Giving Fantasia: The Taking Fantasia Sequel

Chapter 2: Yes, The Past Can Hurt

Chapter 2: Yes, The Past Can Hurt

Her nightmare never changed.

It was the day they took Fantasia. She was in bed, levitating over the battlefield. The Wishing Star was overhead, broken in two. The battle was beneath her, far below.

For a while she remained in bed, head on the pillow, eyes on the Wishing Star, and ears on the battle. It was a lucid dream. As she listened, she remembered. The Jolly Roger crashed. The villains attacked. The students defended. Jim fought. Peter flew. Arthur pulled the Sword from the Stone. The Black Cauldron shattered. And Ariel trapped the villains in a monster whirlpool.

When she heard the whirlpool, she knew victory was near. That was the way it happened. The whirlpool swallowed every villain, shadow, and Black Cauldron fragment.

So it was safe to look.

She lifted the blankets. Pushed off the pillow. Grasped the mattress. And she looked under the bed.

The whirlpool churned below. Its size made her dizzy. Its power vibrated through the mattress and inside her throat. Wind ripped over her back as the whirlpool sucked into a black hole, the vortex spinning down, down, down...

...up?

Confused she leaned off the bed, watching the water. The whirlpool groaned. Then it froze. For a moment, everything was still.

Then the whirlpool reversed direction. It turned up. It revolved faster and faster, climbing the sky, filling the air, spitting arms, legs, monsters, villains under her mattress, into the bedposts, grabbing the blankets, twisting the sheets, seizing her nightdress, trying to pull her out of bed -

"STOP!"

Wendy Darling woke up when she hit the floor.

For a moment she lay, gasping at the ceiling. Her senses roared, trying to separate reality from fantasy.

"It...was a dream."

Wendy covered her mouth. It stopped her heart from jumping out. Breathing through her fingers she looked under the bed.

There was nothing there, and certainly no monsters. Just Peter Pan's shadow dozing on an old wicker sewing basket.

Slowly, Wendy lowered her hand.

"It was just a dream."

But it was more than just a dream. It was her past, recurring every night with the same twisted ending. It was a disturbing what-if scenario, and Wendy felt sick imagining the possible turn of events.

What if Arthur had not destroyed the Black Cauldron - the portal between Fantasia and the Wishing Star - with Excalibur, his magical sword? What if Ariel's whirlpool had reversed directions? What if Captain Hook, Maleficent, the villains, Lana, and the rest of Ariel's wicked mermaid cousins escaped? What if the shadows got out? What if Wendy, Peter, Jim, Ariel and their classmates had failed to take Fantasia?

Wendy stared at the ceiling. Although she conceived hundreds of unhappy endings, she could not help but think of a small, very unlikely happy one.

If they lost, if the villains won...then she would not be here. She would not be trapped in the Underworld, away from Ariel Triton, away from Jim Hawkins, away from Peter Pan.

She would not be alone.

"That's horrid." Rising, Wendy crossed the room. Quietly, so not to wake Peter's shadow, she climbed the spiral staircase. The stairs were skeletal and difficult to navigate in the dim, golden light. "Shame on you Wendy Darling."