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The UNSPOKEN

LIterary journal

It’s a pity

by Sakshi Agashe

The names are easy to remember 

It’s the stories that get lost

They try to escape the graves

Yet time is a brutal gatekeeper

Mercilessly traps them where they are.

Once in a while some escape 

Carried by the wind far away 

Only those that listen can hear

The melodious secrets which they part

Like medicine to the numbing grief.

Like a shade on a scorching day

Like a hug to lost souls

The stories are immortal in a way

They last generations after the names

Each give the names a body

Each a soul to the lifeless letters

They have the power to revive 

It’s a pity so few escape

by Angela Ke 

It’s our nightmares that keep us awake at night,

And our dreams that keep us sleeping.

What’s the one we chase after,

When we’re alive and barely breathing?

Nightmares are just dreams that scare us,

What’s the one we’re really seeking?

“Erland, I told you, you have to eat it.” 

The little boy shook his head and pursed his lips tight. His eyebrows did the same, except vertically. 

His mother exhaled in exasperation. She was trying to feed him breakfast, but at this rate it would become dinner by the time she got a bite inside his mouth. 

“Erland, I know this is a new food for you, but you never know whether you’ll like it or not unless you try it. Just take a bite. Please!” She remembered the paragraph in the parenting book that said children are more likely to obey you if you use that magic word; page 72 in the Why Do Chores When Your Kid Can chapter.  

“No.” Erland let his lips part for just that word before clamping them together again. This time he jutted his chin out a little, too. 

His mother tried to recall what Parenting for Parents said about incorporating exotic foods into your child’s diet. Something about culturally relevant examples? The frequency and enjoyment of consumption by those of which this exotic food originated? 

“You see, Honey-Bear,”—affectionate pet names stimulate receptive neurons in the premature brain—“those folks where this came from eat it all the time! For breakfast, snack time, and even as a side dish! That’s how much they enjoy it. Some even say it’s their favorite food! It’s their go-to whenever they have the opportunity.” She grinned and bobbed her head, but Erland frowned and shook his head likewise. 

He just didn’t find the thing in front of him appealing. His mother had placed it on an orange plastic plate, littered with scars from fork stabbing and scraping. The spectacle being displayed was sticky and wrinkly, with some pieces flaking off to create an abstract design on the scarred plate, like stained glass above threaded ugly stitches. It smelled sickening and strong, like it would coat his tongue and lodge in his throat. He could practically feel it embed onto his teeth, wedging in the crevices. 

It was simply unappetizing.

“Erland, please, just eat it! It’s not like it will kill you!” 

Erland scrunched up the center of his face and picked up his fork. With the tip of a tine, he touched it to the surface of the food. A glob of gooey something accumulated on the point, and his face distorted even more. 

“Oh, fine, Erland! Don’t eat it! Fine! You can just stay uncultured and picky, and you’ll turn out just like your dad!” Warning: never condemn your child’s future in comparison to your spouse, especially if he or she was a college dropout. 

Erland’s mother stood up from the table and stormed out of the kitchen, probably to throw Parenting for Parents in the trash only to pick it back up a few seconds later to highlight a new sentence. 

Erland decompressed his face and blinked a few times in surprise. Then he shrugged his shoulders along with his eyebrows and hopped off his chair with a satisfactory smile. Soon he was slurping down his traditional breakfast, the sound of rustling pens and aggressively dog-eared pages still coming from his mother’s room. His usual breakfast was glutinous rice porridge, with sliced beef tongue and powdered pork rind and ox blood cubes, finished with a garnish of chili-fermented bamboo shoots.

The untouched glazed donut sat next to him, a bit withered and melted from its elongated time uneaten. The glaze was bunched and irritated in some spots, sticky like glue in others, and flaking off like dry skin everywhere else. 

Erland let out a long burp, then went back to slurping.

please, apollo

by Krista Fleming 

Have you heard of the Greek myth Icarus?

A boy, wanting to be free, 

Desperate to fly away and across the sea.

He saw the sun and bathed in its light,

Thankful to get away from the night. 

Please, Apollo, he cried to the sky,

As he flew so high, 

As he began to die. 

