Neverland [ ✓ ]

Day 18

ENTRY:
3:06 AM

It was 3:01 AM the following morning when Peter woke me abruptly. I couldn't see his face, there were no features to indicate his distress, but I could hear it. The anguish in his voice was more real than anything I had ever witnessed. It was wrenching. When I asked him what was wrong, it spilled from him easily, no need for prompting like everything else. He answered me quickly, explaining that because of what happened- the two men we had offed- I had to run. Soon, it would be too late to do it, he said. Were I to be caught and arrested, I would likely never see him again; his voice broke as he told me. Neither of us could bare the idea, so I was torn- I didn't want to leave, not then, after everything. It was so sudden, too soon. 

"I can't." I said with conviction. I was engulfed by a familiar feeling, one I'd never wanted to feel again- yet I did- seeping into my bones. It was the same dejection I'd felt when Peter had shown me to the clearing. "I can't leave you."

"You have to." He'd told me quietly. "But you can come back one day, understand? I'll see you again."

"One day?" I repeated, astonished by how far one day sounded from now. "How long?"

"Until this all goes away."

"That'll take-" I began, then stopped; I didn't need to say what we both knew. Years. Five at the least, maybe, twenty at the worst; long enough for people to forget or at least let their guard down and forget who I am, long enough for me to have aged.

Peter held my face in his hands tightly. I stared up at his face- or where his face should be- as tears breached the edges of my eyes. I couldn't imagine a life without him. While Peter would sometimes disappear for large bouts of time, I always knew that he must be somewhere near, always. I'd become accustomed to Peter leaving me, but the idea of me leaving Peter? It seemed preposterous- impossible, even.

"I'll be here for the rest of your life and longer," Peter had whispered with painful urgency. "Please go."

I remember shaking my head, practically in denial of this sudden order. Then- in epiphany- something came to me- an idea. It seemed logical, utterly sensational; it would fix everything. It must fix everything. An idea such as that could stop this dilemma where it's started, right?

"What if I was like you?" I breathed, reaching up and pressing the palm of my hand against his neck, running my fingertips along the surface of him. "If I were to... to die, would-"

"No." He immediately dismissed it, no considerations, no nothing.

"No?" I whimpered, voice delicate as a feather. "How can you say that? Why not?"

"You're not ready to die." He told me, like he knew; and he did know. I didn't want to die. I only wanted everything to stay the way it'd been. He tilted his head forwards, a small nod, an exchange of mutual understanding passing between us. How this all would end was suddenly clear and inevitable. 

I had to disappear.

We held each other's faces as if cradling worlds, staring and memorizing what we could of each other, even if there wasn't much. I had wished there was more for me to memorize than a dark, misty shape of a face and equally as detail lacking a body. I held what I could touch of his- I realized, upon tracing with my fingers- angular face. That early morning, he felt human. It seemed like over all these years, he was slowly feeling more and more like a living being. Overcome by emotions, I wrapped my arms around his neck to hold him close. 

It was strange.

As I held him, I felt his mouth graze the place between my shoulder and neck. Never before had I felt him like this. I'd never even been quite sure he had a mouth until then. Feeling this newfound sensation, I pushed him away so that I could look again, halfway expecting to see a new feature. Of course, I saw nothing- but I realized that I could feel him. I ran my fingers along the dip in his shoulders, ran them back up so that I found his ears, spread my thumbs to find the corners of his mouth. Exhausted and bleary eyed, I kissed him. 

That felt the strangest.

ENTRY:
7:22 AM

It's like a repeating strand of broken footage in my mind, but I remember his inhuman warmth, how- on me- he was the equivalent of a real human body, no translucence. I remember- though they were dulled- glimpses of golden-green eyes, ones I'd never seen but felt somehow so familiar with, staring closely into mine. I remember the soft word whispered, swift and delicate as the time we had left,

"Run."