It Was Always You

by hailmikhail

Peter and Wendy haven't seen each other since their adventure 5 years ago, when they were 13. Now, an 18 year old Peter returns to find Wendy and prove he's grown up enough to be her Prince Charming. / AU for the purpose of creating my own world/time period instead of following historical accuracy. Rated M for later planned chapters

1. Prologue

"-there was something in her, something that was...pure horror. Everything you were supposed to watch out for. Heights, fire, shards of glass, snakes, Everything that his mom tried so hard to keep him safe from."

― John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In

—-

In the past, if you'd asked me if I believed in monsters, I'd have said no. The idea of the boogeyman under your bed, the ghost behind the shower curtain, the stranger in the rusty van with FREE CANDY hastily spray painted on the side all lurking in the shadows, waiting for their next victim seemed like childish paranoia to me. And I'd have said so with a tone meant to make you feel stupid for asking. But now, I know all too well that there are monsters, worse monsters, more disgusting and hungry and ugly than you can imagine, and they walk right beside us every single day undetected. Watching. Playing god.

If you're lucky enough, you'll never find out. Your entire life will play out the way it's been mapped out for you by your environment. You'll go to school, graduate, get married, reproduce, and die, and your children will repeat the cycle none the wiser.

If you're unlucky, and you're chosen to be prey, well…that's really it. At one point or another in your hamster wheel life you're simply plucked off of the wheel and forgotten. Of course, your face might be in the news for a week or two. Search parties might be sent out or they might not. Your loved ones will mourn publicly for a minute and even enemies will come out and say they wished they'd made amends before it was too late. But then that's it. Time will pass and the world will adjust and go on, and the memory of you will fade away into nothing.

Every once in a while you experience luck with a catch attached to it. Luck with conditions. You see something you weren't supposed to see, ask too many questions you shouldn't have asked. You catch them, or rather, they catch you.

You get a choice.

Join them and eat.

Or be eaten.

Really, both are a version of death, in a way. You're just being allowed to decide which eternity you want to plunge into.