Please, Apollo, he yelled again.

Help me succeed. Help me, my friend.

Now, Apollo let him touch the sun, 

But there was no undoing what had been done. 

The wax of the wings began to melt, 

And when they were gone, Icarus fell. 

Yet all that work wasn’t in vain, 

He’d done what he wanted: he made a name

For himself, for his father, 

For the god he called brother.

He gave a life to a dream without an end, 

And in the sky, he’s laughing again. 

Have you heard of the modern day Icarus?

A girl, sitting alone,

Cramming everything in to escape the unknown. 

She tells herself that it’s okay,

Don’t worry about tomorrow, just get through today. 

Please Apollo, she writes out in ink, 

As she tries to think, 

As she begins to sink. 

Please, Apollo, while water fills her lungs.

Let me be free. Let me live on. 

So Apollo helps her, and alive she stays

But even a sturdy rope begins to fray.

A lifetime spent learning and writing it down, 

But when she dies, there’s not a sound. 

Years later, they’ll find all of her work;

They’ll thank her: “The end, meeting adjourned.”

Her pages have been written, read, and used, 

As a god almost smiles from where he views. 

She ended up saving a thousand lives

And now in the sea, she finally thrives.

This story is bleak and full of death, 

Full of pain and final breaths. 

But I have hope that it’s not the end, 

That in heaven, sea and sky meet again.

And so, heart heavier than ever before, 

Desperate to see that there’s something more, 

I think of a future Icarus.

A child, playing outside. 

He doesn’t flee, he doesn’t hide. 

No, he just takes it in stride. 

Because who can hurt you with a god at your side? 

Please Apollo, with a handful of flowers. 

They’ll stay there for hours,

Basking in the suns powers.

Please Apollo, they’ll run through the grass. 

The field over there—It looks like a blast. 

He may not have met the cruel, cruel world

But Apollo has kept him well aware. 

He doesn’t want to leave from his spot on the sun,

So together, they’ll sit, with a story half spun

The child will one day grow up, but grow kind,

And when Apollo returns, no brokenness he’ll find. 

Two graves rest in the god’s fragile mind,

But he won’t dig another, not for a long time. 

This new Icarus will love to fly and to swim, 

And maybe Apollo will smile again. 

Let’s lock away our phones    and rely on the radio

    and our minds    what we know    and what we remember 

Let’s rely on our voices    our laughter    to make us laugh 

    the grass for our fingers to touch    the steering wheel to tap 

our thumbs to grab adventure 

Let’s rely on our eyes to see a moment    our minds to capture a scene

    blink it to the back of our heads    see it behind our eyelids    It’ll stay there

our memories to take it and tuck it away    stamp our hearts with the address 

    nostalgia will dust away the dust    and rub out any scratches 

and we will remember this day    we locked our phones away

some horrible monster that rattled his bones and begged to be free. The beast scraped against his heart, talons clawing at his throat and cutting off his oxygen. It soaked up all the sunlight stored in his veins and left him alone to mourn. 

Always alone. 

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we weren’t always mourning, Lily’s voice echoed in his mind, spiders crawling up his spine with a thousand legs of sorrow. I know it’s human nature, I know even the trees grieve when another sapling falls, but sometimes I think that it would be better. There would be no guilt and no shame. No girls standing in front of a mirror and sucking in their stomachs to get just a little bit thinner. No boys pushing themselves too hard for too long to do just a little bit better. A world the angels made.

He wanted the tears to stop pouring, for him to wipe them from his cheeks and laugh. He wanted goodbyes to hurt less, to be as simple as a smile and a hug and that would be it.

And it would be kind. 

He wanted a world where things could be easier. A world with no diseases, no hatred, no death. One where he wouldn’t have to grow up so fast. 

And it would be beautiful.

He wanted Neverland.

And it would be warm.

Maybe that’s where he would go when he was gone, and Wendy could visit him there, and he could fly under a sun that wouldn’t stop shining. Maybe it would be impossible to visit him there, maybe death would separate them. 

But Wendy would have her memories of Neverland, and his mother would still have that green handprint on the wall, and Hooke could keep his legacy alive.

