Hey again! Hope I didn't use too long, but I think I did this chapter pretty fast!
By the way. Some time (most likely when this is finished, which is quite a long time, considering all the chapters I have planned) I will make a rewrite. Nothing major, no big plot changes, just some grammar checking,emoredetailed describing and such. More about that when it happens.
On with the Chapter!
With the help of newly made friends I managed to survive the forest without getting caught in some alligators mouth, but it still took some time. They told me they knew Tinkerbelle, and that she usually didn't behave like she had towards me. That made me a bit uncomfortable, because I still wasn't aware of whatever she was angry at me about.
Anyways, like I said, we made our way to our destination; some huge tree that didn't really stick out from the rest. It had multiple holes between various rots and twigs, and lime green veins that fell down from the top along with an incredible leafy tree crown. It was a beautiful tree, I feel like I have to admit, but it wasn't anything special in the sea of the other amazing trees that shined in natural beauty.
"Um, I know this is a awesome tree and stuff, but why did you stop?" I asked after a few moments of staring at our apparent goal of the journey.
"Because it's awesome, of course," Jerry said, smiling widely. "And because we live in it?"
"You live in a tree?" I gasped. I then imagined them climbing and sleeping in the tree like monkeys, and laughed when I found out that someone - cough, cough, Jerry - was easier to make look like one.
"Not the way you think," Milton laughed, "but yes, we live inside this one."
That just sounded stupid, and I nearly voiced the exact thought.
Milton walked up to one of the veins and placed a hand on it, before pulling it slightly. I'm not sure how the whole thing was connected to each other, but tat the opposite side of the tree, a rot moved. It made it possible for a child or a small grownup to climb trough, and into the darkness I didn't yet know where leaded.
"How cool!" I exclaimed, earning a big grin from both my new friends. "Where does it lead to?"
"Our home," Jerry simply replied, making his way trough the hole and disappearing out of sight. Milton followed him, and motioned me to come after them.
"I know this tree is huge and all, but how can it possibly have enough room for an entire home?" I tried to ask, but they both had vanished before the question was properly formed. I sighted, but started crawling trough the small hole and into the lightless place beyond it. It wasn't easy, because the stones and everything else - I wasn't sure what half of it was, and I fear the answer a bit - that was in my way seemed like they had decided to make this harder that it had to be.
After a few encounters with something that made noises, and - since I felt a quick breath in my ear - most likely was alive - I started to get used to the dark, but that didn't make me more comfortable in it. It still tricked my fears, and turned everything I saw - actually, heared, I barely saw my own hands -into something terrifying.
I couldn't see or hear Milton and Jerry, something that slowly made me panic. They had just come into this tunnel moments before me, so they should be in sight, at least no more than a few meters in front or me. This fact scared me, and I felt a small trembling start inside me.
I have always hated dark places, especially when they are small. I'm not sure why, because I'm not a frightened-by-everything kind of girl. I have just always been, and I guess I'll always be. It's just something that sits in your mind and refuses to let go, and you just have to live with it.
After another half hour I started to really panic. I can't exactly know if it has been that long, but I've at least crawled trough this dirt filled tunnel for quite a while. The trembling had gotten far worse, and my heart rate had quickened to a speed faster than healthy.
"What kind of favor, Jack?" I heard a familiar voice say, one that I easily connected to my freckled friend Milton.
It came from the wall of dirt at stone on my right side, and I guessed it was quite a thin layer between me and that home my friends were talking about. Then something else hit me, something that I should have realized after Milton and Jerry told me of their friendship with Tinkerbelle.
They knew Jack.
"I need you to find someone," the slightly stressed voice of Jack said, but he made it sound like he didn't care. Since I knew it was me he meant, it hurt. Badly, too.
"As long as the search doesn't involve fairies, I'm in!" Jerry's loud reply was, only to have a small and annoyed ringing sound added to the conversation between the boys.
"Don't you be annoyed Tink, this is your fault. Hadn't it been for you, she wouldn't be lost!" Jack said sternly, but also calmly. "Yes, that's right, I don't believe your version of this event. She wouldn't be stupid enough to abandon you, and if that was the case, why didn't you just fly after her? You're a fairy, you have wings, use them!"
"I've never seen her so angry," said a person who's voice I couldn't remember hearing before.
"Me neither, and I've done some nasty pranks to her," Jerry confessed, holding back most of the laughter bubbling in his throat.
Milton's voice had been quiet a while, as if he had been thinking, but suddenly he spoke. "Since you said 'she', I assume it is a girl, which is odd, considering Jerry here attacked one this exact afternoon."
Jack was quiet as the information sunk in. "Blonde, with brown eyes? Looks harmless, but is actually pretty scary if she wants to?"
"I didn't think she was scary," Jerry said, making me snort.
"Yeah, cause you didn't look frightened when she beat you after you attacked her!" Milton said, raising his voice slightly on the final two words.
"A girl beat you?" the unfamiliar one said, and I was suddenly not liking this guy, just for thinking that girls were weak, which I assumed he did, judging by his sentence.
"Hey, a girl isn't any easier to beat that a guy. Just because she is female you can't just automatically assume she is weaker than you," Jack said, and suddenly I felt warmth spread in my chest, chasing the cold the panic had placed away. He learned from his mistake, yes, but that he actually stood up to his friends, even if he was som sort of leader to them, that made me proud and happy.
