Author's note

Hello all, I hope you are enjoying it so far! Please tell me what you think of the story so far, and if you have any criticism, please say it.

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Chapter 4

All I could see was black except for a single figure which was gradually getting nearer. Once they were closer, I could recognize that face easily. It was Gold. I found this rather odd, since I wasn't afraid of Gold, however once I recognized him, he doubled over. The sound of bones cracking and grinding filled my ears as I saw Gold's very body change, his face and body contorting and stretching. In a few moments, a giant crocodile stood before me. I felt something weigh down my hand, and I looked down to see that Excalibur (that bloody sword again) in my grasp.

"Bloody hell." I exclaimed to myself.

The crocodile's tail suddenly whipped round and hit me squarely in the chest sending me flying. It turned around and lifted one of its great, claw-ridden feet to maul me. I quickly rolled away from underneath it, barely catching my breath before it turned to me again. I smelt its rancid breath as it opened its terrible jaw to bite me. I dodged it barely, running to its side and climbing onto the beast's back. When I tried to sink the blade into the crocodile's flesh, the blade simply bounced off of the creature's impenetrable scales.

The crocodile leered quickly while I stood there on its back, throwing me off. Its foot slammed into my chest with such force that it should have broken my ribs, but it only brought excruciating pain. The crocodile bellowed a great cry in my face, the sound echoing around my soul. I quickly did the last thing I could do before being defeated; I threw Excalibur into the beast's mouth and down its throat. The crocodile now cried out, not in victory but pain and anguish. Just as it keeled over, the crocodile disappeared in a cloud of electric blue smoke, the same color as Hades' flame.

I blinked, and opened my eyes to see a land that I knew too well; Neverland. This time my own cutlass materialized in my hand, again, in a cloud of blue smoke. I began beating my way through the dense undergrowth, thinking that my fear was the island itself, therefore wanting to get off of it. After a while of just walking, I found myself in a strangely familiar clearing. It then hit me; I was at the place that I first shared a kiss with Emma. I suddenly heard her voice and ran towards it, but I stopped short when I saw who she was with. Baelfire.

They both took a simultaneous, sinister look at me, with strangely reptilian movements. "Oh, Captain Hook has come to see us," said Emma in a cold, heartless voice, "well, let him know that he was nothing compared to Neal. I always loved Neal far more than you, he was always a hero. Unlike you, you Villain. Neal's heart is perfectly pure and healthy, don't pretend that I didn't see the darkness in yours all that time ago, when I returned your heart after Gold took it. You will never be a hero, Hook." Every single word seemed to break something within me, every word like a lash of a whip on my heart. Emma leaned in and kissed Baelfire with burning passion, and he looked up at me and smirked through the kiss.

I lifted up my sword and ran at him, wanting with all of my heart to thrust it through his 'pure' heart. But when I neared the two, I was thrown back as if I ran into an invisible wall. I tried and tried again, desperately hacking at the wall, when a realization ran through my brain. The invisible wall was my compassion, my morality, my feelings for them both. I loved Emma with all of my heart and soul and Baelfire had been like a son to me, even if it was only for a short while.

I took a step back and pushed my sword into the soil and let go, stepping even further away. I desperately tried to think what I could do to get myself out of here, what would be an act of courage to leave and move onto the next fear.

"I love both Emma and Baelfire, and I could never harm either one of them," I began (it was worth a shot), "but I know that Baelfire is long gone, and I know that my Emma would never give her heart to anyone but me." As I spoke, the bushes and trees began disappearing around me. "Emma can see the good in me, and Emma believes I am a hero," the landscape disappeared increasingly fast, "and I love Emma so much, and I know that Emma loves me more than anything too," Everything around me disappeared with those few words, including Emma and Baelfire.

My next (and final) fear materialized around me; I was stuck behind a strange wall again, but in a hospital. Emma lay on the bed, deathly pale, and with the beeping heart thing (I never knew what it was really called in the modern world) slowing down, I closed my eyes as I realized I was watching Emma die, but the slowing beeps just kept resonating within me. I knew what my fear was this time; watching Emma die, and not being able to stop it. She clearly couldn't see me or hear me, and it was becoming increasingly agonizing to close my eyes.

I quickly opened them, tears falling down my cheeks as the beeps stopped. However, as I kept my eyes open the same blue smoke began to fill the room again. It lastly swallowed Emma and left me in a dark limbo.

"Well done, pirate," Hades' voice sounded in my ears, "now think of the place that is home to you and you will be taken there."

"My home isn't a place," I said back to him, "my home is a person, my home is Emma Swan."