“Look after them when I’m gone,” Peter whispered, still hiccuping in Hooke’s arms. “Make sure they’re okay. All of them. Make sure my mom still smiles. Take Belle out to that tree house in the backyard and read with her. Be there with Wendy when she hears the news.” 

Do what I can’t. Love those I can’t love anymore. Go outside and feel the warmth. Lay in the grass and stare at the stars. Make a mark in the world because I couldn’t. Be a hero. Save the next kid that comes in. Hold him tight and tell him it’ll be okay. 

“And tell the stars I’ll be there soon. And tell the sun I’ll miss it.”

“I will,” Hooke whispered, head resting on his. “I promise.” 

“And wear green.” Peter’s chuckle was wet, laced in tears and sewed with hope. “You can borrow the color as much as you want when I’m gone.”

“Thank you.” There was a slight laugh, as though Peter weren’t crying into Hooke’s shirt.

“And I’ll miss you.”

There’s something almost solemn about love, about the way it stretched through Peter’s heart and overwhelmed his soul. It was a rope tied around his neck, and with a gentle squeeze, he would come undone. 

But the old, frayed thing rarely gave him rope burn, and it lifted him into the air for a few glorious seconds before the fall. It let him play with his father when he was younger, all dark hair and mischievous grins and grassy hills and love. 

The thing about love, however, is that it’s the only road to hatred. And that hatred will be pure, will engrave itself in his shallow depth of the world, dim the surroundings that once looked so bright, and make the stars laugh bitterly. 

But it was okay. His strained relationship was a fact that he had resigned himself to, and it wasn’t as though he could remember his dad being more than a name mentioned in passing. 

This, though—sitting in a hug, crying into Hooke—was what a father’s affection should be. And in some semblance of a sense, in some weird, wonderful way, it was enough for him.

“Even if I didn’t know you long, you were a really good dad.” 

In the coming days, Peter would pass the moment off as sleep delirium. He would hold that moment close to his heart, because it didn’t deserve to be set astray. It was raw, and he would soak in the warmth of being loved—being wanted for as long as he could. 

This will never change, the world seemed to whisper to him. No matter what else happens, this will be the same. The two of you will be okay. 

The world was burning with lies.

Hooke was still registering what had happened. “I—”

He was cut off by the creak of the door down the hall, padded footsteps shuffling closer. Smee, Peter guessed, wearing that red and white-footed pajama set he remembered seeing when he was supposed to be asleep and Smee was on the night shift. But when Smee was working, so was Hooke. 

“Thank you,” Peter whispered with one last hug—one last moment of warmth—before he unlatched himself from the doctor. He scooted back to the pillows behind him, and Hooke grabbed a blanket that had been draped across the chair to hand it to him. “For everything.” 

Hooke smiled: a light, fond thing that Peter never thought could look so sincere. “Any time.” The doctor headed for the door, stopping when his fingers brushed against the doorknob and turning back to face him. “And, for the record, I’ll miss you a lot too.”

He paused, about to say something more, when he began to open the door instead. 

“Get some rest. Okay, kid?” 

Peter raised two shaking fingers into a solute. “Aye-aye, Captain.” 

Somewhere in their words hid a goodbye neither of them said aloud. 

———

Wendy’s cheeks were tear-stricken. 

It was the first thing Peter noticed when his friend walked in. Her blue eyes were rimmed with pink, puffy and swollen from what he assumed was crying. 

“No John and Michael today?” He asked, forcing a smile in some desperate attempt to push the weight of the world from his shoulders. 

She shook her head. “Not today.” 

“Their loss, I guess.” 

Wendy laughed, setting down the present in her hands and crawling onto the bed. Peter scooted over, ignoring the pain that laced through him with every move. 

They did not play the way they used to, but they strung words together and shouted their lines from the comfort of the bed as the world around them faded into the one they had created in their minds. They played as though it would not be their last, as though together they would grow up, or they wouldn’t grow up at all. They played as though they had all the time in the world, and for that moment, they did. 

It ended like many things did: with the setting sun and children sitting in a bed. It ended with the beeping of a monitor and kids staring at the sky as a last-ditch effort to fly towards the sun. It ended with a wide, wide world that had never felt so small—with promises of safety whispered between barren bedsheets and on top bloody pillows. 

