₁.₀ YES TO HEAVEN; peter pevensie ✔

EPILOGUE

The first thing he becomes aware of after regaining consciousness is that awful screeching.

He furrows his brows at first, eyes still sealed shut, hoping to decipher where the sound comes from, but then it intensifies to an extent. It has him moving his arms at last, in a desperate attempt to shield his ears as he tries to focus.

He was just with Edmund, wasn't he? They went to... to London, to retrieve the rings, yes, so that Jill and Eustace could get into Narnia... And they were supposed to meet them at the station; waiting on the platform is the last thing Peter can recall from his memory at the moment, his own smile at something his brother had just said as first sounds of the approaching train hit his ears, causing his head to whip around just in time to-

Terrible realisation dawns on him without delay, like a violent wave threatening to swipe him off his feet. Except Peter is already on the ground, only scrambling to sit up as he suddenly becomes aware of the stale, sour taste filling his mouth, the same one that soon has him kneeling with his arms outstretched and his palms planted against the grass, his entire body shaking as he retches.

Briefly, he finds a second or two to appreciate that he didn't have time to grab a single bite of breakfast before they set off for the station, but, mostly, it makes him think about the train.

The train.

He already knows it will be futile, and yet, once he finally manages to force his body into a superficial state of calmness, he looks up to take in his surroundings. Despite all the distress, it doesn't escape his attention that the sleeve with which he wipes his mouth most definitely doesn't belong to the shirt he put on this morning.

"My family," he pushes himself to speak once his eyes encounter the imposing figure towering over him, "they are all..."

"Safe."

"Dead," he spits out, barely conscious of the fury seeping its way into his voice. Still, the pain is what remains the most powerful, wrapping around Peter's insides like an iron glove as he scrambles to his feet, standing eye to eye with the Great Lion. "They are dead."

Aslan only regards him with that calm, almost kind demeanour, which does little to soothe Peter's temper. For how can he stand here, feeding him pretty phrases and empty affirmations when he feels as though his chest was compressing to the point of no return? It's not reassuring, this tranquility, not in the least - on the contrary, it leaves anger growing in the place where only grief should be allowed to thrive, and that makes Peter all the more angry, too.

It's not like the Great Lion has no reason to believe that a different approach to one's loss would be more fitting. It was the same with-

"Your family and friends," continues Aslan, without addressing the turmoil threatening to tear Peter apart from the inside, "are waiting for you."

It's then that he notices the Great Lion's gaze shifting towards something over his shoulder. And so Peter turns, too, and a gasp is stolen from his lungs at the sight - they are all there. Standing in the middle of a beautiful meadow surrounded by fruit trees... The Professor, Miss Plum- (Polly, he corrects himself now, she had insisted he called her that, but he never got enough time to get used to it...), and Ed, and Lucy.

He sees them now, standing in Narnian clothing, talking, with not even a single scratch on each of their faces. They appear unharmed, but Peter knows it's a lie, and his imagination is unrelenting when it comes to pushing gruesome images of their counterparts back on Earth his way. Years ago, he recalls, there was a railroad accident near Castlecary, a rear-end collision that left nearly forty people dead - their parents wouldn't let Peter take a look at the pictures in the newspaper, but had trouble falling asleep for a few following days. The recurring nightmares of something similar happening to his loved ones would keep him up at night, but at that time he was already convinced that, as the eldest, he should put on a brave face. And, eventually, the bad dreams stopped.