Chapter 23: Monster
"What the F*** did you just say?" he manages to say. His brown eyes are wide in absolute disbelief and horror.
Crystal bites her lip and sighs again. "I'm the daughter of Rumpelstiltskin."
Steve's mouth just hangs open in total shock. He shakes his head, unable to comprehend what was just said. He looks at the girl and then at Eleven, who is surprisingly calm after hearing this... then again, she probably didn't know about fairy tales in general since she spent most of her life as a science experiment. His brain is whirlwind of questions, obscenities, and other phrases, but his mouth can't form the words. He takes another step away from the girl, towards the jungle.
Finally, he manages to utter a simple sentence.
"As...as in the fairy tale?"
Crystal just nods. She decides to show a simple display of magic to prove that she wasn't insane. She doesn't blame him at all for completely flipping out, most people would do that if they knew the truth about who she was and where she came from.
She opens her palm and a single purple orb of energy appears. She locks eyes with Steve, who looks like he's going to pee his pants in fear.
"Believe me, life has been anything but a fairy tale."
…
"So, let me get this straight. All the fairy tale characters we know from the stories and movies are real; they have families and weird powers of their own?!"
After a lot of convincing done by Eleven, Steve reluctantly follows the two girls back towards where they had made camp. He keeps as much distance as he can manage from Crystal, walking with Eleven. He kept looking at her, unable to believe that she was okay with this... then again, she could move stuff with her mind. But magic? Fairy tales? It was all too much. Steve wanted to pass out from shock. He kept pinching himself to ensure that this wasn't some dream brought on by booze or weed.
When they finally reached camp, El offered Steve some water, which he took, but he was still unable to look at this other girl in the eye. Crystal expressed her concern about his other wounds and when Steve looks as though he's ready to bolt, she pulls out a first-aid kit and told him to fix himself up.
While Eleven helps Steve get cleaned up, the "alleged" daughter of Rumpelstiltskin filled the two of them in on what Storybrooke was and what had happened that brought them to the hellish jungle. She talks about the curse, her backstory, skipping the part about killing her mother to not scare their male companion any further, Emma bringing about everyone's happy endings and the incident that caused them all to be trapped in the room.
"I know it sounds like the craziest thing in the world."
"Multiply it by ten and then maybe we'll be scratching the surface of insanity," Steve mutters. He begins pacing back and forth frantically, wanting to run away but he knows he can't leave Eleven behind with this freak who believes she's part of some fairy tale world of fantasy. This is harder to stomach than the fact that they appear to be in the grasp of a mad scientist's field experiments. He's also beside himself because Eleven is pretty chilled about all this, including the existence of magic. "This is batshit insanity! F***ing insanity!"
"Steve, trust me, I felt the same way when I first found out, but it's kind of hard to deny this…" She conjures up a purple orb of energy.
"Okay, that is totally beyond all human comprehension!" he says. He points at her. "You are some kind of mutant freak that needs to be locked in an insane asylum."
"Says the guy who willingly accepts the existence of Demogorgons and alternate universes," the elder of the two girls' mutters. She is hurt by his words, but she rationalizes it as how most people would react when told this story for the first time.
"She…" Steve says pointing at Eleven. "I can stomach. She can make things float with her mind, but you… this is a whole other level… Okay, the powers thing I could believe, purple fire and shit… but the fairy tale stuff…" He runs his hand through his hair and grabs several chunks of it as if about to rip it out. He finally manages to sit down for a moment, his eyes wide in confusion and he blinks continuously in shock.
"Want to see a family picture?" Crystal asks, deciding to lighten the mood and maybe scare him a little more.
"NO THANK YOU!" he snaps.
Secretly, Crystal wishes she could poof up Henry's fairy tale book and have him compare the pictures on her phone…
"This is nuts, this is absolute…"
"We get it!" Crystal snarls finally fed up with his constant babbling. "We know that there aren't enough words in the English language to describe it!"
The oldest girl takes a long drink of the canteen and wipes sweat from her brow. She continues to watch Steve pace. She opens her mouth to say more, but someone else cuts her off.
"Crystal…" Eleven says gently, grabbing her arm to tell her to stop following Steve around. "Just let it sink in."
The daughter of Rumpelstiltskin just nods sadly. She still feels this attraction towards him, but it's obvious that he's ready to head for the hills before they even got to know each other. His words have cut more deeply then she expected; he was right in the end. She was a freak and a mutant and all of this sounded like made up shit, but it was coming from him that stung the most. Her heart continues to race every time she lays eyes on him and his face is ingrained in her mind. She hadn't felt this attraction is a long time since… Mason.
To distract themselves, she turns back to Jane.
"Do you want to try and find someone else?" she suggests.
"I don't know," the youngest girl says hesitantly. "This energy is stopping me from focusing."
"I know, it's screwing with my magic too. But we were lucky enough to find Steve, so it still works. Let's just try our luck and go from there."
"Do you have a picture?" It now seemed that since they'd found someone from the Hawkin's group, it was time to find someone from the Storybrooke group.
"Sure," Crystal says, scrolling through her phone until she found a picture of Henry, Emma, and Killian. It was part of a larger family picture, but she zoomed in on the three people who had been with her when this happened.
Jane/Eleven stares at the photo for a little while, trying to memorize their facial features so she could recognize them in the Void. After a few silent minutes, she prepares to put the blindfold on but stops.
While the girls were focusing on finding other people, Steve has continued pacing and muttering to himself, which seemed to get louder and louder.
