Author's Note
The first thing I would like to address is the rating: although it is categorized with a PG13 rating, this only because I wanted to leave myself creative space. As an author, as a person, I hate cornering myself with certain categories and particularities. By giving this piece an PG13 rating, I can maneuver myself any which way I please. The rating isn't a promise of debauchery, though, merely a warning…
One other thing one might want to know about this piece is that, although it is Never-Never Land, remember that the world I portray is more than just an island of ageless people: it is an entire planet. It is a three dimensional world, with new characters, new places, and new adventures. The tale takes place four years after Peter and Wendy's first adventure.
Peter did indeed live in the real world for four years, before returning to Never-Never Land. When he finally returned to Never-Never Land, he was seventeen. His love for Wendy was bittersweet. He loved her as the girl she once was, and couldn't understand the woman that she was trying to become. Having spent so much time ageless, he couldn't understand his own changes, either. Things in his New World were cold and distant; he felt alone and abandoned. He didn't want to become a man, and, having nothing left to live for in the Land of Reality, he wished himself home…
***
Introduction: Peter Comes Home
When his eyes fluttered open for the first time in what must have been hours, he felt the ache. It was a slow thudding, sore pain that seemed to ebb and flow under every breath he made. He slowly rolled onto his back, feeling his normal senses begin to take hold of his body, overturning and taking precedence over the pain. He looked at the sky, beginning to feel a sense of home and hearth return to him. The sky was a slate gray, and dark clouds were billowing in from the east, ominous precipitous mountains oppressing his native soil, threatening rain. The moisture was thick on the air, almost palpable.
He was home, he thought.
Peter pulled himself up from the dirt, coltish on his legs as the blood rushed to his head. He began to look around himself, trying to place himself on the geography of the island. At one point, he had known every tree and bush, crevice and crag on the island…
Now, he thought, he could barely remember the general shape of the island. The island was fairly circularly, roughly hewn from the waves of sea, with a large crest-shaped bay cut near the south end. Below him, was a dry and choked creek bed. Peter's memory, faded by his absence, seemed to trickle back to him. The dry creek bed was in the center of the island, and if followed, would lead him right back to his old den.
The creek bed won't be dry for very long, he thought, looking at the sky. As if to reply to his thoughts, a jolt of lightening and booming thunder commenced a sudden downpour of rain. It was a cold rain that immediately soaked into Peter's skin, numbing his flesh to ice. The rain didn't even damper the ember that was Peter's heart, though. For the first time in four years, Peter felt like he had a home again. He was going to the one place that he knew he would always belong. ***
The old tree was unmistakable. It's crawling branches, reaching for the sky in the most roundabout ways, eventually becoming entangled with itself in a mess of branches and sticks and thorns. The roots were gnarled and bulbous, erupting from the earth at irregular intervals. How the small ones would trip on those roots! Yelping with all their might, pouting, kicking the tree in their youthful frustrations…
--Something wasn't right. The tree seemed dark and skeletal, as though it was not the home of his beloved lost boys, but a hollowed vessel. He opened the door and saw immediately that the darkened room had not been habituated for some time. The hearth was cold, not even a glowing coal. The lanterns were dark and overturned on the ground. The beds had no blankets, and the whole place seemed out of order.
Peter knew that time passed with a different flow in his land. He had been gone for four years in the Land of Reality, but how long had he really been gone from his home? Enough time for the remaining boys to leave the place that they had known for so long and find a new place? Enough time for them to argue, as boys do, and disband themselves? Enough time for something else to have happened to them…something worse?
"Oh, boys…" Peter said aloud, as he knelt down to touch a tousled and dusty teddy bear. "What happened to you?"
"A lot," replied a voice from behind him.
The first thing I would like to address is the rating: although it is categorized with a PG13 rating, this only because I wanted to leave myself creative space. As an author, as a person, I hate cornering myself with certain categories and particularities. By giving this piece an PG13 rating, I can maneuver myself any which way I please. The rating isn't a promise of debauchery, though, merely a warning…
One other thing one might want to know about this piece is that, although it is Never-Never Land, remember that the world I portray is more than just an island of ageless people: it is an entire planet. It is a three dimensional world, with new characters, new places, and new adventures. The tale takes place four years after Peter and Wendy's first adventure.
Peter did indeed live in the real world for four years, before returning to Never-Never Land. When he finally returned to Never-Never Land, he was seventeen. His love for Wendy was bittersweet. He loved her as the girl she once was, and couldn't understand the woman that she was trying to become. Having spent so much time ageless, he couldn't understand his own changes, either. Things in his New World were cold and distant; he felt alone and abandoned. He didn't want to become a man, and, having nothing left to live for in the Land of Reality, he wished himself home…
***
Introduction: Peter Comes Home
When his eyes fluttered open for the first time in what must have been hours, he felt the ache. It was a slow thudding, sore pain that seemed to ebb and flow under every breath he made. He slowly rolled onto his back, feeling his normal senses begin to take hold of his body, overturning and taking precedence over the pain. He looked at the sky, beginning to feel a sense of home and hearth return to him. The sky was a slate gray, and dark clouds were billowing in from the east, ominous precipitous mountains oppressing his native soil, threatening rain. The moisture was thick on the air, almost palpable.
He was home, he thought.
Peter pulled himself up from the dirt, coltish on his legs as the blood rushed to his head. He began to look around himself, trying to place himself on the geography of the island. At one point, he had known every tree and bush, crevice and crag on the island…
Now, he thought, he could barely remember the general shape of the island. The island was fairly circularly, roughly hewn from the waves of sea, with a large crest-shaped bay cut near the south end. Below him, was a dry and choked creek bed. Peter's memory, faded by his absence, seemed to trickle back to him. The dry creek bed was in the center of the island, and if followed, would lead him right back to his old den.
The creek bed won't be dry for very long, he thought, looking at the sky. As if to reply to his thoughts, a jolt of lightening and booming thunder commenced a sudden downpour of rain. It was a cold rain that immediately soaked into Peter's skin, numbing his flesh to ice. The rain didn't even damper the ember that was Peter's heart, though. For the first time in four years, Peter felt like he had a home again. He was going to the one place that he knew he would always belong. ***
The old tree was unmistakable. It's crawling branches, reaching for the sky in the most roundabout ways, eventually becoming entangled with itself in a mess of branches and sticks and thorns. The roots were gnarled and bulbous, erupting from the earth at irregular intervals. How the small ones would trip on those roots! Yelping with all their might, pouting, kicking the tree in their youthful frustrations…
--Something wasn't right. The tree seemed dark and skeletal, as though it was not the home of his beloved lost boys, but a hollowed vessel. He opened the door and saw immediately that the darkened room had not been habituated for some time. The hearth was cold, not even a glowing coal. The lanterns were dark and overturned on the ground. The beds had no blankets, and the whole place seemed out of order.
Peter knew that time passed with a different flow in his land. He had been gone for four years in the Land of Reality, but how long had he really been gone from his home? Enough time for the remaining boys to leave the place that they had known for so long and find a new place? Enough time for them to argue, as boys do, and disband themselves? Enough time for something else to have happened to them…something worse?
"Oh, boys…" Peter said aloud, as he knelt down to touch a tousled and dusty teddy bear. "What happened to you?"
"A lot," replied a voice from behind him.