The first thing I notice is Johnny. He spots me from across the clearing, but turns around instead of talking to me. It's better this way though. The less he attempts to communicate with me, the better I feel about the whole situation. Which is to say, the less he tries to talk to me, the less it feels like I'm actively avoiding him. I'm still trying to get over that night.

As much as I hope his attempted murder was a onetime thing, I can't shake the feeling it's not. I also can't shake the feeling that maybe the Native boy didn't die in the fire during the Hunt. Maybe he died in Johnny's hands.

The table fills with food and I look up into the sky. Dinner, which feels odd. I must have been on the beach for quite a while. I grab some food, walking back to my tent. I eat it, realising the burning pit in my stomach wasn't nerves, but was hunger.

As I'm finishing the last of my corn, a food I haven't had the pleasure of eating here yet, Max comes in, accompanied by Thomas.

We quickly exchanges hellos, and I walk out. I realise I haven't drunken water yet today. It's a bad habit of mine, drinking so little. I walk over into the cooking tent, and grab a canteen. There's only one pocket in my cloak, so after my thirst begins to fade away I head to the clothing tent, quickly finding a belt that fits me. I shove the canteen on the side, and then sheath my dagger on it.

I leave the tent, heading back to my own.

I walk in. Max is pale in the face, sweating once again. He leans over, and vomits on the floor.

That escalated quickly. I can't leave my own tent for more than five minutes without something disastrous happening.

"Was there a bee?" I ask, rushing to his side.

He's allergic to bees. Deadly.

Thomas doesn't answer, he never does. I help Max up again, lifting him away and out of the tent. I carry him a few feet, until Robert sees us and pulls him out of his hands. James helps support Max's weight on his other side.

"Some of the meat was raw." Robert tells me, shifting under Max's weight. "We've got another boy vomiting in the tent."

"Are we all going to get sick?" I ask. Am I more worried for me or for Max?

James shakes his head. "That was from the food at lunch. Thankfully, it seems only one of the chickens wasn't cooked fully. There might be another kid who gets sick, but so far it looks like it's only two of them."

Robert and Thomas walk Max off to the Medic tent. I debate following them, before I decide it's getting late. There's probably already a few boys in the tent. Adding another body will just make it more difficult for Robert to work.

I decide to visit Max in the morning, when he is feeling better. Until then, I'll have to sleep.

9

The sun has yet to rise, and as I peek around, I realise I am the only person up. This is the perfect opportunity. I am alone, so I sneak into the clothing tent.

I strip down and hose myself off, using a bar of soap intended for clothing and not for people. I'd rather smell like detergent than dirt, and the chemicals in the soap will not harm my skin. I turn and find clean clothes, then quickly toss back on my cloak and head outside.

It's dark out still, and cold too. White mist fills the air, wrapping around the campsite. My knuckles are turning darker, but now the colour is a result of the cold rather than the bruises from fighting. The weather here normally feels like that of autumn; cool enough I can wear a cloak without sweating yet warm enough I could wear shorts if I wanted to.

I step forward, twigs bending under my feet, moist with the soggy air. My nose begins to feel numb, and the wood of the long center table is cold to the touch.

There is a ruffling of material behind me, and I turn around to see Alex walking out of his tent.

He looks at me, pausing. "You're up?"

I nod, the muscles in my arms twitching from the cold. A reflex I can't help.

This reminds me of the day when my father had to be out, so I had to get my sister home from school. We were both only children, I was 12 and she was 5, and there was a snowstorm. The walk home should only have taken us twenty minutes, but it took us forty. I still have scars along the back of my ears from the frostbite. I gave her my coat.

"I'm waking Robert up." Alex tells me. I had forgot we were talking. "You should go get Pan up."

He turns and heads into the Medic tent, but I cut him off.

"What's going on?" I ask. "Why do I need to get Pan?"

"I forget how new you are." He sighs. "Hurry over to Pan and wake him up. He'll explain."

"Why don't you go?" I ask.

"We don't have time for this." His voice is cool, as he pushes past me. "Listen to me. Go do it."

Normally he is cynical, making fun of me at every chance he gets. His voice however now is calm, smooth, not underestimating me. It's as he turns away, his neck twitches to the side. Like a tick.

The cold is getting to him. That or he's nervous. Maybe it's the cold that is making him nervous. Should I be nervous?

Rolling my eyes, I turn and begin to walk away from him. Everyone here is ridiculous; no one answers my questions and everything seems to be mortal danger. I enter the forest anyway, slowly making my way there.

I tug my hat down, trying to get it to cover both my ears at the same time. I don't plan on getting frostbite again. The current cloak I'm wearing has a hood, but it still doesn't protect my ears from the cold wind that is beginning to pick up.

I pause, leaning against a tree, my breath the only thing I can see against the air. It only seems to be getting darker as time passes, as if the sun too is hiding from the cold.

The sticks begin to snap and crack as I step on them, drying up quickly. I reach down, my hands wrapping around the sticks. Frost begins to trail up and down them. Hard and cold, no longer wet.

I take another step further, this time letting my body's weight rest against the tree in front of me. My heart feels sharp, piercing my chest with every beat. Can you get heart freeze, or is your heart limited to experiencing heart burn.

I peer around, rubbing my stiff hands together. They are so cold, it feels near impossible to open them. They stiffen and tighten, trying to make a smaller area for blood to circulate.

My skin has gone pale. Almost translucent, and white to say the very least. In my short time here, I've built up quite the tan.