"This can't be happening… This has to be a dream. She has to have escaped from an asylum or something… Daughter of Rumpelstiltskin and Snow White has a daughter and son… and they all live in a magical town. This is bat-shit insane!"
"Just shut up and sit down," Eleven orders, knowing that she needs silence to enter the Void.
"You can't…"
"Sit down or she'll make you," Crystal warns, also sick of his panicking.
Knowing what that meant, Steve sits down, acting like a scolded toddler. Although, he does sit as far away from the daughter of Rumpelstiltskin as he possibly can. He finds one of the canteens attached to the backpacks and takes a long drink before leaning to be closer to Eleven and hear about what she sees. He'd heard about this weird ritual that the girl did from Nancy and few of the other kids and he was curious to find out how it worked.
Finally, satisfied that it's quiet enough, Jane applies the blindfold.
"So, if you can make purple fire and shit like that, can you also make a unicorn and troll appear from out of nowhere?"
"SHUT UP!" Eleven insists. She puts in the earbuds and seems to gaze forward, even though her eyes are covered.
"Ready?" Crystal asks.
Eleven just nods. The older girl gives a look at Steve to ensure that he'll stay quiet and when he just takes another drink from the canteen and wipes his wet mouth with his arm, she assumes that he's done with the ranting and raving. She then turns on the radio static at a relatively loud volume to allow the girl to enter the Void.
…
Eleven opens her eyes and she's back in the infinite blackness within her mind. She walks slowly along, looking for someone else of their two groups. Again, the familiar vibrations of the invading energy are felt, ripples appear in the water. The girl does her best to ignore them and focus on the task at hand.
In the distance, she sees a figure begin to materialize. She walks through the shallow water to get a closer look.
"There's… a… woman…" she begins
"What does she look like?" Crystal asks, hoping that Eleven has hopefully found Emma.
The facial features begin to become clearer.
"She's blonde… and pretty."
"Still could be anyone," Steve says skeptically.
"SH!" Crystal says, to shut him up for the time being.
The woman in the vision looks around, confused. She obviously cannot see
"HENRY!?" the woman calls out. "KILLIAN?! CRYSTAL?!"
"She called your name… and someone named Henry and Killian,"
"You found Emma!" Crystal gasps, happy that her surrogate sister was okay. She places her hand over her mouth to muffle her relief and excitement. "Do you know where she is?"
"Not yet," Eleven responds.
The trio goes quiet and wait for some kind of answer.
"She's somewhere in the jungle, but it's different…"
"Different how?" Steve asks, knowing that if they're going to find the others, they're
"Where the hell am I?" Emma says into the Void, her voice echoing into the thick blackness surrounding them.
The woman's hazel eyes gaze forward, almost as if she can see the young girl, but El knows she can't. Emma's face distorts into one of fear and panic as something appears behind Eleven.
"What the hell?!" Emma shouts. "Not again!"
Her hands light up with white magic, something that startles Eleven badly. She takes a few steps back in fear, but Emma is looking past the psychic avatar at something else and blasting it with white light. She then remembers Crystal mentioning that Emma had magic like hers and she sometimes forgot that this was all just a vision. She turns to see what the blonde is fighting, but suddenly everything becomes blurred and staticky like before. It's the "energy" again, fighting back against her ability. She grinds her teeth together, trying to fight it. The water begins to become rougher and deeper.
Emma suddenly lets out a shriek of pain and Eleven can see a gash has formed on the blonde's forearm. It begins to bleed but there also appears to be something black going into her body, forming eerie black veins, spreading like cracks on broken ice. This wound seems to affect Emma's magic because she continues to fight, but the white light is flickering and not powerful enough to hold back whatever it is she's fighting. The blonde backs up from this thing, trying to recover from the wound and keep her powers going to protect herself, but Eleven can see that she's losing focus and this battle. Her pupils are dilating, sweat is forming on her forehead, and her knees are beginning to shake from weakness.
"Emma!" Eleven shouts, even though the blonde can't hear her. "Don't…!"
"What's going on?!" Crystal asks in a panic.
Steve has leaned forward and doesn't realize that he's gotten so close to Crystal now that his hand on her shoulder. Neither notices the contact because they are so invested in what Eleven can see.
Blood is dribbling out of Jane's nose faster as she pants in fear.
She sees Emma collapse onto one knee, still trying to fight when something big steps into the vision. The energy no longer seems to prevent her from seeing this monstrosity in full form. The next few steps manage to shake the entire Void with its power
The creature is gigantic with long hairy legs that seem to tower over the both of them. Eleven looks up to see a large brown, fuzzy, and round abdomen, and long things in the front of it. It's then that the young girl realizes that it's a giant spider, the biggest she's ever seen. She can barely comprehend this because any spiders that she's seen are barely bigger than her hand and were harmless. This one is enormous and seems to want to eat Emma. The observer in the vision steps back and can see some of the thing's many eyes. All black, like the void in which she stood. It takes another large step forward and looks down at Emma with its large fangs dripping with something and dark, beady eyes. The blonde holds her hand up, but her magic has faded so she cannot save herself. The beast approaches even closer and lets out a horrible, unearthly sound and then...
"EMMA!" Eleven screams out, but both the spider and Emma dissolve from her vision.
…
El whips off the blindfold, panting wildly and crying. Both Crystal and Steve look at her with fear in their eyes.
"What's wrong?" Steve asks.
"Is Emma okay?" Crystal asks, dread filling the inside of her stomach.
The young girl is only able to express one word.
"Monster!"
A/N: What do you think it could be? Please follow and review.