No more starry eyes and early mornings. No more boundless energy as they ran through the grass. No more climbing trees and pretending they were flying. 

Neverland came about quickly, the walls beginning to fade into something colorful and unreal. Summoning the last of his breath, he began anew. 

“I’m Peter Pan,” he declared, like that would make it true. 

The spirit of youth and joy, the sun had named him. 

And yet he had to die. 

The boy who never grew up.

He prayed that wasn’t true. 

“And I’m Wendy Darling.” Wendy joined right behind him, now at the edge of the bed like she would soon fly away. 

The world was different now, more vivid. There was a deep scent of pine, he could almost hear the water rushing against the shores of Neverland. If he closed his eyes, he could fly away. It wasn’t fair to fall—not like this, not now. 

Not with her right there. 

Wendy was flying behind him, covered in pixie dust and laughing. A new world, and yet that would never change. 

It’s okay, the sun whispered. I’ll still shine for you when you’re gone, even if it means I only shine on her.

A final trip to Neverland, a final moment of warmth. 

A final memory where things felt okay.

For a moment, Peter could see an angel.

She was beautiful, he decided the moment she came into light. White cloth draped across her skin, cloaking her in sunshine. She looked a bit like his mother: brown hair brushing against her shoulders with thin lines of gray, hazel eyes that mirrored his own. 

The angel held out her hand to him. 

I’m not ready, he thought with a glance back to Wendy. Not yet.

There was the beeping again, and he couldn’t ignore it now. It was pounding in his head like a tragedy that played on loop. It stretched across the horizon, waves fighting each other in the sea below and crashing to the beat of his dying breaths. 

The waves were calling him home. 

All the angel did was smile. It’s okay. You’re allowed to grieve.

Peter decided, with utmost certainty, that he did not want to. 

“Wendy, I have an idea,” he declared. “Neverland should have mermaids.”

She gasped. “And they could live in Mermaid Lagoon.” 

“Neverland has a lagoon?”

“It does now.” 

Wendy spread Peter’s blanket out, crumbling parts of it together to form a wave. Peter scooted over, slowly moving his feet and trying to give her room to sit closer to their pretend water. It transformed almost immediately, bright blue now and full of hope. 

“I’ll be the mermaid!” Peter took the pillowcase off of his pillow, turning it over to ignore the stain. He let the white fabric drape across his head. “Look at me. I am a mermaid. I do girl things.” 

“Take that thing off.” Wendy complained. “It’s insensitive and rude.” 

“But it’s fun!” 

“Kids.” Hooke peeked his head inside, voice laced with that tone that meant he was either going to lecture them or smile. This time, Hooke furrowed his eyebrows together. “Peter, why is your pillowcase on your head?” 

“Because I’m pretending to be a really scary and cool monster,” Peter lied. 

At the same time, Wendy said, “He’s pretending to be a mermaid.” 

Then it was the smile, and Hooke called Smee into the room. The nurse looked weary, but he smiled upon seeing the two kids huddled together. 

“Any room for a few pirates in this story?” 

And on they played.  

Deep down, there was some part of each of them that knew this would not last, but it was an ending so pure that they would wish to live it again. It was the finale: the final trip, the final flight, the final laugh. 

Peter was not deterred. 

He would fly around this little room, pretending it was so much more than it was as he painted his imagination across the white walls. This was not a time for mourning, this was not an end filled with sorrow.

At his grave, there would sit a bouquet of flowers. In this world, the forest was overgrown with them. 

He would plant at least one more.  

“Smee, you should be the mermaid!” Wendy exclaimed. “I overheard my English teacher talking to one of her friends during lunch. She was talking about having diversity within stories, and what’s more diverse than an old, bald mermaid.” 

The nurse blinked at her for a moment. “Why on earth would you assume I’m bald?” 

“I don’t know. You always wear a hat.”

“Yeah,” Peter shrugged, absentmindedly running his fingers across the IV attached to his arms. “Bald people wear hats.” 

“Hooke wears a hat.”  

“But he does that to hide his ugliness.” 

