It wasn't until I stopped to take a break that I discovered my mistake in not turning around after leaving Pan. Most of the time had been spent running and making pointless threats to him in my head. Once I had stopped to stretch a tiny bit, I kept walking down the beach. I sighed as I glanced around where I was now standing, desperately racking my brain to see if there was anything familiar about the location so that I could direct myself home. Since when did I start referring to anything here as home?

Lying onto the ground, a small groan came out of my mouth. "Good. Now I'm literally lost." Because it's also not enough to just have no idea what is going on in your life. Pulling my headphones out of my ear, I paused the music to listen to the sound of soft waves and gentle breeze ruffling the trees and bushes behind me as it blew over my face.

Looking at the moon reminded me that there was at least one thing about being here that wasn't so bad. Evening had always been my favorite time of day, the later the better. At night everything that seemed impossible had a chance at being real. It felt like any of my movies or books could pop out and happen right in front of me. Harry, Ron, and Hermione could bring me to Hogwarts. I could go to Camp Half-Blood with Grover because one of my parents was a god or goddess and I didn't know. "Be careful what you wish for, I guess," I huffed closing my eyes.

"You're talking to yourself again," I heard a voice giggle. Sitting up revealed Celeste lying somewhat in the sand so that her tail was covered in water, but still close enough to talk.

"It must be your destiny to watch me slowly go insane," I joked.

She just laughed her tinkling laugh and asked, "How have you been? I haven't seen you for a few days. I thought you went back."

"Nope, still here," I said dejectedly. "I don't think His Majesty plans on making a trip off the island anytime soon." She squinted her eyes and tilted her head in a confused manner. "Pan," I clarified.

"Oh! Do you not like him?" she asked.

"Ha. What's there to like?" There was a small part of me what wondered if she had any convincing arguments.

"I know it may not seem like it, but he's very protective of the Lost Boys." I snorted my disbelief, but Celeste continued. "No, really! He's saved a few of them from close calls before."

"No offense, but how could you know this? You're kind of tied to the water," I said trying my best not to make it sound insulting.

"I was there, silly. Other mermaids and I will help spy on the pirates for Peter so we've seen the fights they get into," she explained.

Are we even talking about the same person? Thinking back to the morning when Pan trapped me with his knife to my throat it was hard to think he was the same person Celeste was saying saved the life of the others. "Wait, did you say pirates?" I asked once what she said processed.

"Yeah! It's like a game between the boys and the pirates. But the pirates have always distrusted the mermaids, so we help Peter." Gee, pirates and superstitions about mermaids. Who would have guessed? I was about to ask her something else when she cut me off with, "You know, I bet I know why you don't get along with Pan."

"Oh, really?"

"You two have similar personalities!" At my look of disbelief, she added, "Well, you both have to have the last say."

"How do you know what discussions I have with Pan?" I asked.

"You do it with me," she shrugged. "It mostly comes out in the banter. It's pretty easy to assume you do it with everyone. And I've overheard plenty of Peter's conversations with others."

"I won't deny the bantering thing because you're right, I do that with everyone. But I'm pretty sure a majority of the reasons I don't like Pan is because he thinks he can just order me around like a kid and I'll just listen to him. I prefer to make my own decisions." Even though I'm incapable of making any, but that's a conversation for another time.

She looked at me with understanding. "Can you blame him for doing that though? He is the leader. But if that's your biggest issue, I can see why you fight with him," she pointed out. Celeste looked behind me and a frown made its way onto her face. "I think this is my cue to leave. Will you try giving Peter a chance?"

I felt a little bad for wanting to outright deny her, so I told her, "I'm not going to make any promises, but for you, Celeste, maybe." She gave a quick smile then headed back into the ocean prompting me to turn around and see what caused the sudden change in her demeanor.

The trees and their shadows made it nearly impossible to tell if anything was amiss from where I was sitting. "Someone there?" I called half-heartedly, not really caring if anyone came out or who it was. Is there really anything else that could happen to me?

Apparently I had yet to learn to not ask questions because soon after that thought ran through my mind, something drifted out of the forest. "You have got to be kidding," I mumbled under my breath as a human looking dark shadow came closer to me. Floating above the sand, its bright white eyes stared at me. It took a minute to rack my brain to see if this thing was part of the original Disney movie until I realized what it was. "Pan's shadow?" I asked. Silent nodding was all the shadow gave, which somehow made it even creepier.

Just by looking at it I felt a cold tingle run up my back. The shadow was eerily silent as it floated in its place and staring at me with its unblinking eyes. No wonder Celeste wanted away from here; I should have had her drag me along. Rather than ask any of the half dozen questions that came through my mind, all I asked the shadow was, "Do you happen to know how to point me back to camp?" There was a decent chance that asking anything else would have me more frustrated with Pan than I already was. Besides, what was the point if it couldn't talk?

Rather than give any indication of an answer, the shadow turned and slowly flew back toward the trees. Before it crossed the tree line, it turned back to look at me expectantly. "Coming. I'm coming," I mumbled as I stood up and stretched. Once I started following the shadow, it went ahead of me into the forest which ended in me questioning what my life had really come to. You're following the shadow of a person you talk to daily. Anything else unusual need to happen, life? I found myself asking as I followed the shadow back to what I hoped was camp.