they all looked cavernous. This one was wider inside, which was a relief. He didn't have to pin his arms against himself—which reminded him too much about things best left forgotten. He tried rolling his shoulders again and almost managed to do it without hurting too badly. He groaned in self-pity and took another step, which wasn't his best decision. He tumbled, doing everything he could to not land on his bad arm, and skidded down a slope headfirst.
Once he slid to a stop, his hand brushed something smooth that jerked away from him. He looked over, and a coil of red reared up at him and spread its hoods. A two-headed Agrabah Viper. The air left his lungs in a slow breath, and he did not begin breathing again. Moving was bad, but he had to move his eyes, his head, and his neck, to look around himself. More snakes. Neal didn't know that much about snakes other than keep away from them, and that if you didn't fuck with them they wouldn't fuck with you. Also that if they were hissing, they thought you were fucking with them.
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