NEVERLAND [discontinued]

Hook

Chapter Two: Hook

        John was surprised to find that Michael was already waiting, his hulking muscles casting a monstrous shadow on the cave walls, "She's fine with it. I suppose afterwards we could meet Peter."

        Michael nodded and suddenly John started into a memory of long ago, when Michael was a doe-eyed baby, with a blinding smile and hands ever reaching for new toys. Then he burst back into reality -seeing once more- the body of the now aged man.

        Michael's gruff voice resonated through the cave, "Let's go then? Don't wanna' keep Peter waiting."

        "Right."

        As they stepped along the gem-embedded walls, liquid dripping down the stalactites, forming pools of faintly shining silver.

        Then after a sudden turn, they were in front of Hook. He had long since lost his captainship to Smee, after aging past his black-haired youth. Smee had a child who appeared to be moving along well with the Lost Boys -who had an automatic claim on boys who didn't age- and was ready to begin his hunting lessons.

        Hook's wrists were chained to the rough walls, and his legs were bloodied and bruised from his many attempts to escape captivity. The cave's puddles seemed to be the same shade as his silver streaked hair.

         He had been sentenced to one-hundred lashings after bruising Wendy's creamy skin in an unexpected encounter. Hook had started a revolution that -fortunately- had not been taken up by other pirates, although they now had a new saying for him, 'The man who has hooked himself to the idea of another ruler, is one that is paranoid of crocodiles.' It didn't make much sense to John, but he was fine with it as long as Wendy stayed in control.

        Hook opened his swollen eyes, not needing to search for their figures as he was well accustomed to the dark by now, "What do you want from me now?"

        He looked blearily to Michael, blinking slowly, "Oh. You."

        The once seductive Hook now seemed aged beyond his years as he saw how long he had truly been gone from Neverland's surface, but his smooth voice still echoed off the cave walls, "Younger one isn't it?"

         "Michael," John interrupted. "It's Michael."

         He threw a look to John, "And you must be the older one."

         John inclined his head, and a maddened look came into Hook's eyes, "Then you have finally discovered it, what I came here for. But, how did you find the secret?"

        John ignored the question blaring in his mind -what secret?- and threw down the bread crusts as he was expected to do, "I suppose you'll have to deal with this as you can't speak with respect."

        They walked away from Hook's malnourished figure, his calls taunting them, "So she didn't tell you? Ha! Wendy the pure and innocent ruler of Neverland won't speak. Did you know what she's doing to Neverland? She's found a way to keep from aging, and now she's stopping you John! She's using you! But she doesn't care about your brother, or the Lost Boys! Soon what used to be Neverland's will be entirely hers!"

        John followed Michael's well-built body, and although he wondered why he and Wendy had stopped aging, while Michael's continued to a thirty-year old's, he assumed it had been Neverland. Neverland knew they would need an enforcer, and who was better than the less-educated Michael who would not protest? If Wendy could control Neverland, then surely she would've kept Michael young like them. Besides, she had come into power after Michael aged.

        John nodded to himself, stepping into the light of the pink sunset, then smiling to Michael -who was silent as always- spoke, "Come on, Peter will want to hear about this. He'll know what to do about Hook's lies before Wendy catched wind of them."