I run my knuckles along the side of the bark. I watch as light white snowflakes begin to find their way along the bark, covering it. I leap backwards, hitting another tree. I turn around, watching the same happening to it.

Neverland is freezing over.

Though my feet are freezing, and my legs stiff as stone, I begin to run. Limping along, coughing as I move. My legs burn, fire coursing through a body of cold. I am covered in pins and needles, but I know I am almost there.

I slip on ice, bracing myself against a tree. I turn around as I move forward. I can see nothing behind me, except the breath that escapes my lips. I turn forward, noticing the same. It's darker than night outside. It's a black hole.

I step forward, my palms scraping against the trees. I slowly move, my body shaking. My breath is the only thing illuminating the night.

My knees crumble beneath me. Snow begins to tickle me, trailing down my face.

"Pan," I scream, my voice turning hoarse. My voice can't compete to the volume of the wind.

I scoop some sticks off the ground, raising them in my shaking fists. I attempt to throw them, and I see them disappear into the dark around me.

"Peter!" I wail again, shaking.

It's so cold that tears begin to escape my eyes, freezing as they travel down my face.

I shakily pick up a rock and throw it.

It thuds, heavy and hard, almost scraping.

The rocks. He lives in a cave of sorts, and I think I can.

I begin to crawl forward, until I can no longer move.

The snow begins to fall harder, and I rub my legs with my harsh palms, attempting to get the blood to flow through them as well. I pound my shaky hands off my legs, then do the same with my arms.

I peel myself off the ground, moving forward.

I reach the ladder, which goes up to the cave he lives in. My hands struggle to grip it, but I slowly make the ascent.

I shove open the hole in the floor, climbing up.

The heat beats against me, and suddenly I'm on fire. My knees give way again, and I fall to the floor. I shake, coughing loudly, tears rushing out my eyes. They seem to freeze on my face.

I lift myself up. It feels like his house is an oven. Stepping closer, I lean against the small table. A top it is a mirror. I stare at myself. My hat has collected quickly melting snow, trailing down. The snow is melting off my face and eyelashes as well. I brush off my cloak, as the snow begins to turn to water. My ears have begun to peel, slightly darkening in colour.

Mild frost bite. It's almost as if I can still hear the tears escaping my sister's face. I'm lucky it's not bad. Much worse could've happened in that weather. It felt very cold, but considering I wasn't wearing much clothing wise, it couldn't have been awful. Maybe 5 degrees. Maybe ten. Thankfully my sister wasn't here.

No point in worrying about that now.

I hear a wince behind me and turn around.

Pan lies in a pool of sweat. The mossy green of his tunic turned much darker, he seems to be having difficulty breathing. Every few seconds I hear him quickly exhale then inhale.

I move to the bed, my hand wrapping around the frame.

"Pan."

He doesn't hear me.

"Pan wake up."

He doesn't show any sign. His face is contorted in pain.

I swing down, next to him, until I'm sitting on the bed and I can look down on him.

"Pan wake up." My voice is louder now, and I can hear the heavy breath in my throat.

Who knows what's happening to the boys back in camp? Is Max okay? Is anyone okay?

Pan doesn't respond, balling his hands into fist along the sheets.

"Peter." I take him by the shoulders. "Wake up."

The cold air begins to blow in from the trap door, which I left open. Soon enough, we'll freeze to death in this room.

"Peter."

He immediately sits straight up, breathing heavily. I let my hands fly off his shoulders, quickly tucking them at my side. He looks forward, quickly rubbing his eyes, then to me.

He pants, harshly. "Where is Felix?"

I furrow my brow, only able to offer a shrug as an answer.

He gets up moving back and forth across the floor, panic on his face, before looking up at me. He cocks his head to the side. "Did you come here from the camp?"

I nod, unsure of what to say.

"Felix lives not far from here," he tells me. "His tent's only a short walk. You made it all the way here from camp?"

"What just happened?" I demand.

"I control the weather here," he tells me. "Sometimes by accident."

I don't press it further. He had a nightmare. One so awful that he froze the entire island.

I get up. "We have to get back to camp." I move closer to him. "I almost died froze to death, there's no doubt somebody is gravely injured. I left before it got to its worse"

He shakes his head. "It doesn't work like that. The center is the worse, and the weather gradually fades out from there. I doubt the people in the cages even felt a shiver."

I thought the weather was getting worse the closer I got. I just assumed it was getting clder as time went on. "How cold is it?"

"At the center? -20 degrees." He answers. "But that's only for about twenty meters. At the camp it's about 5 degrees.

"-20?" I ask. "But there's no way it was that cold. It couldn't have been."

"In Fahrenheit it was what?" He asks himself. "-4 degrees? At the camp it was about 40 degrees."

I forget that he is British, even despite the accent.

He pauses, looking at me. "You've gotten Frostbite."

He quickly raises a hand, letting it graze against the peeling skin and the slight tingling in my ear goes away. He doesn't move for a few seconds, until I reach my hand up, cradling my ear.

"I was fine." I tell him, bitterly. I don't need his help.

He cocks an eyebrow and chuckles. Back to his old self it seems.

"Well, I'm going to go find Felix." He tells me. "Feel free to do what you want with the rest of your day."

Before I can protest he is gone.

Typical.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ooh I like this one. What was that back there? Peter? Touching? Interesting.

Did you catch my foreshadowing? What do you thinks going to happen next? And what do you hope happens? Let me know in the comments below.

As always, sing a pretty song (I've lost my voice so I can't) and I'll see you Tuesday.