The world around him was…hazy.
He couldn't remember or even fathom how he'd gotten here or how he was standing, and it left him feeling disoriented. His mind strained to make logic out of the illogical. His senses fought to sort out the amount of information pouring into him too fast.
Something was solid beneath his feet, but all around, he saw twigs and branches on a soft forest floor. He smelled sulfur, and his mouth was dry. The air was neither hot nor cold, simply stagnant and stuffy. His shoulders felt heavy; the suit jacket seemed to hang from him with a weight he could have sworn it never had before. And around him…sound.
Noise.
His ears were ringing, slowly adjusting to the surroundings he found himself in, but noise penetrated that ringing bit by bit.
Dogs were barking in the distance, but not too distant. Somewhere close by.
Close by. Another sound. Leaves were shuffling, and twigs were breaking.
Someone was crying.
His neck felt stiff as he turned it this way and that, but he finally looked down to see…a girl.
She was the one who was crying. Huddled on the ground at his feet, she was the one causing the leaves beneath her to shift and the twigs to break. She was a spit of a thing, skinny. The tights she wore were ripped, and there was nothing but a band of white cloth over her breasts, covered only by a jacket she had on. It was too big on her, and it caused one of the sleeves to fall off her shoulder and over one of her hands. She had a pixie haircut and combat boots that he would never have guessed a little thing like her could pick up her feet in, but there she was, sunk on the ground before him, one of her hands extended in his direction as tears streamed down her face, red and blotchy.
"It worked!" she cried quietly, her voice cracking as she stared up at him. "It worked. You're the one!"
He felt his brow furrow as his heart rose in panic. He took his eyes off the girl and looked around. Where was he? How had he gotten here? Where was here?
There…something familiar through the haze, something he recognized.
His cabin. It was there in the distance through the fog. It was difficult to see, and the detail was gone in the haze, but he'd know that silhouette anywhere. Storybrooke? But how had he gotten here after he'd...
And the girl…
He looked back down at her. She hadn't taken her eyes off of him. Her gaze was hopeful and reverent, as if he was the answer to her every prayer. But he had no answers, only questions. What had she said to him? It had worked? He was the one?
"What worked? The one what?"
"The girl who couldn't see!" the girl answered. "She said it was you that we needed, one who was neither dead nor of the living."
"Us?"
"She told me how to get to you!" she cried, suddenly searching her pockets frantically. "She drew the instructions for me, showed me what to push."
"What to push…"
The girl finally pulled something from her pocket, a small piece of cloth with symbols drawn crudely upon it in what appeared to be black paint or maybe ink.
The Eye of Providence.
A Pentagram.
The Sun.
He knew those symbols. All Dark Ones did. They were the symbols that had to be used in case…
Despite the crick in his neck, he looked down at his feet and felt his breath catch.
The Vault!
The Vault of the Dark One! That was why the ground felt solid, even though he was in a forest! He was standing upon one of the metal manhole-ish Dark One Vaults. He'd been summoned to it as all Dark Ones could be, but…
He looked up, the silhouette of the cabin still in the distance. He examined it for flaws, for any hint that he was wrong and it wasn't what he thought it was, but saw none. Though details were hard to make out, the corners and walls, the edges, and the slope of the roof were all the same. That was his cabin!
But he'd walked the grounds of the cabins hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, thanks to the curse. Though there were various Vault locations in the realms, he'd never seen one in Storybrooke, certainly nowhere so close to his cabin! And he'd never known Storybrooke to smell like sulfur or have a haze that made him feel like he was breathing in poison.
So if not Storybrooke, then where the hell was he?
He glanced back down at the girl, still holding the cloth out to him with the symbols drawn upon it. How had she said she'd gotten those?
"Who gave these to you?"
"The girl with no eyes!" she exclaimed. "She told me it was you that we needed!"
We. She'd said "us" earlier, too, yet there was only her, and she certainly had her eyes. Was there someone else with her? And why were they so desperate for him?
"Need me for what?"
