Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 8 - Zombies? Really?

We spoke with Aurora about her dream and confirmed that the boy she saw in her dream was Henry thanks to a picture Emma had been carrying on her when we fell through the portal to this realm. That was when Snow finally spoke up about the sleeping curse - about how she had had the exact same dreams after she was freed from the sleeping curse. We devised a game plan to send Aurora back to the dream to try and communicate with Henry again and get a message to Gold - the one person we believed would be able to help us. 

Rumplestiltskin would know how to get us home, defeat Cora, and prevent her from returning to our land.  He may be the only one who could.

Aurora agreed to return to try and contact Henry and pass on our message to Mr. Gold about Cora. Once she had awoken, and told us that it had worked - Henry had gotten the message and they had agreed to meet back in two hours to get the answer - we decided to travel and find a place to camp so Aurora could meet back up with Henry at the time they had designated. We weren't going to let Henry wait in that firey place.

I couldn't help but feel like the nightmares Aurora was having - the weird firey netherworld place she and Henry were traveling to in their sleep - were having a bigger impact on her than she was letting on. But, she never mentioned anything, and I noticed Mulan sticking close to her and decided to leave it be, let them figure it out between themselves. 

We found a place to camp and I helped Snow and Emma set up camp while Aurora and Mulan talked. The plan was to move quickly - have Aurora meet Henry, get the answer from Rumplestiltskin, and get out before anything or anyone happened upon us, or Henry and Aurora spent too long in that place. Aurora got settled in and fell back to sleep. 

As we waited to see if her nap was going to be successful, we were ambushed by what I could only surmise to be all the previously dead people who had been massacred by Cora at the safe haven. I had thought it was weird, at the time, that there had been no flies, no bugs, and no real smell to them as I had walked through the site a few days ago looking for survivors - all that had been missing were their hearts.

I couldn't believe we hadn't thought of that - that was literally Cora's entire schtick, where Regina got it from. We should have known better.

The undead dead people rushed us and I had just enough time to unsheath the sword I had and swing it at the man who rushed me, knocking him to the ground. Another one came at me, swinging some kind of weapon and I jumped back and out of the way, swinging my sword with a downward motion and knocking the new attacker down and out of the way. 

I had the compass around my neck still, not willing to part with it until we got back home. One of the undead reached for my neck, grabbing the chain that held it and I cried out, causing Snow to shoot an arrow at the assailant - causing him to fall to the ground and release me.

I set my panic and fear aside, needing to focus on the right now, as I scrambled up and swung at another one of the poor zombified villagers. I at least had confirmation that my theory had been correct, they were under Cora's control, and what they were after - the compass. I ran over to my mom and sister and told them my revelation, but we couldn't figure out how to kill them. Every one we knocked down two seemed to get back up to replace it. 

Snow called for us to run for it and we ran, Mulan and Aurora nowhere in sight, the horde of undead following behind us through the forest. Luckily we all made it out unscathed and it wasn't long before Mulan stumbled upon us, nearly getting shot by Snow with an arrow as she rounded the corner. She told us that Aurora had been taken by one of the zombies under Cora's control, that she was Cora's prisoner.

As were walking through the forest trying to figure out how to get Aurora back a crow landed on Snow's shoulder and told us that it carried a message - she somehow understood the crow, good to know my mom could talk to animals, I guess - that we must bring the compass to Cora by sundown or she would kill Aurora.