The moon boldly shone through the curtains into the room where a girl was holding her hands over her ears to try and hide from the screams and shouts down the stairs. She wasn't screaming yet, but she knew she would be soon. Soon it would be her turn.
She grabbed a pillow and slammed it over her ears, "Please get me out, please get me out, please get me out!" She repeated, whispering in the quietest voice she could. She could still hear him though. He did this every now and then, but no one mentioned it. The neighbours ignored the sounds, pretending it was just a TV show or something. The other children were broken, they wouldn't say a thing incase he found out. She wasn't broken…was she? She thought that if she got away, if she got to safety, then she would tell someone. She would get this all sorted.
…But then where would she go? She was trapped. What's to say that another home would be any better than this? This was the third place she had gone to. At least at this one she wasn't being forced out. In some part of herself she believed that the man, now heading up the stairs, cared for her.
"Don't be ridiculous!" She shouted in her head. She knew that she didn't believe that. She knew that this man only cared about the money he gets for keeping them. He made a pretty good profit out of it. Keep ten children, get lots of money, give the children just enough food and drink to keep them alive, and spend the rest on yourself. It was an easy way for him to make money. He could even integrate it into therapy sessions allowing him to really force that anger out of him.
Emma could hear him coming down the coridoor. It was coming close to her turn. She quickly jumped out and grabbed a chair and rammed it infront of the door. She started to grab anything she could to reinforce it, grabbing her clothes (that were normally just sitting in the corner anyway, their rooms were not well furnished with just a bed, a chair and a light above that sometimes worked). She pushed the bed over towards the door, trying to wedge everything in.
But she had done this before, and it didn't end well that time.
She turned and looked over at the window, hearing his footsteps come closer and closer. She ran towards it and pulled the curtains across. The moon was high in the sky and a reflection shone against the lake that looked beautiful…she would have thought if she was not trying to escape the man ready to teach her a lesson. She tried to open the window, but it was jammed shut. She knew it was useless, she had tried it before, but she still rammed against it with all the strength she could muster in her small arms.
"Please get me out!" She continued to whisper as she continued to hit against the window. She then stopped. She could hear him breathing. She could hear the key going into the lock and starting to turn.
She didn't care anymore. She grabbed a shirt and covered her fist in it. She then punched at the window pane and it shattered, spreading glass outside. She then heard the angry vocalisations of the man as he started to push the door open. Emma looked at the broken window. There wasn't enough space for her to get through. Even if she smashed all of the panes of glass she wouldn't be able to get through, there was a wooden frame that made all of the gaps too small.
She knew what was going to happen. She faced the door as the man continued to shove and closed her eyes.
"Please…get me out." She whispered silently as tears started to roll down her face.
She then felt a chill go through her. She hadn't felt the cold before then, but she then heard a great gust of wind pass through the window. She turned and saw a shadow start to pass through into the room. She knew it was in the room because of a pair of white eyes that spread through the room, heading over to the door. It must have passed through the keyhole, as the lights disappeared and she heard a deafening scream from the man and a sudden thud.
She was scared and amazed at the same time. What had happened? What did she do?
She heard the other children shouting in their rooms. They must know what has happened. She headed over to the door, but as she did the white eyes reappeared and the shadow entered her room. The two stared at each other for a minute, trying to figure out the other one.
Then the shadow held out its hand towards the girl. She stood for a second looking at the hand, and then smirked.
She jumped at the door and opened it quickly, then ran. She ran out down the corridor as fast as she could. She knew that no matter what just happened, even if that shadow had just saved her, she was not going to trust it. It just murdered someone! There was no way she was going to grab it's hand! Who knows what it would do to her.
But somewhere she knew that she would not be fast enough.
The shadow stormed across the sky above her. She saw it chase after her, gaining on her quickly. She managed to get out of the door and lights shone down on her as she activated the infrared detectors. But this didn't stop the shadow that had passed to the other side of her. She tried to back away from it, but it was getting closer and closer to her, penning her in like an injured wolf.
She tried to get away, pushing off of the wall of the building to get past the shadow, but it grabbed her. She was ready to bite the shadow's arm, to try and get it to let go, but suddenly they flew up into the air. Emma looked in horror as the world disappeared under her and she was pulled higher and higher into the dark clouds.
They were flying. She didn't know how any of this was happening. She was eleven years old! She knew that magic shadows and flying without a plane was not possible. She knew that fairy tales did not exist, apart from the dark ones where children get abducted and are never seen again, where wolves eat little girls and the eternal youth who killed his followers when they started to grow up. She imagined that if the world would allow her to be beaten repeatedly by the person who was meant to protect her, then these stories were probably true too.
Maybe this was one of them. Maybe this was going to be her story. She couldn't believe it, but it was happening right infront of her eyes. She looked up at the shadow, which was focussed on their flight.
They had been flying a while and now they were over an ocean. She had decided at this point that panicking wasn't going to help her and she instead viewed the scene. It was in some way quite beautiful. It was then that she noticed a ship speeding through the water. She was tempted to struggle free and drop over near that ship, but she knew that it would not go well. She knew that if she did then she might end up with even worse people – and while she knew that shadow wasn't to be trusted, it had saved her life.
They continued streaking through the air, until she saw an island appear on the horizon. It was a dark place, full of overgrown plants and jagged rocks, but in some part of her it felt homely. She didn't understand why. The place looked cold, but maybe it was the fact it looked uninhabited. Maybe she was going to stay on this island with this shadow and no one else. No one else was going to come and bother her.
The shadow was still staring straight ahead, it wasn't one for conversation as she had found while trying to talk to it earlier. It didn't respond verbally to anything she said, but it would occasionally glance over at her. It was listening, even if it wasn't communicating back.
Their altitude started to drop as the shadow seemed to be heading straight for the island. Emma knew that this would be her best chance to escape it, to get into the jungle ahead and lose it among the mass of woodland, but she knew that it would find her again, "I'll stay with you for now shadow!" She shouted, though her voice was lost as the wind cut past them. They then started to slow down and they dropped beneath the trees. She saw beneath her lights, "A fire?" She thought. And then heard the calls and shouts. They got closer and she could see that beneath her were a group of boys dancing around the fire. She then noticed one boy who was not dancing, but was infact staring at her. The boy's elfin appearance, with his pointy ears and his piercing green eyes that seemed to match the strange green outfit he was wearing, stood out instantly. The shadow was starting to slow down and lowered Emma down infront of the boy.
She collapsed onto the floor upon landing. After having to hold herself up for the entire flight she was exhausted! But she didn't let it show, instead staring up at the boy, ready to run if she needed to.
The boy laughed, holding out his hand towards her to help her up, "Hello Emma. I've been waiting a long time to meet you."
Emma hit the boys' hand away, and prepared to run, but felt something in the ground pull her down. She felt paralysed as the boy laughed, "You're a feisty one aren't you? I like that. I think you'll make things quite fun around here Emma."
She was shaking as the boy sat down next to her and put an arm around her, "Who are you?" She asked, fear more evident in her speech then she intended.
"You can call me Peter. Peter Pan. Welcome to Neverland." He beamed, as Emma knew that she was now in a fairy tale, one she wanted to get away from as soon as possible.