Peter Pan: The Land Beyond

Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Kidnapped.

Lahona's POV

There is endless darkness shrouded in cold and despair. Just as how I am feeling. This world is a lonely one where no happiness shines its brilliant light onto me, but watches from afar. 'You will be married,' whispers my father amidst the darkness. A man who is barely at home, a man I rarely see, giving me lifelong decisions that I have no choice in. I must take on the responsibility as the Elder's daughter. It sickens me to marry someone I do not know. Someone I am not in love with. But what is love? I have not felt it from a mother – since she passed when I was born- and my father; who was always doing his duty to spend any time with me.

A numbness takes over my fingers as I glide them along my upper arms. I feel so alone. So abandoned and betrayed. In the distance, I hear the faintest, sweet sound. An airy lullaby playing in the darkness. I look around but the shadow is endless before me. Taking a few soft steps in this and that direction, I can only hope that the noise will get louder. With my hearing, I can hear for miles, so it could take me forever to find where this gentle lullaby is coming from. My ears twitch and like a radar, picks up the sound from my right. I follow until the smooth tone grows louder and louder. The closer I come, the brighter a light starts to spark. My heart beats fast. I am almost there; so I start to run and run as fast as I can but before I can reach it, I awake...

When my eyes open, the scenery is immediately unfamiliar. The wood of the ceiling is lighter than that of my bedroom and the surface under me isn't the soft silks made of the fine giant spider webs my people sew themselves. I go to turn my head but it starts to throb; most likely from all the crying. More slowly than before, I lean up and the surface beneath me crunches causing me to glance at where I have been sleeping. It is no bed but a large stump covered in leaves.

My ears lower in slight disgust. I can sleep on leaves, but in a room, I have never seen before? Where am I? I glance around but it is too dark to familiarize myself with what the blurred objects are and the only light that can guide me is coming from a badly carved window the size of a man near the right of the stump. The sound of the melody from my dream starts to play. Now that I am awake, I am also more attuned to everything around me. I can pinpoint what the sound is. It's a pan flute, often played by the fae creatures. The sound flows from outside of the window. Whoever it is, is close by.

I roll off the side of the stump, my fists at my side as I stand straight, ready to charge at whoever it may be who captured me. Gingerly, I follow the sound to the window and before I can reach the gap in the wall, I can see the vast ocean off in the distance outside the window. Where ever I am, I am high up. And I have come to realize, I must not be anywhere close to home. My village isn't anywhere near the ocean. Coming to the edge of the window, I notice thick branches sticking out from underneath the window which someone can easily walk onto. The sound is very close. I pop my head out the window and to my left is a young human boy playing the flute.

"A human!" I hiss, stumbling backward into the room.

The sound of the flute stops just as I speak; the boy had slipped off the branches before I stumble away. My hand smacks against my chest to calm my beating heart. There is no way that boy would have survived that fall. A brief moment passes, and I use it to calm my breathing, but just as it passes, the same boy comes floating into the room with a large smile on his face.

He's flying.

I back up until I hit something hard behind me. Humans cannot fly. I look him over; his features are strong yet innocent, rounded in some areas, and on his head is a mop of curly dirty blonde hair. His garment is made of leaves that only partially cover his chest, showing off his mildly defined features. The leaves thicken around his waist and lower region but leave his legs to be shown. At his hip, there is both a cutlass and a knife. From where I am, even with the darkness, I can see he is dirty, marked with dirt in random locations all over his body, but I can't tell what color eyes he has.