Not thinking twice, Mercy jumped right after Peter into the gaping crevice. This wasn't right. Peter wasn't meant to die like this. He wasn't meant to die today. She couldn't let that happen. If someone asked her later, Mercy wouldn't be able to tell the tale of how she managed to take a hold of his hand before he slipped away from her, or how she never let go despite the roughness of the fall and the rocks bruising her face and body as they both tumbled down into the darkness of the mountain. All she remembered was she finally wrapped her arms around Peter's raw, bloodied, unconscious form, crying in his neck even though there was no comfort to find there.
He wasn't awake. He might never wake up again, and she was likely to die along with him in this rockslide. Who would have thought that would be the end? She didn't dare open her eyes, Mercy had stopped fighting it. There was no use. They had both done terrible things to innocent people, they had hurt each other in more ways than they could count and neither was deserving of a gentle death or to live another day to try and make amends.
Sobbing louder and louder, Mercy wished with all her heart that things could be different. She wished Peter and her hadn't met under the circumstances that they had, she wished that they hadn't been so utterly foolish and dense about their own feelings. She wished that they would get another chance, even if they didn't deserve it.
As she held his body, squeezing him against her heart, Mercy wished she could undo everything she had done in this life, and start again. She wished it so hard that the mountain stopped shaking and the sky stopped rumbling but she couldn't hear anything over the sound of her blood pumping in her veins and the beating of her heart. Their entwined bodies didn't stop their mad slide into the dark.
She kept her eyes tightly shut and her nose buried in Peter's neck and didn't see the light blue energy radiating off of them, swallowing them until they were but a ball of light falling into the belly of the mountain.
They hit the bottom in a loud crash that echoed throughout the entire island, sending shivers down everybody's spine, and putting an end to the magic-induced natural disaster that had struck Neverland.
000
Girls and boys alike were shaken up by what had just occurred and wondered what they had witnessed. A strange storm had hit the island but stayed over the mountains. An earthquake shook the ground so hard both camps sustained damage, and neither of their leaders was to be seen.
"We need to go and see what happened. Maybe Mercy needs us," Dorothy said after a long silence shared between all the girls. She was second in command, it was her job to take over when Mercy couldn't be there.
"Some of us should stay here and repair what we can." That suggestion came, surprisingly, from Sybil. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking displeased with her own idea but still ready to do it. "Besides, we can't leave the camp unguarded." Dorothy's lips contorted in a shocked little smile. "In case this is all a scheme to make us desert camp, obviously," Sybil was quick to add.
"Good idea." She didn't dwell on the subject, knowing that it would only make Sybil uncomfortable. "You'll be in charge then. All the youngest stay here and help guard and repair the camp. The rest of us split up: I want one group posted in the jungle surrounding the Lost Boys' camp, I wanna know what they are up to and if they know more. It they move, follow them. The other half comes with me to the mountains."
As all the girls nodded solemnly, Winnie stood apart, scratching her left arm and looking as though she wanted to tell Dorothy something.
Before long, the girls got to work, a third of the group left to keep on eye on the Lost Boys, a third started to fix up the camp, and the last ones waited for Dorothy to give the word and leave.
"What is it, Winnie?" Dorothy asked after taking her aside. "You look nervous."
"I have something to do," she blurted out. "Don't ask me what it is because I can't tell you, but it's important." If she could send a message to Felix and meet up with him, she would be able to find out what the boys knew faster that the girls would just by observing them from afar.
Dorothy blinked in surprise; her friend had never made such an odd request. But they trusted each other and so she nodded after a second or so.
"Alright, I won't ask as long as you promise to stay safe."
"I promise I won't do anything dangerous, but I think I can help find Mercy quicker, and I need to do this alone."
Curiouser and curiouser. Although, there really wasn't any time for curiosity right now, and so Dorothy gave her approval, and left the camp with the remaining girls, leaving Winnie to her mysterious business.
