Once Upon A Time ~ Book 1

Chapter 125 - The Power Of The Storybook

Charming sat up against the bars of his cell in the Queen's dungeon, banking a rock ferociously on the lock on the door, trying to break it open. He grunted as hit it harder and harder but eventually the rock slipped from his hands to the stone ground. He fell back against the bars, panting heavily.
"I will find you, Snow. I will always find you." he breathed.
Then two dark, gaurds walked towards his cell.
"Be hard to do that without your head." said one of the gaurds, unlocking the lock and opening the door.
He egnored them, staring down at the ground.
Both gaurds stepped inside, pulling him to his feet.
"Get up, the Queen is looking forward to your execution." said the other gaurd.
They dragged him up from the dungeons to the palace, through the corridors. Then as they turned a corner Charming fell to the floor.
"Get up. One your feet!" shouted one of the gaurds trying to pull him up from the ground again.
Then Charming raised his head a little and punched the gaurd in the shin, knocking him back. He pushed back against the other gaurd, knocking him in the wall and he kicked the other gaurd as he attempted to charge back at him. One of the gaurds drew their sword but he knocked it from his hand and strangled him with the cuffs tying his hands together. The gaurd choked and spluttered through the black vail over his face. Charming knocked him into the wall and let him fall to the ground. He looked around and ran down the corridor when he saw no one, then as he turned a corner ahead he saw a gaurd hold up his bow and arrow, aiming at him. Charming turned in the other direction but another ran towards him. The gaurd stopped.
"Shoot him!" he demanded to the gaurd holding up the bow and arrow.
The gaurd let the arrow go from his gloved fingers and it flew accross the corridor, past Charming and into the other gaurds chest. He fell to the ground with a thud and Charming stared at his motionless body, perplexed. He turned his glance to the other gaurd gasping.
"Who the hell are you?"
The gaurd pulled his dark heavy helmet from his head and revealed himself, the huntsman. "A friend." he said, walking towards him and pulling his bow over his shoulder.
"But, I don't know you."
"But I know Snow White."
"Is she okay?"
The huntsman took his arms and unlocked the cuffs around his rists with his keys. "The Queen was traveling to meet her. Her fate is in a precarious place. We must hurry. Follow me. I can get you out." he walked down along the corridor and Charming followed. "I'll try and stall the Queen. The rest is up to you." he picked up from the ground near by supplys and weapons. "Your weapon ans some provisions." he handed them to Charming. "Good luck."
Charming began to walk to the double doors but stopped looking around at him once more. "You're not coming with me?"
"I cannot. I gave up my heart so thar the Queen would spare Snow's. Don't let my sacrifice be in vain. Find her."
Charming nodded and he turned to the doors, pushing them open and marching out of the castle.

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Dr. Whale, Emma and a nurse pushed a trolly carrying Henry through the hospital quickly, a voice ferociously calling nurses and doctors to their aid through the speakers around the hospital. "Henry, can you hear me?!" Emma called ferociously, shaking his shoulders as the glass double doors were pushed open and they heaved him into a vacant six-beded room . "Come on, Henry, wake up, please! Come on, Henry, come on. You can do it!" she stared down at his motionless, lifeless body, fearfully.
A female nurse walked quickly towards her and grasped her arm. "Ma'am, let me take........" she started.
She shrugged the woman away. "No, I'm not going anywhere." she shouted.
Dr. Whale leaned forward and pulled up Henry's eyelids, shining a torch into his eyes. "Henry....." he breathed. "There's no pupil response. What happened? Did he fall? Hit his head?" he asked Emma.
She held out the apple turnover in a plastic bag. "He ate this. I think it's poisoned."
He nodded and held open Henry's mouth, shining his torch in there too. "His airway's clear. Did he vomit? Any convulsing or disorientation?"
The nurse pulled a oxygen mask over Henry's small head as they spoke ferociously.
"He took a bite of this and then he just collapsed! So run the test for arsenic or bleach or Drano or whatever could've done this to him!" she shouted.
"The boy is showing no symptoms that would suggest neurotoxin. So whatever's going on, this is not the culprit." he said grabbing the turnover.
"But what else could it be?" she said, panting heavily.
"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out."
"He's gonna be okay, though, right?" she looked down at him and rubbed his arm.
"Right now, we just need to stabilise him cause he's slipping away. Is there anything else that you can remember? Any little detail?"
"I already told you everything. Do something!" she walked away to a vacant bed at the other side of the room.
"Look, I understand you're frustrated, Miss. Swan, I do, but I need something to treat........"
Emma grabbed Henry's back-pack and poured the contence out onto the bed.
"........And right now, there is no explanation, it's like........." he turned back to Henry to find the right words.
Emma stared down at the contence on the bed, at the comics, books, game console, sweets and finally at his fairytale book. She gazed at it in curiosity, thinking hard and breathing deeply. ".......Like magic." she picked up the hard, brown, leather covered book with decorative gold writing and held it up before her.
Then suddenly in her mind she saw herself as a baby wrapped in a white, knitted blanket with her name embroidered in purple, her parents, Snow White and Prince Charming holding her, tears in their eyes. She heard Henry's voice revolving in her mind. "Every story in this book actually happened......." "Goodbye Emma." Snow said to her and Charming kissed her one last time. "You should know more than anyone. Because your in this book." Charming battled the dark gaurds in his castle as she lay in his arms. "Find us." her father said, kissing her forehead and placing her in the enchanted wardrobe.
Emma stood in the single, emergency room, her long blond hair tangled, her eyes widened with a mixture of fear, regret, hurt, frustrated, and anger, but she believed now as she panted heavily, her heart racing.
Suddenly the glass door opened and Regina ran inside. "Where my son?" she cryed.
Emma glanced down at the book again then up, glaring at the wall in front of her, rage and fury filling her inside. "You did this." she sneered under her breath. She turned around and grabbed Regina's arm, dragging her accross the room and throwing her into a storage room near by. She shoved her into a trolly packed with medicine and equipment.
"You did this!" she screamed.
"What the hell are you doing?" she shouted, trying to escape Emma's tight grip.
Emma pined her up against a metal press, pressing her arm up against her neck.
"Stop this! My son........"
"Is sick because of you! That apple turnover you gave me, he ate it!" she screamed into her face.
"What?" breathed Regina, fear in her eyes. "It was meant for you." she cryed.
"It's true, isn't it?" she said silently.
"What are you talking abou?"
"It's true, isn't it?" she shouted, pressing her tighter to the press. "All of it." she panted, glaring up at her.
Regina leaned her head back against the press, sobbing quitely. "......Yes." she nodded.
"I was leaving town. Why couldn't you just leave things alone?"
"Because as long as you're alive, Henry will never be mine." she cryed.
"He'll never be anyone's unless you fix this. You wake him up!"
"I can't!" she screamed.
"Don't you have magic?" he voice quivered.
She shook her head. "That was the last of it....... It was supposed to put you to sleep." she snarled, breaking free of her grip.
Emma stared at her. "What's it gonna do to him?"
She shook her head again. "I don't know...... Magic here is unpredictable."
"So, he could........." she panted heavily, her voice still quivering.
"Yes."
"So what do we do?"
Regina stepped away from the press. "We need help........ There's one other person in this town who knows about this, who knows about magic."
"Mr. Gold."
"Actually, he goes by Rumplestiltskin."
Emma turned and stared at Regina fearfully.