I have often thought about this discussion with Kaylie, which allowed me to see things in their entirety. I wanted to find Emma, but I had no idea where she was, currently, where she had decided to go after her release from prison.

Besides, I had no idea how to contact Merlin.

Nevertheless, I decided to come up with a plan and think about how I could make Emma believe in her own destiny. With all these escapades, I recognized that I had accumulated a few assets that could help me. The first was writing. I had to write my story: from my transformation into a puppet until my transformation into a little boy but it was necessary to leave a suspense so that she understood that my story was not over, that it was she who had to continue it by breaking up the curse. My other two qualities, I must admit, were seduction and mystery, mystery was a good way for her to want to know more about me and seduction so that she would trust me.

I was making a lot of money thanks to my novel, several hundred dollars were debited from my account, a little every month, even today and that allowed me to live as I wanted.

However, I didn't want to depend on it alone. I worked as a guard in a nightclub. I also had to learn the arts of fighting if ever a fight broke out.

I traveled the South of Asia, all that Annie and I hadn't had time to do and I found myself in Thailand where I was absolutely seduced by these dream beaches. I told myself that I could stay there only a few months, that there was no rush.

How pathetic and weak I was!

I had failed again, still enamored by these temptations. I still wanted to continue working, not depending on my success, again.

I got a job as a Taekwondo teacher thanks to my fighting lessons the year before. It was in one of my classes that I met Isra. She was a young woman five years younger than me, extremely beautiful. She had Vietnamese origins. She had become very attached to me during class and had often offered me dates. I didn't want to tie myself up anymore and be tempted by anyone. I refused her advances for several months even though I liked her, she was funny and had personality. She accepted that we were just friends and taught me a bit more about Thai and Thai culture.

One evening, I couldn't resist and I sex with her. I did resist that since two years.

But the next morning, something happened to me that was beyond my expectations. As soon as my alarm clock changed to 8:15 am, I started getting a stabbing pain in my leg. It was totally incomprehensible, my leg was turning to wood. Why ? I woke Isra, totally panicked. She could only see my leg, not the wood. She thought I was crazy when I told her I wanted to go to the hospital.

But, I was not crazy and I was sure, I was turning into a puppet.

I took all my things and went to the best hospital in Hong Kong. Seeing all these sick people made me nauseous. When I was in the observation room, I was showing my left leg. He couldn't see anything. I was trying to prove that I wasn't crazy. I took a scalpel and stuck it in my leg. It was pretty smart since he wasn't going to see the blood! But he was so terrified and above all he didn't want to try to understand. He immediately wanted to take me to psychiatry.

I run away from the hospital with all the liveliness I have left. The pain was temporary. It was totally strange, I never got used to it. A man took me aside, I struggled but he motioned for me to calm down.

"Who are you ?"

"Someone who can help, I heard you yelling about your situation. And I work with a man who fixes those kinds of problems. The kind most people just dismiss. For the right price, he can cure anything. They call him the Dragon ..."

The Dragon ? I felt like it was still a joke in bad taste. I was in a large hall resembling a sanctuary. An Asian man with a goatee and a red toga sat like a Buddha. He was a man who seemed very enigmatic to me. I would show him my right leg, to trick him and check if he was as amazing as people say.

"You see that?"

"No, because the problem is with your other leg!"

I laughed, it wasn't that bad. I showed him, then, my wooden leg

"You're turning to wood, Pinocchio ..."

I couldn't believe my ears. Who was it ? Another man of my world. With Merlin and Neal, it was already a lot.

"How in the hell do you know my name? Who are you ? Are you from my land?"

"August you are in pain" , he interrupted me, "Waste your energy not on me but on your affiction. All you need to worry about is whether I can help you. And the answer is, indeed, I can."

"Thank God", I said, relieved.

"There are, however, conditions. I need an item of great value to you ... I need something close to your heart. Something that cannot be replaced"

The only irreplaceable item was Annie's bracelet, but unfortunately I didn't have it on me, I had left it in my things at the hotel in Hong Kong.

But the dragon showed me the necklace I wore around my neck.

"This necklace was a gift from your father, it's the only thing you have left of him here. It will serve as payment from your soul. Now, as any vendor from this world, I also need payment from your vallet. Ten thousand American dollars. Bring the money tonight and you shall never turn to wood again"

I had very little cash on me and could not find an ATM. I did not know what to do, I was for once totally lost until a surprising rescuer came to meet me. I was hanging out in the streets of Hong Kong thinking.

The client I had met before seeing the Dragon recognized me and motioned for me to enter the bar where she was. She was in a very good mood for a patient, surely I should have been wary. She offered me a beer. To pay, she took out an envelope with bundles of bills.

"Figured a medicine man wouldn't take plastic, she scoffed, seeing my face, To second chances!"

"Who knew they'd be so expensive"

I felt good with this girl but it was different from other girls I had met. I know that I had made a mistake when I sex with Isra, I was in the middle of a change, I could, for once, just talk to a girl without thinking of pouncing on her afterwards. I knew I wasn't that kind of man anymore and that felt good.

"So what brought you to him?" I asked her.

"Cancer. Very rare form."

