A/N- This chapter may seem a little choppy (to my mind, anyhow) so bear with me. Anyway, since I missed it in the last chapter- if you recognize it from the book or the movies, it ain't mine. Otherwise it belongs to me.
Chapter One
It was just after sunrise, the clouds still vaguely pink around the edges. Fresh golden light was everywhere, the breeze was fresh and fragrant.
Knuckles crawled out of her bed and fell on the floor with a heavy thump. She gave a slight yelp and jumped up, spitting her hair out of her mouth. She rubbed her face and ran her fingers through her tangled hair, wondering why she always had the first shift of the day. This was cruel and unusual punishment, making her get up before noon.
Once upon a time Knuckles had been a scrawny ten-year-old girl who was always cheerful and always ready to play a joke. That was still true, except for a few details- Knuckles had, over the past ten years or so, aged from scrawny ten-year-old to coltish sixteen-year-old. That and she had developed a healthy distaste for mornings, as you can see.
"Knuckles! Get up!" TK stuck her head in the doorway on Knuckle's small room, annoyed with her friend. "We'll be late!"
"I know!" Knuckles grabbed some clothes off a handy chair and pulled them on, momentarily getting lost in her tatty tunic. She grabbed her boots and didn't bother putting them on before flying out the door (literally), the very picture of the harried teenaged girl.
"Amanda's gonna kill you," said TK as they flew through the tangled mass of tree-limbs towards the main platforms. "We were supposed to be there ten minutes ago."
"Kill me? What about you?"
"I was waiting for you!"
They reached the kitchens a few minutes later, going about their duties as if nothing were out of the ordinary. Which it wasn't- Knuckles was usually late for kitchen duty.
Knuckles was peeling a mamee-apple when she felt someone breathing down her neck. She stiffened and slowly turned around.
It was Amanda- tall, slender, attractive, and made of diamonds, it seemed. No one was stricter than her, or meaner. Something the boys despaired of- for a teenage brunette, she sure was anal retentive.
"Where were you?" asked Amanda in a deadly whisper. Knuckles gulped despite herself.
"I accidently slept in."
"How many times must I tell you to be on time! You seem to think that we can just wave our hands and breakfast will be magically prepared!" Amanda ranted, gesticulating furiously. "It doesn't work that way, Elizabeth!"
Knuckles winced. Amanda was the only one who ever called her by her true name, and all that did was make her loath it even more.
"It's Knuckles."
"I don't care what your name is, you will be on time tomorrow, missy!"
"All right."
A boy a few feet away snickered. Amanda whirled on him and let loose the fury of her soul. Knuckles grinned and didn't feel in the least bit sympathetic.
After Hurricane Amanda had passed, Knuckles decided to do the humane thing and sooth the boy's feelings. But rather than being mollified, the redhead was giggling so hard he could barely breathe.
"Scrabble? Are you okay?" asked Knuckles, eyes crinkling in amusement. Scrabble looked up at her and broke into gut-wrenching, snorting laughter.
"Scrabble?"
Scrabble wiped his eyes and grinned up at her. "I'm sorry, but that was just too funny," he said, Russian accent thickened by his recent intense emotion. "I mean..." He collapsed into laughter again.
"What are you on about?"
Scrabble forced himself to stop laughing long enough to respond. "I saw her making out with Dean last night," he said, before breaking out in laughter again.
Knuckles stared at the boy in confusion. "How does that make this funny?"
Her only answer was breathless giggling.
Knuckles threw her arms up in defeat, unable to resist a giggle of her own. "You're mad, Scrabble. Absolutely mad."
TK looked over Knuckles shoulder, frowning at the hysterical twelve-year-old. "What's up?"
"Scrabble thinks it absolutely hysterical that Amanda is up here chewing us out for being late while she was snogging Dean last night, and I don't understand it."
TK stared at Knuckles, then laughed. "Knuckles, think about it- Amanda is the ultimate anal-retentive, and she's frenching a guy?"
"I still don't get it."
TK rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's hurry up- breakfast starts in twenty minutes."
Knuckles shook her head. "Whatever you say, TK."
* * *
Levi whistled tunelessly, drifting above the beaches. It was a mere formality, really, patrolling the shores to be sure the wraiths hadn't returned. The last of them had been destroyed years ago, and no new ones had come in the intervening time. But no one wanted to take that chance. And so the Lost patrolled the mountains and shore, the red-skins the forests, the mer-folk the ocean.
Ten years... it seemed a dreadfully long time, but it had sped by so fast. By all rights Levi should be at least twenty-five years old, but she still looked like she was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old. Not that she was complaining- who wants to get old?
And it was absolutely wonderful, being able to finally have the life denied her so long ago. She had her people (after a fashion) she had Peter, and she had Griffin.
That reminded her- Griffin had been making mischief again, confusing jar labels in the kitchens, along with his friends. She'd have to give him a nice, long lecture about that. But it'd go in one ear and right out the other- five-year-old boys never listen. Especially hers.
A vague blue shimmer on the beach drew her out of her reverie. She couldn't tell what it was from her current altitude, so she flew lower to try and see what it was.
Levi felt as if she'd been dumped into a vat of ice water. Her chest clenched up and she suddenly found it hard to breathe. She only stayed aloft by sheer force of will and long experience.
It was the old sea-dragon, Janus. He was half-in, half-out of the water, and Levi knew without a doubt what had happened.
