The castle is dark and utterly silent--a welcome reprieve when compared to the light outside. It's high noon in the city, and everywhere I turned there were people, watching me with dead, cold eyes.

Here in the castle it's... quiet. I huddle in a corner of the large entryway, arms folded around myself, knees drawn into my chest. It's chilly in hair, eerie. The only light comes through the holes above the door and in the roof, not enough to make it anything but dim and cast more shadows about.

Cobwebs matt the ceiling and there's so much dust on the marble floor that when I came in, I almost couldn't breathe. It's settled down now--back into the room, and also onto me.

I'd almost welcome it, the chance to stay here in this room and waste away. I could become a statue, just another piece of furniture. It's not like my life would be any different then than it is now. I'd still be alone. Unwanted. Unloved.

At least someone might think I was pretty as a statue. Maybe they'd want to take me home and put me in their garden or their front lawn. I could be the newest lawn fad--the girl who replaced the yard gnome.

If they even have yard gnomes in Neverland. They probably have actual gnomes.

I sit in the corner for hours, head buried in my arms, until all my tears have dried up and I feel... hollow. Empty. Worn out.

My stomach rumbles, and I know I can't stay here forever. I have to go back to the inn, have to face Mila and Peter. I have to apologize for running out like that--not that they're looking for me. Not that they care.

I push myself off the floor wearily, wiping dust on my already filthy jeans. I can't tell if it helped clean my hands at all. I move toward the door, around a pillared staircase.

"Why were you crying?" I freeze at the sound of the voice--young, childish, and... empty. I turn slowly only to see a boy of about eight or nine sitting on the steps. His elbows are propped on his knees, his chin in his hands, and wide, blank blue eyes stare at me from between strands of disheveled, dirty blonde hair.

"I... wha..." my voice is hoarse and it takes several attempts for me to form words. "How long have you... been... sitting there...?"

The boy tilts his head at me, his expression as blank as his eyes. It's... scary. What is one of the hollow children doing in here? "Why were you crying?" He asks again, his tone holding the exact same inflection, the exact same note of vacancy. The lights and the TV are on but nobody is actually home inside.

"I... I'm lonely," I admit. "And scared. And I don't know what to do."

"Lonely," he repeats. "I don't know what that means." Every word is spoken in the same manner, one after another in a tone as blank as a sheet of paper with nothing on it.

"I'm... I don't have anyone," I tell him, hugging myself. I don't know why I'm talking to this kid, don't know why looking at him both gives me the creeps and makes me so sad that I want to start crying all over again, even though there isn't a drop of salt left in me.

"Why does that matter?" The boy asks, tilting his head the other way. The motion is disjointed, stiff, not... normal.

"People need love," I explain, smiling sadly. "Without it, we're... hollow."

"Love. What is that? Is it useful?"

Why does this child care about something that's useful? I feel like I'm in one of those sci-fi movies where an AI unit is trying to learn to be human but can't compute emotion.

"Yes," I say. "Love is what ties the world together and makes life worth living." It's something I read in a story once--I don't know if it's true. I've never experienced real love of any kind, so I wouldn't know.

"Living," the boy repeats. His tone is still empty, his expression still vacant, but I'd swear that he seems... thoughtful. "The action of being alive. All things live," he tilts his head the other way again. "But without love, are not alive?" He seems to be questioning me, as if trying to make sense of things.

"Not exactly," I say, shaking my head. How am I supposed to explain love to an emotionless robot? "You can be alive and not have love." I'm a good example of that. "But if you don't love people, then your life is pointless."

My entire existence is pointless.

"Pointless," the boy says, and he blinks once--which is when I realize that he wasn't blinking before. It's a slow, precise motion, like the blink programmed into one of those I'm Alive! baby dolls. There's even a faint clicking noise. Scary.

I'm suddenly very, very creeped out.

"Y-yes," I agree, taking a slow step back. "Well, it was nice talking to you, but I should get going..." a nervous laugh escapes my lips, and I continue moving backwards toward where I know the door is.

"Why?"

"I have... things to do." How far am I from the door? Why am I so afraid of this little kid?

"Yes," the little hollow boy agrees. "You have a great many things to do, Gwendolyn McKinnith."

"H-how do you know my name?" I ask, still backing up slowly, still hoping I'll run into the wall so I can find the exit and get out of here.

"We all know you, Gwendy." The boy smiles, and it's the most terrifying thing I've ever seen--his mouth stretches, and his lips form the shape of a smile, but his face... he's just... not there.

"Who's 'we'?" I ask, trying very hard not to panic.

"Us," the boy says, and is it just me, or is there more than one person talking...? "We love you, Gwendy."

His voice has... changed. Though he hasn't moved, he seems... more still. And his voice is a choir, as if there are twenty people talking at the same time, all with the same voice, all through his mouth.

"W-why?" I whisper, trying to keep him distracted while I frantically scrabble behind me, reaching into empty space for the door handle.

"You birthed us," the hollow boy says, that smile still in place.

"I what?"

"Welcome home," the boy stage whispers, and I almost wish he'd said it menacingly or evilly or happily--with anything but that dead, empty tone.

My back hits the wall, but there's no handle, no door. My fingers skim the smooth marble frantically, my sweaty palms catching even more dirt and other nasty things that I don't want to think about right now.

"This isn't my home," I tell him, trying to hide my heaving chest, hoping my voice doesn't tremble.

The boy opens his mouth, but instead of speaking, he turns his head upward. The motion is so wooden that I'd almost believe I really am talking to a robot or a doll. I follow his gaze and gasp.

There's a woman at the top of the stairs. Long golden hair drifts to her ankles, torn out in some spots--revealing the bone of her scalp. She's little more than a skeleton dressed in a tattered white gown, a tarnished silver crown atop her head. Bits of flesh hang from her in random places, and I put a hand over my mouth to keep from retching. She seems to float past, and though I can see her feet moving, there isn't any sound.

A scream builds up inside me, one I can't contain, one I can't keep locked up even as I bite my fist to keep it in. It escapes as a whimper despite my best intentions, and both the skeleton woman and the hollow child look at me. The twin motions are so terrifying that I think I might hurl up my guts, and I've forgotten where the door is supposed to be, can't find it with my scrabbling fingers in the darkness.

I whirl, turning away from them, both hands searching the wall. When did all the light disappear? When did it get so dark that I can't see? There's a whisper at my neck, my back, and I can't breathe, I can't think, I can't--

Hands grab me, wrap around my shoulders, spin me around. I can't see anything through the gloom and the panic and I scream--

Or I start to scream.

The sound never makes it past my lips, because there's something in the way.

Something soft, and warm, and wet, and firm. Something that covers my mouth with pressure and feels so amazing that I can't think straight for an entirely different reason than the monsters in the room.

Slowly, the something is removed, and I blink, breaths still coming fast. I can see, just enough of an outline, a shadow... just enough of a glow to make out Peter's brilliant, whirling eyes inches from my own.

Slowly, he puts a finger on my mouth, an obvious shushing gesture.

I'm more focused on the fact that my mouth is wet on his finger... wet from...

His mouth?

His... Peter...

I can only stare at him, and I don't know whether or not I'm breathing, don't know whether or not I'm shushing. I'm too stunned to even move, let alone to care about the fear I felt moments ago. What was I afraid of?

It doesn't matter.

Peter just... kissed me.

I can't summon a thought process beyond two desires.

I want to know why.

And I want to know where on Earth he's been for the last few hours, so make that three desires, because the biggest issue in my head isn't anything logical.

It's that I want him to kiss me again.