I was taken aback, it reminded me of the story of Annie's ex, it was not a very good memory this discussion

"When I was diagnosed, the specialist told me I was on borrowed time. Ever since, I've been all over the world trying to find a cure, Doctors, healers. You name it. Anyone who could promise a miracle. And no one could. And then, then I heard about The dragon."

I was starting to have pain in my leg, she looked compassionate.

"How about you?"

"Skin condition"

"Acne, she laughed, You know, there are creams"

"I wish. Now, this condition, once it spreads, I'm done for."

"I'm glad you find him, too"

I thanked her

"He tell you he needed a personal item? Who carries something like that with them anyway? Luckily I had a photo of my grandmother and me in my wallet. Now, it's gone. But if my cancer is, too"

We were interrupted by a phone call. She cheerfully asked me to keep her bag for her. I did but I was completely nuts to see all those tickets in her bag. I had only stolen very little in my life, I wasn't going to do anything worse than I ever could have done before, but I was in so much pain. I didn't even think about it and I didn't even want to think about her illness, that the moment her gaze was not on me, I run away with the money. There was exactly the exact count.

I hurried to join the dragon, breathless.

"For someone who's spent his entire life is running, you should be in better shape"

"Well, I will be. You have what you promised?"

He showed me the antidote. This remedy looked magical, I could see its color change when he stirred it. I gave him the wad of bills but my pain returned when I saw the picture of my cancer patient with her grandmother. He hid the photo.

"The body has a strange way of sending us signals, doesn't it? The tricky part isn't hearing them, but knowing what they truly mean. What's in this bottle will stope from turning to wood. But that's just a symptom. Only you can cure yourself."

He was absolutely right, and I was aware of it, but I couldn't quite become the honest person I wanted to be from the start. It might be my puppet nature, but I could change, just after I took this potion.

I was stupid not to absorb it immediately, I waited to go down the stairs, finding myself a hiding place. But Tamara saw me, furious.

"Stop! That's mine !"

I'd rather run to get away from everyone, as long as she didn't sting the potion or wait for me to pay her back. A couple jostled me and threw me to the ground, the vial having fallen to the ground. My leg was in so much pain, I couldn't help but complain. I writhed in pain, I was truly on the verge of death. Tamara collected the potion.

"Whatever it is you have, you deserve your fate"

I couldn't escape bursting into tears, alone in the street lying on the ground. She was right. I deserved it all and maybe I also deserved to die with all the bad deeds I had done. I couldn't bring myself to hurt myself again and hurt those around me ...

But there were still some good people left in this world. A man, having seen the whole scene offered me his hand and lifted me up. He was a fairly old, paunchy man. He accompanied me by bus to my hotel room. He was not just any man. It was the Sorcerer's Apprentice. He had been in this world since the start of the curse and had been sent by Merlin to have this curse finally broken. He was not a hologram but a man like you and me, without magic, just with very useful information. He told me that I still had hope, that what was gnawing at me was very simple. It was a reminder, that Emma was in Storybrooke and that thanks to her coming, time had resumed its course in this curse-stricken town.

And that at that moment, I had to be with her. This pain was an aftertaste of my broken promise. The only way to heal myself was to fix everything and do the maximum so that Emma believed in magic and could break the spell. I was relieved to finally be able to get out of it. He was very compassionate and didn't want me to give up. He made me admit that hope was my only way out.

He also told me about a storybook, kept by a rather special young boy, and that the story I had written about my life should be added to this book.

Before leaving for Storybrooke, I wanted to see a person to whom I had hurt but who even because of that, had trusted me. I had to tell Neal what happened next, that he too had hopes of finding Emma. At least one of us needed to find the woman he had lost. It would also be a way for me to forgive myself.

I met up with Neal in New York. He had a quieter life than me. He had stopped the theft and had been working in a bar for ten years. He had an apartment and lived without fear. I was happy to see him again. I told him that I was starting to turn into a wooden puppet and that I had to join Emma. Neal sounded skeptical because he knew that if she broke the curse his father wanted to find him and it terrified him to confront him. But maybe it was a way of reconciliation between them.

When I joined him, night had fallen, Neal advised me not to take the road. I don't know why I deserved so much kindness from him. But that evening was like a last rest, before the big job. We went to the bar like old friends and chatted the night away. Neal was in my world and he knew everything about me, I had nothing to hide from him and I felt good. I told him about Annie, everything that had happened to me. Neal understood very well, he didn't judge me and was very friendly. He told me that he got through it thanks to my intervention and to a woman he had met who had helped him a lot to find this apartment and to get a job. I finally misjudged him.

The next morning, he walked me to his house and wished me good luck. I kept his contact details to keep him informed.

Thinking back to all this, I tell myself that Neal and I were very close and not only through Emma. What made everyone unhappy in Storybrooke was the fault of our two fathers who wanted to do everything for us. Rumplestiltskin wanted to do everything to find Neal, which is why he created the curse and manipulated the Evil Queen into casting it and on the other hand my dad thought if I was in the spell I would be back a puppet, it is for this reason that he sent me in the cupboard with Emma and this endured the spell ...