"To free us! Me and-"
But suddenly, a bark that he'd forgotten about echoed from somewhere close by. The girl gasped and turned over her shoulder to look in that direction.
No! She'd been leading up to something. He had been needed to free her and…and someone else? Or free her and do something else? What was going on? Why was he here? Where was "here?"
"And what…" he prompted.
The dogs continued to bark in the distance, but the girl scooted closer to him. She hurriedly reached out and grabbed his hand before yanking it down with such strength that he was forced to bow to her.
"I don't have much time! I don't know who you are, but the girl said that it would be you who could help us, that because you are the other one who is not dead here, you would know how to save me and my love! Please! You have to help us."
"Save you from what?"
"From here!" she insisted quietly through gritted teeth, tears slowly starting to leak from her eyes all over again. "Please, it's not what it looks like! Neither heaven nor hell, he'll never go if I'm not at rest, and I can't be at rest if he's not."
"Who?"
"My soulmate! He's like you, not dead but still here! Here because of me, please, you have to help us. If not us, then him! You have to get him out of here!"
"Where is here?"
Her eyes widened in fear and shock as she looked him over and said one word that made his stomach church.
"Purgatory…"
From somewhere in the haze, the barking ceased and turned to a growl. The girl released him and looked over her shoulder toward the sound.
"Run!" she cried. And before he could question her further, she was off. A small thing like her, he lost her in the haze immediately. Before he could even glance up to look at the direction she'd run, she was gone.
The growling and the barking began again all at once. The sound of paws on the forest floor thumped around him, an animal in pursuit of its prey. He'd never known Storybrooke to have wolves before, but the growling and barking had him instinctively summoning his magic. Where "here" was or what was coming at him were questions he could answer later!
He closed his eyes, and when he reappeared, he found himself exactly where he'd wanted to…standing in the back room of his cabin, looking out a filthy rear window in the direction of the place he'd been standing. The direction of the vault that had never been there before. He held his breath as he watched, searching the haze for the girl, but there was nothing. Nothing until a shape emerged from the haze, a shape that was certainly not human.
It was large and thick. It was a mass of black he couldn't make sense of. Not until a head leaned down to smell the ground he'd been standing on only moments ago and a howl impossibly tore out of a mouth simultaneously. It was only then that he registered the second head. One that stretched into the sky howling as the other sniffed, and then...two glowing red eyes rotated on the spot as if searching the area. A third head. One body. Four paws. Three dog heads.
He stepped back, away from the window as his heart banged against his sternum and he felt an overwhelming desire to rub his eyes and take another peek. Had he just seen what he thought he'd seen?
A few moments later, the barking resumed, and he worked up the nerve to glance out the window again just in time to see the dog-like creature rush off in a different direction…the direction he suddenly had a terrible feeling that girl had run off in. He rubbed his eyes and recognized it was difficult to see through the fog, but not even he could blame that on what he'd seen.
One dog. Three heads.
Hell…
Hi! For those of you that are just checking out this fiction, welcome! For those of you who are a fan of the Chronicles of the Dark One, welcome back! I hope you'll enjoy this fiction. It's the 9th in the Chronicles, a series that is an attempt at an accurate portrayal of Rumple's perspective during the Once Upon a Time series. This fiction features everything that happened in the Underworld from the moment that Rumple is first summoned there up to the moment that Neal summons him back to the Enchanted Forest in "Quiet Minds."
The Dark One Chronicles is meant to be a companion series with The Moments Series, which explores Once Upon a Time from Belle's perspective. This means that everything you read in the Chronicles where Belle is concerned will show up in Moments as well. It is just told from a different point of view. If you'd like to see Belle's chapters from her perspective, "The Chronicles of the Dark One: Hadestown is the companion story to Moments Exchanged! You can find The Moments Series by checking out my profile.
If you enjoy this fiction, please review! I always enjoy those wonderful gems waiting for me in my inbox, and I love writing back to thank you personally for reading! It helps me know that I'm doing a decent job! Peace and Happy Reading!