Now it was the doctor’s turn to be upset. “Peter, I thought we were supposed to be on the same side here.” 

“That doesn’t mean I should lie.” 

Hooke tried to suppress a smile, and Peter figured he must be pretty funny if he could insult someone well enough to make them smile. Maybe when he got to heaven, he could tell jokes to God. 

“Is Smee going to be the mermaid or not?” Wendy asked, itching to do more than just sit there and talk. 

Both the doctor and nurse looked at each other for a long moment—one of those silent conversations that Peter was always left out of—before Smee let out a weary sigh. “What if I was a different sea creature? Like, I don’t know, a crocodile.” 

Wendy pondered that for a moment before grinning. “Yes! A crocodile. How perfect!” 

“And you could have a clock within you so you swim all funky!” Peter added. 

“And you’re on our side!” 

“And you hate Hooke!” 

“Hey!” Hooke complained. “Why does everyone always have to hate me?” 

Same reason I have to die, Peter thought bitterly. It’s just life. 

His mother would be very proud of him for that thought. He was being rather mature about the whole ‘dying’ thing. 

“You’re a pirate,” Wendy was saying, as if she was explaining it to her four-year-old brother. “Pirates are evil.” 

“What if I wanted to be a good pirate?” 

“You can’t,” Peter argued. 

That seemed to be good enough for the doctor, because with a tired sigh, he agreed. 

And on they played. 

It was more imagination than it was movement, but Peter was okay with that. In this room, he was sitting on his bed and pretending to be somewhere else. In Neverland, he was flying above the sky and being a hero one last time.

There was still cancer in his cells, it was still eating at him and revealing itself in the raspiness of his voice, but he was a kid again. In Neverland, in those moments where it was all pretend, everything bad drifted away. 

Peter figured, in another life, he’d want to do it all over again. He’d want Hooke to be his dad, and to visit the hospital just to see Smee in that red and white nightgown, and grow up with Wendy. In another world, he’d play until the sun went down and lay in the grass with his mother as the stars began to smile. He’d sit in a treehouse that wasn’t overrun by moss, and he and Belle would fall asleep in the comfort of home. 

But for now, he would be content. He would be loved and warm and happy and okay. 

He would be alive.

“I’m coming to stop you, Captain Hooke!” He lifted a frail arm, pointing it at the doctor as he looked at Smee. “Get him, Croc!” 

Hooke fell to the ground with a thud, allowing Smee to put a light foot on the doctor's chest and giving way for cheers to echo through the room. 

“Ha!” Peter yelled, trying to ignore the rasp of his words. “You’re no match for Peter Pan and Wendy—”

Peter couldn’t finish the sentence; he was coughing too hard. Everyone stopped, the sun itself began to dim, but the red splatter on the pillow case was undeniable. 

Blood.

There was no dying in Neverland: no sickness and no hurting. There should be no blood. But there it was, clear as day as he choked it out from crushed lungs, whirling to the trash can on the other side of his bed and trying not to cry. 

The illusion flickered, and then it faded all together. 

“Peter, are you okay?” A hand on his back, steadying him. Hooke looked at him, and gone was the pirate hat Peter had imagined. Gone was the world Peter yearned so desperately to be a part of. “Smee, get his mother—”

“I’m fine,” Peter choked out, blood dripping out of his mouth like it was drool. “Let’s just continue to pretend. Please?” 

And on they played.

They ignored the blood staining the edge of the bed, pushing past the broken beeping and shaky breaths. In Neverland, he was not dying. There was no cancer infiltrating his body; no mucus or blood coating his throat. His words were not rasped out, they were yelled. 

He was happy, in Neverland, and death was not coming to stop that. 

“Hooke. Smee. We need you down in the staff room.” It was one of the nurses with a name Peter could never remember, standing at the door with a clipboard and a worried look. Then the adults did that weird look thing, and all of a sudden, Hooke and Smee were hurrying out of the room. 

Wendy sat down next to him, leaning her head against the wall. 

There was nothing else to be done, and yet a thousand things to say. He clung onto the world they created, craving another moment where he was just a mischievous boy with the ability to fly. He wanted to be Peter Pan just a minute more, to fight Hooke and pretend like things were okay. 

