The Land Beyond | Peter Pan 2003

Chapter 1: The Forest People

We've been flying since morning, leaving Wendy's house, and the hideout, far behind us. The island has been left in peace since the death of Hook. His crewmen fled in all directions and the island and its natives are free from the torment. Though the Indians went on and the faeries celebrated for years and years. I kept alone. I knew without Wendy and the Lost Boys, that my adventures would come to an end. It was harder to watch them as they moved on without me, having families, getting jobs, and growing old. That life wasn't what I wanted, and coming home to an empty hideout, was becoming unbearable. The choice to leave Neverland, was a choice I had to make for my sanity.

Several islands pass under us as we fly through the clouds. Some are big and others are small, but all are different shapes and have different sights. None peek my interest. The sun is high in the sky, burning rays of bright light onto my back. The ocean is bare of any life except for an oncoming large island off on the horizon. I slow down when I reach a few yards from the beach and sit on top of the white fluff of a cloud.

This island, unlike the others, is beautiful with luscious green forests with trees as tall as buildings, mountains that shadow the sun, and beautiful blue waterfalls. An island so gran surely would have some great adventures filling every crevice.

On the shore sits a small city. Boats are docked at the decks that follow along the beach line. The boats remind me of the Jolly Roger but smaller, making me frown as I observe this. I am reassured when I see that the adults here are not dressed like pirates. But they are adults. My eyes wander over the crowds, counting the sums of children in the city who play on the streets or follow their parents. Some are dirty and ragged, most likely forgotten just as I was, but while I watch them, I catch an unfamiliar sight. Near the decks stands a stage that scales a few feet off the ground with a boy and a man standing before a gathering crowd.

The boy stands straight, his hands tied behind his back and his head bowed. His eyes look shut and his face cringed. The man, tall and tattered with scars and muscles, stands next to him with a rope dangling from his fists. I grab my spyglass from my vine belt, open it, and get a better advantage.

The rope in the man's hands is wrapped around the boy's neck, tied in a tight noose that rubs the boy's skin red. But the boy doesn't move.

"Oh no," I mutter.

The boy opens his eyes and looks up, his brown orbs catching sight of me. Did he hear me? He silently pleads with me with just his expressions. I nod, answering his quiet call and stand up, pocketing my spyglass. I unsheath my sword and leap off the cloud, diving to the city below. With a swift turn, I kick the tall man off the stage, grabbing the rope from his hands before he reaches the cobblestone sidewalk. I land next to the boy and rip off the rope from over his neck and cut loose his tied hands.

"Go! Before they get you!" I shout, urging the boy off the stage. The crowd around us boo and yell. Ordering us both to be hanged. But even with this threat of danger, the boy doesn't move. I look over his face and notice something odd about him. He has long odd-shaped ears; pointed in a sharp tip, similar to Tink's but longer. Unlike Tink's, his move with his expressions, flickering up and down.

The longer we stand here the more the crowd grows angry. I sheath my sword and the moment I do, the boy steps off the stage. With how rowdy the crowd is, it comes to a surprise when they disperse out of his way as he runs to the forest beyond the city. I follow the boy's speed, flying nearby as he races into the wilderness. He dodges trees, bushes, logs, boulders, and branches. His feet are silent, as silent as I am in the air, and he is quick, quicker than the average human.

"Why were they going to hang you?" I ask.

The boy looks back at me in surprise. He stops in his tracks, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "You're flying!" He stumbles back a little, nearly catching a root with the back of his foot.