From the corner of her eye, Sybil had followed their exchange, and she squinted her eyes as she watched Winnie take off by herself, draped in a hood.
The older girl knew the way by heart, and what tiny shred of magic she had learned from Mercy by staying by her side for as long as she had, she managed to send off a message after multiple failed attempts, and her feet guided her through the familiar part of the forest that would take her to their spot. There, she would wait for Felix to come and meet her, hoping that he wouldn't be too long.
Mercy had been gone with quite a while, and Winnie had been fidgeting with the idea of finding Felix and asking if he knew something about her disappearance for an hour or so already.
Barely half an hour later, Felix emerged from behind a tree and Winnie ran into his arms to greet him.
"What is it? Your message sounded urgent," Felix immediately asked upon seeing the worry on her face.
"It's Mercy, she hasn't come back yet, and there was this huge storm, and the earth shook so hard but it all came to an abrupt stop, and-" She was losing her breath.
"I know this, we felt it too. It came from the mountains but I don't know anything else." He frowned, pushing back his hair and pacing the ground. "Peter is gone, too. I try to keep the boys busy so they won't notice something's wrong, but I don't know how long I can keep it up."
"You said he would be gone for days at a time, they won't notice a thing," she tried to reassure him. "Dorothy has already gathered a search party to find Mercy, they are going to the mountain right this moment. We should catch up on them and try to find out what exactly happened."
"If Peter finds out I left the camp, he'll-"
"Felix," Winnie cut him off. "Call it a gut feeling if you want, but I think he's involved in this. Deep down, I know that if we can find Mercy, we'll find Peter too."
How else could she explain the ball churning in the pit of her stomach? She had never felt such worry and dooming sense of urgency. Felix wasn't much of a believer – another thing Peter held against him and punished him for – and Winnie was aware of that. However, he recognized the look in her eyes.
"Lead the way."
000
The pain was unbearable. So unbearable that Mercy couldn't hold back the tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn't know where they had landed, how to get out, or how long they had stayed there already. Was anyone looking for them or did they elect to keep away from their little quarrel to avoid getting hurt.
They would have been right, because that's what they did. They hurt people, whether they mean to, or not. Peter and Mercy deserved each other, in that respect.
Something pierced through her side and she could taste blood in her mouth. Her eyes were open now but she couldn't see a thing. Had she gone blind or was it simply too dark to see past the tip of their nose? And what about Peter? She could feel him against her – at least she thought it as him, because he didn't move, or say anything.
"Pet-" she croaked out, the sound scratching her throat. "Peter-" she tried again, louder. Even then, the sound was pitiful. There was no answer. She might as well be alone under a pile of rocks from a crumbling mountain. There was no one to blame but herself for this – she had caused the storm that triggered this series of events.
She had killed Peter, whether she had meant to or not.
Another gut-wrenching sound escaped her lips as she began to sob uncontrollably over what she assumed must be the lifeless body of Peter Pan still pressed against her chest. He was so cold too, so unresponsive to everything that happened.
Her entire body shook with each sob, further opening up the wound tearing up her side. Mercy couldn't tell what hurt the most: the physical pain or the knowledge they she killed the one person in the world that she apparently couldn't live without.
Why hadn't the mountain swallowed her whole? Why was she still alive if it was for this? To die all alone in the cold darkness, holding Peter's corpse in her arms?
She couldn't feel them anything, she couldn't feel anything apart from the sharp pain and the clenching of her heart. So many tears cascaded down her cheeks, the salt began to sting as it entered her wounds. If she didn't want to go like this, she needed to find a way out. She needed to stop crying and start remedying her situation. How could she give up now? And leave their bodies buried here, where no one would ever find them.
The girls would worry for her. The Lost Boys would be well and truly lost without a guide. She was no replacement for Peter, but she could at least give them a sense of order. With Peter gone, maybe the veil hiding Neverland from the world and the world from Neverland would disappear and soon they would all be able to go home.
