The Monster Under My Bed • Peter Pan, Once Upon A Time •

Chapter 53

I LOVE THIS SONG AND ALSO THERES ANOTHER SONG IN THE A/N YOU COULD LISTEN TO INSTEAD OF THIS ONE BUT I LIKE THIS ONE ALSO TRAILER IS IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER IN CASE YOU DIDNT SEE IT, IT'S TRASH OKAY BYEEEEE

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I don't think I'd ever seen anything more beautiful. I was sitting atop dead mans peak, staring at the night sky. Then again, it was always nighttime in Neverland, so by that logic I was simply looking up at the sky. My feet dangled over the cliffside, my ankles joined together and swaying gently back and forth. I rested my hands by my side, digging my nails into the dirt subconsciously, and not caring about the uncomfortable feeling it caused. My eyes remained focused ahead at the stars; in that moment, almost nothing could distract me from the view before me. Yes, I was looking at the stars, but I stared specifically at the second star to the right. It was oddly funny to me. I'd never thought about it until that point, but I'd grown up listening to the story of Peter Pan. Every night my father would sit down at the foot of my bed as I lay with my eyes closed, and he'd start a new chapter. Sometimes I think that everything that became of me, everything with Peter is because of those first words on that first damned page.

"All children, except for one, grow up,"

Why couldn't he have just grown up? Why did he go back and why did he have this dangerous ambition? What made him so hungry for all the power and the youth he could grasp into his clutches? Everything about Peter Pan seemed to fall into place, except for how he was supposed to be 14, playful and an angel sent to catch the boys who fall out of their mother's wombs. None of the lost boys were actually dead.

Sometimes I wish they were.

Often I'll go over the quotations from the original book and try to connect them in any way possible in order to try and figure out any possible future in a place where time stood still.

"One girl is more use than 20 boys,"

Alright, well that didn't seem to be the case with me. Perhaps it was with Wendy, if she was even real or had already existed in this timeline of Peter Pan.

"You know that place between sleep and awake? That place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, that's where I'll be waiting,"

I don't know if he loved me, but as I grew up terrified of him being the monster under my bed, I always knew he was waiting, but I never knew what for. It was always in that midground before I woke up, but after I had been dreaming.

"Think of all the joy you'll find once you leave the world behind,"

I didn't want to leave my world behind but I couldn't help but think of the few unexpected joys I'd been lucky to experience during my time in Neverland.

"Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you sacrifice everything for it,"

I'd sacrificed so much for my brother in order to stay a part of Pan's games, I didn't think anything would come out of it for myself.

"Growing old is mandatory, growing up is an option,"

Well, it seemed I had no choice in Neverland.

"There could not have been a lovelier sight, but there were none to see it, but a little boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable, of which other children could only imagine. But he was staring in the window at the one joy from which he must be forever bared,"