Checkmate

18. Lost memories

I awoke on top of the bed of the little treehouse, my brain fuzzy, as if a million bees were buzzing through my head. I looked down to find my sleeves missing, causing me to be wearing almost a t-shirt, which was something I would never normally wear. All my knives were missing, and the treehouse had gone from freshly cleaned to dusty as hell overnight.

I felt like something was missing, not just my knives, but in my brain, as if the bees were hiding memories. I got off the bed to discover my boots damaged with possibly months of wear and tear, the leather a lot older than they had been the day before. And as well as the scars on my wrist, there were others spattered all over my body. Including a huge one that sat just above my left hip, the scar white and healed, but I had no memory of ever having one there.

I licked my lip, checking for the bite of the boy I had received the day before, but that, too, was missing. I had expected myself just to nap until dinner, but the daylight streaming in told me I had slept a little longer than that. "Or had I?" I thought to myself.

My thoughts and eyes were everywhere, scanning my body, trying to figure out where all the scars had come from overnight. But my stomach pulled my attention to its emptiness, so I thought it best to go for breakfast, sure the boy king wouldn't hand deliver it anymore. I readied myself and stood to leave, sitting back down at the sight of myself in the mirror, the one place my eyes hadn't seen.

I stood again slowly, almost admiring myself. I gently touched the braid shooting down the one side of my head, unsure when I had made it, but admiring the handiwork. My skin was a little darker from the sun, and despite the lack of aging on the island, my eyes looked older, wiser almost. I shook my head; sure Pan was playing some sort of prank on me. I decided to ignore it and walk to breakfast with my head held high, eager to upset Pan and ruin his game by acting like it didn't faze me.

I stormed down the little stairs and straight into the camp, unsure of why it looked different. I ignored the stares of the lost boys and helped myself to the breakfast table, targeting the lukewarm toast before anything else. The boys ate unusually quietly around me, as if they were trying to prevent agitating me, but I wasn't sure how they knew of the issue I had with their manners.

"Pan must be able to read minds, as well as control every damn thing else." I sighed in my head, suddenly realising that although they were looking at me, not one boy could make eye contact. We continued eating silently before I said aloud. "Where is Pan?"

All the boys muttered together until one stepped forward. "He is scanning the island," he blurted. "He told us not to talk to you, but I just thought I would let you know." He scurried away before I could ask anything else. I rolled my eyes at the audacity of Pan and stood to find Felix, hoping for him to shed some light on the situation.

Finally, I realised what was different about the camp as I spotted a dark-skinned girl sitting in a cage above the camp. Her attention was on the food on the plate in front of her as she swung gently in the breeze. Suddenly, a gust of wind caught her attention as her cage swung a little faster, causing her to reach and hold her hair back other than eat.

A few seconds later, the sky grew dark, the black clouds rolling in and lightening shooting periodically across the sky, without the addition of thunder. The lost boys scurried to find shelter as the lightning shot across the sky.

As soon as the weather changed, the boy king himself seemed to drop from the sky into the middle of camp, his knees bending slightly at the force of his landing.

"LOST BOYS!!" He called, summoning the boys back to huddle around the now extinguished fire. "DEFENCE POSITIONS!!" he bellowed over the buffeting of the wind.