But Hooke had left, and he couldn’t fly away, and Wendy was waiting for a final goodbye. 

And Neverland—the world they had created when their own seemed too bleak, the one they escaped to when everything seemed hopeless, the one filled with nothing but sunlight and magic—melted around them. 

They were back at the hospital, listening to the fragile beeping of a dying heart. 

There was no more pretending.

———

This Christmas was one filled with goodbyes. 

“I hope we’re still doing the present exchange,” Wendy murmured as they sat there, grabbing the present she had stuffed into a bag and laid near his bed. “Because otherwise, this might be awkward.” 

Peter could only grin as he pulled out his own present, a small box wrapped in blue. With fragile fingers, they handed them over to each other. 

“Open mine first.” Wendy pressed the bag into his hands. 

“What happened to ‘ladies first’?”

“Just do it, Peter.”

So he did. He pulled out the red paper and threw the crumpled paper to the ground. Then, he pulled out the present, a green beanie with soft fabric that he raced his hands across. 

“Because you’re always getting cold,” she said. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. For everything.

Then she took his present in her hands, unwrapping the paper and opening it. She pulled out the candle, an old fashioned wax sort of thing with a star engraved into it. Loosely, with the tip of a pencil earlier, he had carved her name into it. 

Wendy Darling, it read with a star underneath. Engraved a little more professionally were the words under the symbol. A little bit of the sun to take with you. 

She stared at it for a moment, and Peter couldn’t help but worry his present wasn’t good enough, before she started to smile. 

“I love it!” She exclaimed, running a finger along the engraving before setting it down on the metal holder he had gotten for her as well. “Thank you.”

And so they sat there, as the sun began to set, the center of their own universe, in silence. It went on for a few minutes — or perhaps it had been hours, — the two sitting next to each other without ever really saying anything at all. 

They just sat there, comforted by being known and terrified of it all the same, and they never spoke a word.

It wasn’t until many moments later of this same routine, in the privacy of the moon, which sat a shriveled up sliver in the starry sky, when Peter said, “I think I’d like to be a doctor, if I had the chance.”

“Not a pilot?” Wendy asked

“Not anymore. Pilots take someone to their dreams, but I’d like to be awake for a while, too. And, well, doctors do that. They keep someone awake. They keep people alive for more than just a moment, for more than just a dream. I think that’s what I’d want to do.”

Oh, foolish child of the sun, the cancer whispered as it crawled from his lungs. Do you really think you can escape this?

Once upon a time, Peter truly thought he could, that was the tragic part. 

“For what it’s worth,” Wendy whispered, “I think you’d be a really good doctor.” 

He could almost see the angel again, almost taste the disease coating his throat, almost feel the tears beginning to well up in his eyes. But for then—for her, he would be okay. 

I don’t need to escape it, he thought, like the cancer could hear more than his dying heart. I just need to outrun it a little longer.

He let the blanket drape a little more over Wendy, tying his world to hers. “You can’t tell Hooke, of course. I’d never hear the end of it.” 

“Don’t worry,” Wendy said. “Your secret is safe with me.”

And the simplicity of their story almost hurt, almost tore down the dam and let the tears freely flow once again. This is what it meant to mount; this is how it feels to grieve: a fresh bouquet of flowers and a wilted heart. Two lives gone yet one still breathing. 

He couldn’t contain it any more, and so he took a shuddering breath, and let the only thing left to say fill the air:

“Was it worth it?” 

In that moment, a thousand words filled the air. Wendy didn’t ask what he meant, she didn’t have to. And yet, he knew he had to continue. So he took in a shaky breath, uncomfortably aware of how the sound rattled in his throat. “Was it worth it, Wendy, to watch me die?” 

They say time never pauses, but in that moment, it did. The seconds froze before they fell, the sun smiled as it left, and death was already there. Peter tried to look away, but Wendy’s gaze held him in some strange sort of defiance. 

Then, crippling slow like time was trying to keep them in that moment a little longer, she leaned over to hug him. Warmth laced through his skin as she leaned her head on his shoulder, and he wrapped his frail arms around her as though he could cling to life a little longer. 