All but Mercy. Mercy would stay here, because she couldn't leave, and she didn't want to anymore. There was nothing for her out there. There had never been anything. She fed herself hopes and lies and believed them with such fervor that she lost sight of what truly mattered.
If she hadn't, she might have made two people happy.
"I'm so sorry, Peter," she whispered in the dark, pressing her forehead against his chest – at least she thought it was his chest. "It's my fault… It's my… fault…"
She allowed herself to cry a little longer before getting her act together. After a mighty effort and with a piercing scream, Mercy managed to tear one arm free from under Peter's body. It was moist with blood, whose rusting smell overwhelmed her.
Holding her breath and without letting go of Peter with her other hand, Mercy gathered what little strength she had left and attempted to push out a wave of magic to lift the rocks off her them, but nothing happened, nothing at all.
Perhaps she was too weak. First things first then: she needed to see. She held her palm open and summoned a ball of light.
Nothing happened.
This time, she knew something was wrong. She could do that in her sleep, there was no way she was too weak so make light. What was happening to her? Why wasn't her magic working just when she needed it most?
"No…" she huffed out, looking at where her hand should be although she still couldn't see a thing. "No, no no," she whined as she tried again and again to summon light. Even the barest of flickers would be welcome at this point. Anything at all. "Please, not now… don't let me down now…"
But it was no use. Her magic didn't work. Whatever happened must have drained her of her energy and she was left empty of magic for the moment. What else was there to do?
The rising panic made it hard to breathe but she couldn't hyperventilate, who knew how much oxygen she had left in here?
There was only one thing to do.
"Help! Somebody help!" she began to scream as loud as she could, ignoring the soaring pain in her throat and the dread filling her heart.
000
"Did you hear that?" one of the girls asked. All of them stopped and froze, listening intently. A few seconds passed before a crow croaked from a tree branch down the mountain, and they all sighed.
"It's just some bird," Dorothy said, shoulders down.
They had been searching for three hours now, climbing and crawling up and down the mountain. It was unrecognizable. Dorothy had been here before, and it had looked nothing like the pile of broken rocks that it was right now. Something bad had happened here, under all of their noses. Mercy could be hurt or worse. They couldn't give up, despite the setting sun and the cold wind rising.
"No, it wasn't that," the girl said, shaking her head and frowning ever so slightly. "I- I thought I heard someone call your name."
"My name?" Then it couldn't possibly be some bird, although she couldn't quite understand why someone – Mercy – would be screaming her name in particular. Could it be that she could see them, but they couldn't?
"I must have imagined it. The wind blows pretty hard up here."
And so it was dismissed, and the girls kept looking, calling Mercy's name before the wind carried it away.
000
"Wait," Felix said, holing up an arm to stop Winnie in her tracks. "I know this place."
"You do? How come you've been here?" she wondered.
He sent her a crooked smile.
"I've been here a lot longer than you have, remember?"
Winnie rolled her eyes. "It doesn't mean you know every place on this island."
"I don't, but this one… I remember it. I haven't been here in decades, but I don't remember it being quite so… desolate."
The entire mountain had been turned upside down, the rockslide had destroyed half of it and completely reshaped its southern side. There was nothing to recognize.
"I never really set foot here, but I followed the Shadow one day. I knew Pan sent it off on a mission on a regular basis, but he wouldn't tell me what it was, so-"
"-you decided to ignore a direct order and find out yourself," Winnie finished for him. "Sounds about right, but it doesn't explain why we stopped looking for Mercy and Pan. I know they are here, I can feel it." She placed a hand on her stomach as if to say 'here'.
"My point exactly. I think you're right. Pan doesn't know that I know, but he had the Shadow come here once a month to bring Mercy a blue flower. I don't know exactly where this ritual comes from, but it never failed, all these years, to come here and deliver its present."
"Speak clearly, Felix!" Winnie urged him.
