Stumbling away from the campsite, my mind kept replaying the events that had just happened over and over on a constant loop. Now that I was away from any of the boys, but especially Pan, I couldn't stop my body from shaking as fear replaced any adrenaline I had felt in the moment. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten seriously injured, but that didn't stop Felix, Peter, or anyone else from nearly hurting me. The distance couldn't make me stop thinking about the fact that if I had gotten hurt that I had no one to take care of me. There were no doctors or hospitals or clinics. No one to care if I got hurt. No one who would know.

Taking a seat on a large moss covered rock, I tried to calm down my shaking and breathing by taking slow breaths. Despite taking the break from walking, I still had little control over my body. Think. Come on, think, I tried to get through to overactive mind. Thinking I might be able to distract myself by looking around, I was surprised to find that I was by a small stream since I hadn't heard any bubbling water over my loud breathing. Getting off my rock and walking over to it, I fell to my knees to peer down. The water seemed clear; the small pebbles below were visible. Dipping my hands into the cool water, I flicked it back toward my face a few times.

With the distraction of cold water dripping down my face, I began following the stream as it traveled downward. Briefly remembering what I had learned about the water cycle in school, I knew that the stream would either end in a lake or back in the ocean surrounding the island. My shaking calmed down the more I walked by the river, but it was proving more difficult to move past what happened during the "play" fights.

Trying to work through everything that happened, there was no way to know how long I walked next to the stream. I only realized I had reached its end when the stream trickled off into a small cove that had large rocks in and around it. Heading to the end of the sandy beach, I fell to the ground so that the water ended an inch away from my feet. Even though there were no oceans near where I lived, there was a large pond in the forest behind my house. Anytime I got stressed out about the future or work I had to do the sound of the water moving back and forth in the wind calmed me down. Here the effect was still the same; the thoughts of my fear slowly left me as I lost myself to the sound of the water beating gently against the rocks and the soft sand.

"None of this was supposed to happen. None of this should be real," I sighed as I laid back and shut my eyes. "What I need is a Wilson," I thought as I remembered the movie Cast Away.

"What's a wilson?" asked a voice, one I thankfully didn't recognize.

Shooting up and looking around, I found a girl looking back at me from the middle of the water. "Jesus, does everyone feel the need to do that?" I asked exasperated.

"Do what?" the girl asked curiously, cocking her head to the side.

"Nothing, don't worry about it," I said looking down at her. Wait…water? "You wouldn't happen to be a mermaid would you?"

She smiled and lifted a large tail fin in reply. I took my time now to look at her more closely. Though the moonlight provided limited lighting, I could see she had large almond shaped eyes that were surprisingly somewhere between blue and purple. Her long, dark brown hair was drenched from the water and part of it floated around her in the water. I could also glimpse part of what looked like a sea shell bra from under the water.

"So you're a mermaid then," I confirmed.

"Yep," she giggled as she continued watching me.

"I have half a mind to let you drown me right now," I said remembering that portion of the Disney movie along with other mermaid folklore in other fairy tales.

"Why would I want to drown you?" she asked seeming appalled by the thought.

"Isn't that your mermaid thing?"

"Not for all of us," she said with downcast eyes. "My friends would laugh at me, but I always liked watching people rather than hurting them."

Still not completely convinced she wouldn't kill me, I figured I'd try to be nice anyway. "My name's Kim, what's yours?" I asked.

"Celeste!" she responded excitedly. "I haven't seen a girl here at this spot since Wendy came. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just wandering around," I said. Despite her friendly nature, it was hard to tell how much contact she might have had with Pan, and I wasn't interested in finding out. "Thinking about different things in my life. If you had asked me a few years ago, I never would have predicted that this is where I'd be."

"What do you mean?" she questioned.

"Maybe it's different for you because you're a mermaid. But where I'm from, we start going to school when you're 5 or 6 years old. At school you learn loads of different things, some of it boring, but sometimes it's exciting. When you turn 16, you start getting different responsibilities, and then when you're 17 you have to start thinking about what kind of job you might want when you grow up. Then when you know what you want to do, most people will go on to more professional school when they are about 18 and study and work for another four years. Before I came here, I was at one of these schools," I explained. The entire time I was talking Celeste looked a bit confused, but also like she desperately wanted to understand what I was talking about.

"This school thing doesn't seem very fun," she decided.

"It isn't always," I admitted. "But the goal is to be able to learn a lot so that eventually you can get a good job that will pay a decent amount of money. In my world you have to pay for the place you live and the food you eat and a lot of other things."

"You don't sound very happy about this," she observed. "Did you know what you wanted to do at this school?"

I sighed wishing she hadn't asked that question. "I thought I did, but I was starting to have my doubts. I was also trying to fill out papers so that I could try to get a job somewhere to help me make some extra money."

I didn't want to tell her the details of my situation. Out of nowhere my parents suddenly decided to stop helping me with school which meant I suddenly had to find a job to help with the expenses for my university. They especially weren't happy that I couldn't fully decide on what I wanted to do with my life. Their reasoning for not helping me was, "We aren't going to be able to help you forever. It's time you learned what it's like to provide for yourself." Ever since finding out, the urge to run away from there had gotten stronger and stronger, but I never planned on going through with it.

Coming out of my little world I realized Celeste was looking at me concernedly. "Sorry, Celeste. I spaced out there for a minute. I should probably get going." Who knows when a search party might come looking for me.

Getting up and heading back toward the forest, I stopped when I heard a splash in the water. Turning around, Celeste had gotten onto a nearby rock to speak to me easier. "Where are you going?" she asked sadly. I felt bad for leaving, but staying in one place for too long didn't feel like the best idea at the moment.

"I'm going to go explore more. I'll try to come back soon though," I promised. "And also, if anyone comes by looking for me, would you mind not telling them what we talked about?"

"Sure!" she exclaimed. "Goodbye, Kim!"

"Later, Celeste," I responded as I walked back into the forest. I wonder if there's a climbing tree, I wondered as I walked on.