The Return (Once Upon a Time sequel)

Chapter 59

JADE

You never stop for a minute to think about the things going on in your life. It seems as if everything just passes by and you can't seem to find the time to take it all in. Sometimes, you take notice of this phenomenon but mostly, you just go through life only to realise later that you should have enjoyed a certain moment. Or thought about an action a little longer. You don't notice the things happening around you because we people have this tendency to think inside a small box instead of outside of it.

Thus, we ignore the little and yet important details of life. Like an 'I love you' from a loved one or the sincere words of a friend.

And before we know it, they're gone. Swallowed by an endless flow of time.

The sound of a door closing far away snapped me back to reality. Faint voices echooed through the house and soon, a glass sliding door opened.
I kept my gaze focused on the houses of my neighbourhood, a few trees peeked out in the back, indicating where the woods began.

"Jade." A familiar voice spoke up.

I didn't reply, just sat there. With my legs pulled up to my upper body.

A sigh was heard throughout my backyard and soon enough, the same voice spoke up next to me.

"Please come down from here. It's been two days of you constantly going up to your room and coming back here, not eating at all. I know his loss is something that truly pains you, but Shadow's gone. He won't come back again. Aren't you happy about that at least?" Henry said, his voice holding a hint of sadness nevertheless.

"Of course I'm happy that Shadow is defeated. But he took so many people down with him. Shayla, Sven and Joe, Sammy, Dirk, Raoul....Zen. I knew those people Henry, and now they're gone." I spoke up for the first time in a while, my voice was husky.

"I know, Jade. And they will be deeply missed by all of us. But they died heroically, leaving us behind to pick up the pieces and move on to something better."

I closed my eyes, holding back the tears that brimmed my eyes and were ready to race down my cheeks.

Henry wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a reassuring hug as I burried my face in his shoulder, holding onto him tightly.

"How was the situation here while we were gone? Did Shadow take many lifes?" I dared to ask with my shaky voice.

"I will not answer the second question, that'll only make you feel horrible. But the first question I will answer, even though my moms told me not to do so." Henry announced.

I pulled away from the hug and stared at my cousin, waiting for him to speak up again. Henry stared at the woods in thought, his dark brown eyes held sadness and his brown hair was messy. His pale skin was even paler and dark bags decorated the lower part of his eyes. He wasn't in a good state either.

"After you went missing, we were all worried. We had just received threats from the Ice Queen and Elsa and Anna needed help. So your mother and my mothers tried to stand up against her. It was one hell of a fight again. We were planning on coming to get you all together. We would all be ready to return to Neverland to bring you home right after the Ice Queen was defeated. But then Alek went missing." I lowered my gaze to the ground beneath us as flashes of the day I saw him in Neverland appeared in front of me.

"Everyone started searching for him, Emma and I even went to nearby towns to search for him. And then I remembered something." My eyes found Henry's brown ones as he paused for a moment.

"I had seen Alek a day before he went missing. He didn't seem like his usual self. He was a wreck, his hair was messy, he had Gucci bags under his eyes and all in all, he didn't look like the son of a semi-God that we all know him to be. I managed to get a few sentences out of him by treating him on a cup of coffee. He kept on saying that he should've been there for you and that he was going crazy at the thought of you going off somewhere and not returning. He had things he wanted to tell you."