"This mountain means something to Peter. To both of them. If they are truly here, then they had to be right on this platform, there." He pointed at a higher located flat area that would only be accessible if one could fly, and which was now reduced to no more than a narrow pathway. "That's where the Shadow used to wait. Where Mercy would sit for hours at a time, holding that flower as if it were made a jewels and gold."
A string pulled at Winnie's heart, and something suddenly made terrible, horrendous sense to her.
"Then we need to hurry. And we need help, because if Mercy and Peter were here when the storm happened, that means they are buried alive under the mountain."
"Help? No one can see us together!" Felix seemed alarmed and grabbed Winnie by the arms as if to shake some sense into her. "Think about what would happen if we found Pan and he saw us? It would be the end of us both!"
"Then it doesn't matter whether we call for help or not, because we'll be together to dig them out anyway!" Winnie pointed out – very accurately too.
Doubt passed through Felix's expression but Winnie gave him a soft look and he relented without a fight. There wasn't anything he could deny her, and he knew that she was right, they would never be able to accomplish that on their own, at least not in a timely manner than would ensure Mercy and Pan's survival if they had survived the fall and to ricks, that was.
"The girls must be here somewhere, we need to look for them, I know that-" Winnie paused and turned her head to the right.
"Winn-"
"Shush!" she silenced Felix. "Did you hear that?"
"No, I didn't-"
"Wait. There it is again." They remained quiet for a few seconds, just long enough to hear a faint, distant call before it was carried away by the evening wind. "I can't make out what it says, but we're not alone here."
"Then we have to hurry and find your friends."
With renewed hope and determination, Winnie nodded and off they went to find Dorothy and her group, calling for her name for what seemed like an eternity until finally, someone called back.
"Mercy?!" came the other voice. "Mercy? Is that you?"
"Dorothy!" Winnie screamed at the top of her lungs. "Dorothy! It's Winnie! I found her!"
Felix braced himself for the scene that was sure to come when the girls saw him with Winnie, and sure enough, as soon as Dorothy climbed up a tall rock and saw him standing so close to her friend, she grabbed her bow and took an arrow out of her quiver in one smooth movement and aimed at his throat.
"One move and you're dead. Step away from her!" Dorothy yelled at him.
Out of reflex, Felix raised his hands in surrender. Winnie stepped between him and the tip of the arrow.
"Stand down Dorothy, he's with me."
"What do you mean, he's with you?" she spat out. "He's one of them. He's the worst of them!"
They both winced at that. Dorothy was of the utmost loyalty and she loved and cared for Mercy as if she were her own blood sister. Of course, she would think the worst of Felix, Mercy hated his guts – and she had her reasons, just like he had reasons to dislike her.
"I mean, he's with me, Dorothy," Winnie repeated, emphasizing the right words for her friend to understand the meaning behind them.
Taken aback, Dorothy lowered her weapon but didn't put it back.
"I'm afraid of what you imply…"
Winnie understood, but now wasn't the right time for explanations.
"I know, but there's no time to talk now. We found Mercy and Peter. We need everyone's help."
000
Digging them out took the entire night, but they didn't stop and kept talking to Mercy until they didn't get an answer anymore. She had been buried under a pile of rocks for hours, screaming for help. She might have passed out from exhaustion. That was the explanation they all chose to believe, because the alternative was unacceptable.
It was dawn when the last rocks were lifted up and the battered unconscious bodies of their mighty, undefeated leaders were unearthed.
"Than- Thank…" a soft whisper fought its way out of Mercy dry, split open lips, "Thank you. Thank you…" she whispered again and again, unable to stop thanking her saviors. She was too tired to even open her eyes and meet the rising sun, or the relieved faces of her girls, but the tears couldn't hold back. She cried silently as she thanked them, forgetting about the pain and the darkness as she felt the first rays of sunlight hit her face. Knowing that she wasn't going to die alone under the mountain, she finally let go and fell into oblivion. The hand that hadn't let go of Peter this entire time slipped away as the rescue party carried her out of there.