What if...? Book One, Part 2: The Game Begins...(A Peter Pan rewrite, by Jae)

16-Trusting Dust...

Her P.O.V.

I wake on the floor, unable to recall going to bed last night. A mess of blankets supporting and covering me, the sun well in the sky, lighting my room. I have no sense of what time it could be, though it feels late as I remember that's the first time I've slept since I woke in that canvas tent. A soft caterpillar crawls on the blanket beside me. I fling it away with the blanket piece while exploring my dirty mouth with my dirtier tongue, becoming more awake. I regret not washing out my mouth in the wash room when I had the chance. I sit up in the fluff and mess, trying hard to remember last night.

I recall winning the duel against the enormous blonde boy, Chris. I remember K coming to me in front of the fire and trying to get me to dance. It blurs after that. I can see imagines in my head of the hot fire, the dirt under my socks, boys leaping and dancing around me, the stars in the sky behind the smoke of the fire. I can remember how free it felt to dance with them, how much I didn't care about a single thing. My raw throat reminds me of all the laughing I did, so much laughing.

I stand up, trying to remember more and more, my hand coming to my forehead, moving to sit on the bed. I remember the feeling as the music took over. The dancing, the laughing. Oh, the laughing. I had fun last night. Actual fun. I look up to the mirror across from the bed and realize that I am smiling. The memory of letting go, pouring out all problems for the fire to eat and burn away is making me smirk in a way that unsettles me. And yet, I want to do it again. Dance and forget everything at the fire.

My eyes drift downwards from my reflection to what sits atop the dresser. I blink, my head tilts and the smile nearly explodes over my face.

Is...is that...clothes?

Slowly, I stand and make my way to the dresser, pulling at the soft cloth. I touch them gently before picking anything up. I haven't had real clothes since I was fourteen. All I've had for so long was the odd papery cloth used for the white sets of clothes given to us every month. Many different sets. I earned a few different colors of the sets but they were always the odd plastic cloth and I had said goodbye to real cloth long ago.

So excitement spreads as I strip off the paper clothes that were a curse of a label. I yank off my undergarments and pick out the new version of under garments I've been gifted; very small and very thin, silk-woven pair of shorts and the exact same very small tank top that stopped coverage at my top rib bones.

Wearing my new black underwear I stand before the pile of new clothes and mirror. Gazing at the soft fabric on my skin through the reflective glass, I like it. I like it a lot, I smile and my fingers take apart the rest of the pile, in a hungry anticipation of what I could look like now. A style, a statement of my personality or my new environment, anything other than looking like the fucking escaped patient that I've been.

In the pile of my new belongings I find a pair of deep brown cargo pants, dark enough to look black, decorated with pockets and loops, cavities and strings to adjust different areas. I discover a real tank top, one that actually covers my stomach, and plain shirt that's been sewn together with jungle cord and green and brown fabrics or leathers. I find a leather vest, though it isn't a type of skin of any animal that I may know. Under the thick vest, a black long-sleeved shirt, a fine silk though really long, as if to be crunched up over my wrists, holding a very light and thin corset inside its skin. At the bottom of the pile, just on top of a thick pair of black hunting boots, sits a cloak. A proud, warm garment that lifts with a satisfying weight. Inside the boots I pull out two cuffs to protect my forearms. Inmost of the right boot, scrunched into the toes, there is a rolled up hat.

One by one I put on my new belongings. The certain combination of, tank top, long sleeve, perfectly-fitted cargo pants. I had begun to question how any of it would fight just right until the fabrics touched my skin, evolving and shaping to a perfect fit at each curve, tension, and movement. Rolling my sleeves up passed my elbows I get to work and spend time figuring out how to pin my hair back. My hair washed and voluminous gets twisted, pulled, braided and brushed back into a thick and loose pony tail of a braid. And when it's all out of my face and stuck together as one, messy, confusing, uncoordinated thing, I look in the mirror. I look good in the dark, tight clothes. I smile, another genuine smile. I look normal. I look in charge. I feel great. Great enough to kick my white clothes under the bed, never wishing to see them again.