Once Upon A Nightmare

- THIRTY NINE -

- Author -

I'm going home. I'm going home! Shout it out to the world that I'm going home! This was going to be great. Aw, man, I have missed home so much. I missed my bed, I missed attending class, I missed my stuffies. I miss not having to wear the same clothes everyday the most. I really can't wait to go back. Has anyone noticed that I was gone all this time? Did anyone care? How long was I gone in my world? Hm...

Well, I guess I'll find out when I get back home. All I have to do is just write in... or is it on? Write in Emmet? Write on Emmet? It's one of those two. Either way, I have to just do that to Emmet and presto, change-o, time to go home-e-o. Everything reverts back to normal and I go home, the characters go back to their original books and ta-da. THE END. The book is over.

Sad, I know. Not so much for me since, well, I'm stuck here. I really hate this happy-go-lucky place. After a while, it gets under your skin and all you want to do it take over the tri-state area. Or the world,. Whatever you'd like to do. Go big or go home. I wanted to go home. Kinda miss the gloom and doom from there, it was comforting since that was all I knew.

Anyways, on with the story. I was kinda expecting a big, dramatic event when it came to the trade between Maleficent and me but nothing big really happened. Amoura just handed me over and didn't care. I secretly think that she wants to go back home, go back to her life; I think they all do. When she took me, she didn't really force me to go. Everyone inside the house was calm and quiet, no one stayed in the same room for long. I want to say it was the guilt settling in from killing their enemies but it wasn't. I don't think they are able to feel anything and that is causing them to drift apart from one another.

It felt familiar to me. It was the closest thing I had to a home, aside from people telling me what to do and people always watching over me thinking I was going to mess up somehow. It was why I always talked to myself, why I had to deal with things on my own, why I'm so... forgotten is the only word that comes to mind. I could easily connect with the villains and then somewhat easily connect with the princesses while they were in this state. I was always alone, always an outcast. My family never seemed to understand me, never seemed to want me. And it wasn't just their actions but words.

I was the forgotten child and whatever children's book I so happened to get a grasp on, I connected with. Mulan, Hercules, Aladdin, and Ariel were easy for me to connect to. Mulan was always trying to make her family happy; Hercules was trying to get back to his family; Aladdin never had a family and had to fend for himself; Ariel wanted to be part of another world. Hadies, well, he was the first character I came across who was portrayed as bad but still was able to be liked. He was outcasted from his happiness and Gothel had it stolen away from her to save the queen. I connected with them the most.

So that brought me to now. The only place that I could feel connections to. These characters had to go back to their lives, their home and I had to do the same. We had to break apart and that was the end of our adventure. I was writing them off and out of my life like I have done to so many others. But this time, again, I was forced to. I knew that they were the only good things in my life but all good things come to an end. This adventure was a nice one. It was a fun one, but it was time to go. Without them, their world would end and I would go with them.

"So, with this pen, I send them back home. Back to where they came from. With this pen, I wish to return everything to its rightful place. I wish to set the story straight. No war was to ever happen, no characters were to be lost, no stories were to be rewritten. All the characters go home, live out their normal lives and stories and live happily ever after. As for me, I wish to go home. I wish to set the story straight. I wish... I wish this adventure had never happened. I wish... to erase the best time of my life. Just so the story is right and children after me can read these wonderful books and fall in love with the characters themselves."

As I signed and dated the last of my statement on Emmet, the world around me began changing. It was evolving into the world it was meant to be. I watched as the adventure of my lifetime was being erased like a tape, forgotten. Everyone I had grown close to faded. Hadies, Hercules, and Meg were all back in their appropriate book. Cindy, her sisters, and their mother were gone in a flash. Mulan, Shang, and Shan Yu printed back in their pages. Ariel, gone. Tiana, back in her binding. Aurora is sleeping soundly in her sheets.

Gothel was the last to go. She gave me a weak smile as she knew she was going to pass through and go back into her book as the evil old witch that stole a princess from her home. With the seconds left to spare, she walked over to me, embracing me in her arms. Smoothing out the hairs on my head, she gave me a smile that said I would be okay. That I was doing the right thing. That this wasn't a goodbye. Hugging me one last time, she spoke her last words of any chapter.

"You are like the daughter I never really had. Brave, kind, and sassy. Thank you for giving me my one shot at love. Thank you for not seeing me for what I was portrayed as. Thank―"

The warmth around me vanished. Opening my eyes, I was surrounded by nothing. Everything around me was just white. Blank like copy paper. Empty.

I was alone again... Just like always. Forgotten. It's okay. It was normal. I'm used to this. I'll be okay. I'm a big kid. Big kids don't need a happy ending all the time. Big kids weren't always surrounded by people. Big kids don't always cry for their losses. They got up and moved on. They pushed through their problems. That's what big kids did.

But I wasn't a big kid. I was still a kid.

Or so we think... Oh, it's just you. I guess I'm not alone. Never, you always have me. But until when? At one point, I am going to have to stop. Then you will always have me until that happens. Yeah, I guess I will. It's always me, myself, and I, isn't it? Ha, I guess it is. All for one... And one for all! The only musketeer.

I laughed at myself. The only musketeer. That is what I will always be.

"Hey..." Emmet came up beside me.

Amazed that he wasn't gone yet, I stood up. "How― How come you didn't leave yet?"

He smiled. "Because I'm your story. I don't get to leave until you decide to trash me. Which, um, please don't." He grew serious for a second. "The reason I'm here is because you are. And you can't leave until you have this."

He pulled something from behind his back. He held out a thin, slender, silver laptop littered with my stickers on it.

"You found my laptop? Oh, my glob! Thank you!" my voice rose in pitch with excitement.

He laughed at my reaction of being reunited with my laptop. Ugh, I have missed this thing so much! I really missed seeing my nerdy background, I really missed how easily my fingers could reach every key, I really missed how light it was. I missed it all.

"You can go home now," Emmet ushered me. "Do you really want to get rid of the memories?"

Thinking about it for a while, I decided not to. "I can't. This was the most fun I have ever had. I have never been this free to be, well, me. I've always been hounded for things, always forced to be something I'm not, and I just want to keep something of my own. I'm going to keep them. It's better that way. At least now, I will have a cool story to tell my future adopted kids. Thank you for all of this, Emmet. Thank you."

He slowly nodded. The smile on his lip didn't quite reach his eyes but I knew, he meant well. I traveled back to my world. Just like nothing happened. The adventure of a lifetime was over.

When I arrived back to my room, everything looked the same. Placing my laptop down to charge, I checked the books under my bed. Flipping through the princess books, everything seemed normal and correct. Nothing was out of place and Hadies was still a hot head. After taking a nice hot shower and hopping into my nerdy sweats, I climbed into my tiny bed and finally had some well-deserved sleep.

Goodnight you. Goodnight me.

A voice floated through my mind as sleep took over. "Goodnight, writer..."