º~º~º
ONE YEAR LATER
º~º~º
For the fifth week in a row, Ariel is woken by her own petrified scream.
Only this time, she comes up fighting.
Hardly conscious of where she is, she shouts into the darkness, flailing her arms to scare off the painted face leering inches from her own. His demented clown makeup swarms her vision, his taunting laughing echoing in his ears. "Do you want to know how I got these scars?" He drawls, edging his knife closer.
By now, she should know this is only a nightmare. The danger as has passed, she's safe and unharmed, the danger out of the way. But the morbid memory of a fun adventure through Storybrooke's infamous "haunted" house turned into a real, living nightmare. As if the first time wasn't bad enough.
Her throat aches, her muscles cry in protest, as she attempts to tackle the figure in front of her. Tangled in sheets soaked in her sweat, she panics, thrashing madly before the clown can cut into her.
"Ariel!" A female voice cuts through the scene, bringing a small sense of reality back to the mermaid. "Ariel, wake up! You're safe!"
All at once, the horrific scene vanishes. In it's place is the welcome interior of a fancy living room, the TV muted but shedding light in the darkness. Amalia stands beside the bed pulled out from the couch, frowning in deep concern.
Sighing, Ariel buries her head in her hands. She's not in the haunted house. She's at Amalia's, sleeping over. She was having another one of those vivid nightmares.
It's been a little over a month, but the terror never seems to cease.
Nearly a year had passed since the night of the video game horror when Ariel's cousin, Persephone, crashed at the mermaid's place for a bit. Halloween was quickly approaching, and Eric decided to take the girls to the dwarves haunted house, thinking it would be a fun experience for them both. And it was.... Until the girls were kidnapped. Ariel thrust into one room, taunted by a clown-like man who called himself the Joker. Persephone taken by Scar, whom Ariel hadn't realized was in Storybrooke. But as the events of the nights unfolded, and Ariel crossed paths with him again...
She'd made remarkable progress on forgetting what happened in Herman's house. Since talking it through was out of the question, she settled on convincing herself it was nothing but a bad dream. As time passed, she moved on. Even came close to be unafraid again. But seeing Scar in that haunted house brought all those morbid memories back in an instant. Every fine detail, all the physical and emotional pain she'd endured, charged back into her.
Of course, with her luck, it didn't end there. Scar and the Joker brutally murdered Persephone. Eric heroically rescued his wife and retrieved the trident, but at what cost? Her cousin was dead. Her claim on the trident was still Scar's. The video game nightmare was alive once more.
"Are you okay?" Amalia suddenly asks, snapping Ariel back to the present. She peeks out from underneath her hands, hardly shocked to seem them wet with her tears.
She's doesn't immediately respond, instead flopping back into the feathery pillows. This fear has gotten out of control. She's finding herself on edge, tense, always waiting for something to happen. It's driving her insane. "Just another bad dream." She mutters, though that much is obvious.
Amalia clammers onto the bed, snuggling down beside Ariel. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Yes! Every essence of Ariel wants to talk about it! Not just the haunted house and the Joker, but Chronicle of Heroes. She wants to spill everything, from the Hyenas jests to risking everything to save Aladdin to Scar's dismal words. She wants to talk about her moment alone with Jim, seeing that weak side of him that he shut off from the rest of the world. Feeling completely hopeless and alone as her new friends disappeared, one by one. How much she hates having to hide these memories, against her will, from Eric, who deserves to know more than anyone.
