Endgame

Chapter 39

(Please play the song, thank you)

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice said.

"Oh you can't help that," said the cat.

"We are all mad down here,"

(Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

***
It was a very unusual type of dream Hallie Blackwell had that night. In the night, a sense of foreboding danger came over her. Despite being comforted by the fact that she would eventually wake up, the dreary voices that spoke to her became very real and very frightening.

"What is madness?" The voice asked her.

"Madness?" Hallie questioned. "Why on earth are you asking me that?"

"That's why you're down here, isn't it?" The voice came closer, and appeared to be a black figure.

"You don't exist," Hallie said cautiously "You're just a figment of my imagination."

"So that's what you think of me then?" Emma asked, creeping out of the darkness. She wasn't like herself. Her hair was sealed in a tighter bun and her eyes wild and devoid of sleep.

"Emma?" Hallie asked, shocked at what happened to her. "What is going on, why do you look like that?"

"This is what happens when you let dark magic consume your body."

"Oh," Hallie said, trying to shake to off the feeling of fear present in her voice. "I—I'm sorry."

"Of course it isn't too late for you," Emma added, curling her face up in a distorted smile.

"Too late for what?" Hallie questioned.

"To absorb the power," she agreed. "All of us have faced it."

"Dark magic?" Hallie looked desperately towards an exit, but with no luck. She was trapped in this room with an evil looking Emma Swan. "I have never wanted to resort to using that."

"Feel the power when you do," Emma sneered, her demeanour changing to that of something more cruel than any monster she had ever seen. "You want to feel it."

"No," Hallie took a step away. "No, I would never even think about that! H—how dare you."

"So am I still a figment of your imagination then?" Emma laughed. It was a cruel type of tone she used, indicating she had more power than Hallie. "Why on earth did you create me"

"Oh Hallie," Gracie said in the dream. "You were very lonely!"

Hallie turned around and looked towards her mother, but she was not there.

"Mother where are you?" Hallie demanded.

"She gave you hope," her mother's voice said. "That's what she was there for."

"You're messing with my head," Hallie pointed her shaking hand at Emma, who now stood with a sword in her hands.

"Tell me," she began to circle her. "What will you do when evil wins?"

"It will never win!" Hallie screamed. "I'll make sure that happens, or I'll die trying!"

Emma gave a great roar of laughter. Something in her eyes changed and she was now looking at Hallie with a look reminiscent of the way a killer looks at his victims.

"I know you better than you think," Emma Swan contemplated. "You are attracted to the darkness."

"You are the darkness," Hallie said, taking another step back. "You only exist if I think of you! I have the power."