“Every moment of it.” A whisper in his ear, a moment of sun before the snow.

And they held each other as the sun began to set. 

———

When Peter woke up that morning, he knew it would be his last. 

It was an odd sort of feeling. Nothing had changed from one day to the next, but he knew he had reached the final page of his story. 

His mom seemed to know it too, because she spent the entire day with him. Maybe God had told her, or maybe what they said about mother’s intuition was true.

Whatever it was, he smiled. “Mom.”

“Hey, honey. Are you doing alright?”

“Fine.” It was a lie coated in honey, but they both craved the sweetness. Peter scooted over and allowed his mom enough room on the bed. She sat quickly, and Peter leaned into her embrace as he asked, “Are you going to be okay without me?”

His mom stilled. “Honey,” she began. 

“Mom. I mean it. Are you going to be okay?” 

She let out a long sigh, pulling Peter a little closer. They stayed like that for a long moment, just sitting in the comfort of being together. 

The beginning meets the end only twice: once to lay a tragedy to rest, and once to birth something entirely new. Peter wondered, as the world drifted above his tired eyes, what new thing would come in the wake of his death/ what good could come from cruelty? What star could shine so bright that it outweighed the absence of the moon? 

“Maybe not at first,” his mom finally relented. “But eventually. You don’t have to hold on for me, okay?”

He wondered if she truly believed that. 

“I’m scared, mom.” And that was all he had left to say, but instead of the hollow feeling he assumed would come, he felt almost complete. 

His mom broke, gentle sobs shaking her body and tears soaking his skin. They stated like that as the sun held its breath, as though doing so would give Peter a little bit longer. As though it could delay the inevitable. 

She rocked him back and forth. “I know, honey. I know.” 

He held her tighter, face buried in the tear-stained fabric of her shirt. “Please don’t leave.”

“Never.”

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you.”

“I know.” Once, he had thought his mom unbreakable. But as they sat, holding each other while one moment faded to the next, he knew she was just as human as he was. Just as fragile. “It’s okay. We’ll all be okay.” 

Just as scared. 

Will things stay like this forever? He wondered, thinking about an eternity of being held, and being known, and being loved. 

Another moment of warmth, his eyes still open. 

Yes, he decided, as though that would be enough to change the outcome of a story written long ago. Things can stay this way for as long as I’d like.

And then there came the snow, as his eyes began to close. 

———

It was beautiful.

The vast forests of Neverland were painted white with the snow that fell from the sky. Peter let the sunrise wash over him, hues of gold brushing over his skin as though completing an artwork. The snowflakes fell on top of his green beanie as he flew over the sea he and Wendy had made, swooping above a barren pirate ship. 

He could hear bells echoing in the distance as he turned, giving the sun one last look. He raised two fingers into a salute and wished the world well.

Then, he flew towards the warmth.

Peter was supposed to be asleep by the time Hooke came in. The doctor must’ve been there to double-check his vitals, but he wasn’t fooled by Peter's sudden effort to get under the covers.

“I thought your mother told you to get some rest,” Hooke said, lifting the blankets off of Peter’s head. “It would be a shame if she found out you aren’t following through on her instructions.” 

“Are you going to tell her?” 

Hooke chuckled. “No, I think rebellion isn’t anything unusual for people your age.” 

They fell into silence as the doctor sat down, knees pressed together at the foot of the bed. Hooke looked at him for a moment, as if expecting him to say something, but moved on after a while. “What are you doing up, anyway? I can’t imagine these walls would be very good company.” 

Peter shifted, giving the doctor a bit more room. “Just lost in thoughts, I guess.” 

“Must be a lot of things to think about,” Hooke said. “Anything specific?” 

“Not really.” 

And he half expected the doctor to leave it at that, as unwilling to be alone again as he was. But Hooke seemed to be content in the silence as he picked at his nails. He looked over every once in a while, as if asking a million silent questions, but he didn’t speak.

Peter had never liked the silences; they left too much room for his thoughts to run rampant and begin anew as they danced, one after another, through a stream he could never seem to stop. They would weave together delicately, chasing one dream to the next and displaying realities that could never be. 