Then my priorities suddenly caught up with my brain again.
I looked for a door or a way out of some kind along the wall, but none were to be seen. I could still hear the voices, but they faded as the panic grew inside my body. It controlled more and more of my limbs, and soon it would have everything under its command. I started to claw against the stones in the wall, dirt peeling of and getting stuck under my fingernails. When I realized it wouldn't work, I almost gave up.
Almost. That's the keyword. Because Kim Crawford never fully gives up, even how hard it sometimes is to keep going.
I used all my strength against the actually pretty solid wall, but nothing happened. I hit my shoulder continuously against it, small gasps of pain - my shoulder isn't made of iron, you know... - escaping my mouth once in a while, but I tried to bite them back.
Suddenly I heard a cracking noise, and I was very glad to discover that they came from the wall and not my now bruised shoulder. I again hit the wall, this time with my hand, because my shoulder wasn't really in any good condition to break solid stuff anymore. I put everything I had to offer into the punch, earning another cracking noise followed by the sound of falling rocks and heaps of dirt landing all around me as the wall disappeared and a room entered my sight.
"Ouch," I muttered as a heavy chuck of dried dirt hit the back of my head. I fought my way trough the remains of what before had been some kind of wall, ignoring the four surprised boys and the furious fairy staring at my crawling figure on the floor.
"Kim!" two of the four exclaimed, but it was the third that came to my aid.
"You alright?" Jack asked, letting go of my arm after helping me to my feet, which both felt like jelly. After a few second used on regaining balance, I nodded. "Good, then one question left." He paused. "What on earth just happened?"
"Eh," I started, scratching the back of my head, "I can honestly say that I don't fully know, but I think I just ruined your wall."
He chuckled, smiling widely. "Yeah, I caught that."
I then turned to Milton and Jerry, whom both grinned at me, then at the forth person. He was dark skinned with a shaved head and dimples when he turned the corners of his mouth up, but he didn't look muscular at all, but it showed that he trained a bit, because he looked quite strong.
"I'm Eddie," he said, stretching out his hand towards me, asking silently me to shake it. I did, an greeted him after telling him my name - well, my nickname that is, because nobody but Jack, unfortunately he knew it before I even had met him, knew that, and I intended it to stay that way.
But then a thought broke the surface, one that I unintentionally had forgotten.
Who had told him my name, and why?
It turned out Milton, Jerry and Eddie were called the Lost Boys, reasons still partly unknown to me the next day. Jack was in some sort of way their leader, but acted more like a friend that just helped them out. He took most decisions, yes, but never did something without them agreeing.
I had gotten most of the backstory of Neverland, but it was most just about the place, not about the people that lived there. I knew that many creatures that lived there weren't all, if even a single percent human.
Mermaids for instance. Peter had told me a little about them, but mostly just about how they like to watch him do some tricks of a kind. He mentioned something about kicks and punches when I asked him about these tricks of his, so I instantly thought of karate, and really looked foreword to watch him show me.
He promised to do so tomorrow, since he was tired that day, after flying around the forest when Tink came home angry and alone. He had been really glad when he found out that Kim was taken home by two of the Lost Boys - in an interesting way, because he wasn't used to people coming out of the wall.
I had been explained how the incident had happened. II had just taken the wrong turn in the tunnel, and therefore had ended up quite a long distance from the door the rest had used to enter the home.
Their home was quite beautiful, in an unique way. It had walls made out of dried dirt and stone polished by many years of use. They were solid and pretty to look at, because of all the variants of brown and grey. The floor was also made of natural dirt that had been stepped on so many times it had gotten flat and smooth.
There were shelves in the home too, decorating almost every wall. Objects were put on quite much every bare spot of flat surface, and a huge table was placed in the middle of the room, always carrying a bowl of newly harvested fruit.
Tinkerbelle had her own little home in their home. She lived behind a forever green leaf that lead to a small hole in the wall, where she had everything she needed to be happy.
She was still angry at me, and blamed me for getting her into trouble after leaving me in the forest on my own. I still am unsure why she hates me so, but everybody tells me to ignore her behavior and her whole existence until she got nicer towards me.
I didn't listen to them. I tried every day to talk to her, make her become a friend instead of an enemy, but she just sent me daggers with her eyes.
"Why does she hate me?" I asked Eddie for the billionth time that hour. It was one day after I had met him, but we could already call ourselves friends.
"I don't think she does hate you, but she may be harsh to you because your a girl," he answered just like the times before. "She's not used to having other human girls around except if their Indians or half fish."
"I still don't understand. I try to be nice, but she is just determined to hate me."
"Give it some time. She is not one to hate for long."
I sighted, but decided that it wouldn't be any use to hear the exact same words replay another time this day, and let it go. It still bugged me, but I didn't ask about it all the time.
But still, why does she hate me so?
Yeah, that's it for now, but more soon, week maybe (faster if it's more wanted, so review and PM people!)
By the way, remember that longer reviews are really appreciated. they let me know that you REALLY like my story, and care about me making progress (drop by some hints and tips if you want!)
Love, as always, Riverflower.