He was dead.
She dropped the last fifty yards to the ground, barely catching herself before going sprawling in the sand. Then she bolted towards the still form, hoping desperately that he was only sick, that he wasn't really dead.
He really was dead, had died only recently- maybe earlier that morning. Levi let out a strangled sob and sank to the sand.
How could this happen, she wailed in her mind. Janus was as much a part of Never-Land as the trees and earth. There was something dreadfully wrong here, beyond the fact that her best friend after Piotr had just turned up dead on the shore.
Maybe the mer-folk knew what had happened... Levi steadied her nerves, forced herself to stop crying- she had something to look for now, something to focus her mind on. She could mourn later.
She left her boots, bow, and quiver on the shore. She waded into the cold water-despite it always being summer in Never-Land, the water never got above fifty-five degrees or so-and took a deep breath. The mer-folk weren't far off, their music was tickling right at the edge of her hearing.
As she swam, she hoped she could find an answer. If she couldn't.... it didn't bear thinking about.
* * *
The sun had been up for only an hour. Peter was doing what he did every morning- go over current events and problems with the Council (about ten other teens, including Levi who was on patrol at the moment) and arguing over the expansion issue. He felt like a henpecked politician on this particular day.
"Oh come on Slightly, we are not either crowded," said Nibs, rolling his eyes. "People just insist on spending all their time on the main platform."
"Then we ought to move things around, spread them out," suggested Tootles. "That should work."
"How are we going to haul huts around?" asked Slightly. "Dismantle them piece by piece?"
Peter wasn't paying attention. It was almost ridiculous- a bunch of teenagers acting basically as a town legislature. Now he'd seen everything.
A strange, numb feeling settled into his arms. He passed it off as being in one position for too long. But then his legs fell numb too, and the painful tugging sensation started up again.
A moment later Slightly heard a soft gasp. He turned and saw Peter with his head on the table, trembling, flesh pale. A soft moan escaped from Peter.
"Peter?"
* * *
Morgan groaned and rubbed furiously at her eyes, squinting at the pale light. DJ poked her in the ribs again.
"We've got to get moving," he insisted, ignoring Morgan's muffled, rather groggy protests. "They're sending in ground forces, and I'm not about to be hunted down like a rat."
Morgan hauled herself to her feet. "There's nowhere to go," she said bitterly. "Why bother?"
DJ stared at her silently, rather shocked. Morgan had never been so negative before- she was usually the one pushing him to stay alive, not the other way around.
"We can try," said DJ sharply. "Let's go."
Morgan wrapped her jacket around her thin body and followed her older brother out of the abandoned restaurant and into the frigid, wind-scoured streets. She could hear the slight, almost imperceptible hum of one-man hovers, maybe a few blocks away. Despite her newfound depression, her heart picked up speed, sending adrenaline through her veins like fire.
They needed no words. They simply bolted down the street, away from the humming sound, towards the beach. Hovers didn't work right on the sand, maybe they could get away.
All she could hear was the pounding of their shoes on the cement, her own heartbeat, the whistling wind and the deadly humming. All she could think of was getting away.
They reached the beach. But they didn't stop there, they kept running right to the edge of the icy water. Far away on the horizon were red flashes of volcano fire- ever since the bombs, volcanos had been everywhere, spewing ash to increase the effect of the newborn nuclear winter.
"We'll swim," DJ panted, tearing off his shoes and stuffing them in his backpack. "Gimme your shoes."
Morgan didn't even think, she just pulled them off and gave them to her brother. The sand was cold, harsh against her bare feet. She hadn't worn socks in over two years.
"Let's go."
They waded into the surf, the water biting through their clothes with a vengeance. Some distant part of Morgan's mind was screaming about sharks and hypothermia, but she ignored it.
Then they were swimming, out towards the red flare. The Keys were out there somewhere.
As she swam, the cold sank into Morgan's bones until all she could do was keep her limbs moving, keep her head up. And all she felt was despair.
* * *
Levi surfaced for air, gasping. She'd seen the edges of the mer-folk city, she should be there soon. She had to stay underwater to find it properly- it drifted with the tides, and no one above the sea could ever be sure of its position.
The entire fabric of reality shuddered. For half an instant Levi was in another ocean, cold as ice, surrounded by gray sky and darkness. Then she was in Never-Land still, fear settling on her like a lead weight.
Something was very, very wrong.
The very edges of the horizon were turning black.
Levi forgot all about trying to speak with the mer-folk. She shot into the air and flew as fast as she could to the Lost settlement, her thoughts one long soundless scream.
* * *
Knuckles' hand slipped and she cut her finger with the peeling knife. She yelped and stuck the wounded digit in her mouth, scowling as Scrabble laughed at her clumsiness.
"Oh, shut up," she muttered mutinously. She pushed a lock of wayward blonde hair behind her ear and went back to her task, suddenly grumpy.
"Knuckles! Look!"
"What?"
"Just look!"
Knuckles gave an exasperated sigh and stood up to tell TK off. But her jaw dropped all she could do was stare.
The horizon had turned black that darkness. It was as if the edges of Never-Land were being swallowed up. The darkness was creeping ever closer, oh so terribly slowly.
"Uh-oh," Knuckles whispered.
The darkness paused, as if hearing her. Then it swooped down on them like a great bird of prey, shrieking silently, devouring all in its path.
Knuckles didn't even have time to scream.