He couldn’t ever seem to stop it, though, especially when he was alone. So the secrets that were bottled up—those that had kept him prisoner to the thoughts plaguing his mind—were beginning to tumble to the surface. He couldn’t muster enough effort to stop it, and soon whatever dam he had built was falling victim to the river kept behind it. 

“Sometimes I wish I got shot instead,” Peter confessed, with all the honesty of a broken heart. Hooke’s head snapped to him, gaze resting on the boy who belonged to the sun. If only to fill the silence, he continued. “It would be kinder, you know?” 

And there was a look in the doctor’s eyes that Peter had seen in himself all too often, because no, Hooke didn’t understand. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t dying. 

Yet it was a gentle smile and not confusion that Hooke chose to share, pronouncing each word as though they had been thought a thousand times but got caught in his throat when he tried to force them to his tongue. “Tell me about it.” 

About what? Peter wanted to ask. About cancer? The bullet? How it feels to die? 

“It hurts,” he said instead.

There was an emptiness there, one that came with saying everything you had left to say. Slowly, he lifted a frail hand to wipe away the tears clouding his eyes and let out another choking sob. “Everyone told me it would hurt, but it just—it just doesn’t end.” 

And the gun went off: steaming, and smoking, and as bitter as a starless night. The bullet tore through the rope holding him together and left a pile of messy, horrible feelings at his doorstep. All the moonlight in his veins dissipated into a gaping chasm, leaving his thoughts to echo endlessly through his mind. 

It wasn’t fair. 

He’d settle for that: for the universe to, at the very least, recognize that it wasn’t fair. He should’ve been able to live, to love. His last moments shouldn’t have to be bleak, nor confined to the walls of a barren hospital. 

He wanted it to be loud, for the sun to bounce from wall to wall and explode out of his chest as he laughed, letting an angel take him up to someplace good and whisper you belong here: somewhere better, somewhere warm. 

He wanted whatever script the universe wrote to cast him out of its great adventure, to get rid of the frozen ink that stained his skin and force the terrible thing crawling from his gut through his throat to just stop. 

But he knew, in some dark place buried within his soul, that this story—this tragedy years in the making needed an actor, and he was already center stage. 

“It’s not that I want to die.” There were tears now, streaming down his face as he choked on the pitiful croak in his voice. “It’s just—no one told me how hard it would be to live. They’re already mourning me, Hooke, and I can’t tell them it’ll be okay because I don’t know if it will.” 

Then there was warmth: strong arms wrapped around him, a head pressed on top of his, a heart beating for them both. There was love, and it was heavy, and it was safe. Peter sank into the embrace, sobbing into Hooke’s shirt. 

Hues of pink and purple washed over him, illuminating the two of them as though they were the only ones worth shining for. He could see the faint dim above from the window, night following dusk as it always did. One after another, stars after sun, weakness after years of strength.

“I don’t want to be a hero anymore. I don’t want to fight it. I just want it all to be over.”

Blood may as well have been pouring from his lips, flowers wrapping themselves around his heart and vines tugging it this way and that as their thorns grew damp with death. 

There were flowers outside the window, looking about as sad as flowers could look. Maybe they were mourning. Maybe they were grown in grief.

The flowers are wilting, he realized, barely registering the words that danced through his mind. They’re dying too.

He wanted to go outside and pluck them from the soil like he used to. He wanted to dance and laugh and run up a grassy hill just to roll back down. He wanted one of those picnics with his mom where she would bring every one of his favorite foods and he would complain about his homework and they would soak in the warmth from the sky above. He wanted—

“The sun,” he whispered. “I want to feel the sun.”

And he was sobbing now, clutching the fabric of Hooke’s shirt with trembling hands. “I want to go outside. I want to—I want to feel the sun again. I just—I want—I want to feel the sun. I want—I want—”

“I know.” Hooke held him a little tighter. “I know.” 

“It feels like I’m suffocating. I—I keep gasping for air but I can never get enough. And I—I—I just want it all to be over. I just want it all to end.”

And the air wasn’t coming, and Peter was drowning, and it all felt so cold. It ate at him, like