After a few minutes standing in the tent alone, I walk outside and bump into a boy, with shaggy blonde hair. He wears a dark brown cloak and old-fashioned clothes like everyone else here. His hood covers his face, but beneath a huge scar shines out, one that is across his face.

"Watch where you are going." The boy scowls.

"Sorry," I muster. "I didn't mean-"

"Sorry?" He chuckles. "Nobody's ever..." He pauses looking me over. "Oh I get it, you must be some of the fresh meat that's been brought in."

My eyes widen, baffled by the boy's rambling. The boy who looks like he could slaughter me if I so much as breathed on him. Slaughter me with a simple look. His smile grows wider, a smile that means nothing but trouble. He turns around and walks away from me.

This boy is scary. Pan Flute is terrifying in the sense that he is on the verge of becoming a murderer. This boy is terrifying in the sense that he probably already is one.

I sigh and suddenly notice an object being whipped towards me. I catch it in my hand out of pure instinct, something that I've never done before. I look up at the grinning boy.

"Oh you're one of those aren't you?" He asks. "All bite and no bark? That's my favourite, you know? The silent killers, like Samuel. Are you a silent killer?"

"No," I feel the words pour out of my mouth, surprised that they've managed to find themselves. "My bite is good, but my bark is better."

He smiles at me, a little less crooked than before. "What do they call you?"

Charlotte. "Charlie."

"Well Charlie," the boy looks at me. "You have hereby been cordially invited to the Night Hunt. We leave now. Come on."

With that the boy storms off leaving me with no choice but to chase after him. He walks into the tent just beside the one with all the clothing. I enter in after him. The tent is much larger on the inside than on the out, like out of a Harry Potter movie. The walls of the tent are covered with swords, knives and bows. There are five or six separate rows of shelves filled with assorted weaponry. Comparing this tent to the one filled with clothing helps me understand the boys on this island's priorities; fighting.

"Your weapon of choice?" He asks.

I shrug my shoulders at him. I never had reason to touch anything remotely lethal. My mother owned a large sword that she use to keep on the mantel above the fireplace, she had wanted to teach us how to use it one day. I wish more than ever she had gotten the chance.

"Right, you're new. Just pick two."

I walk over to the wall and look around at all the assorted weaponry. I notice out of the corner of my eye a dagger that looks about the length of my forearm. It has a black shiny handle embroidered with silver. I pick it up and toss it in my hand.

"Oh hell yeah," I whisper to myself. I quickly look around, noticing the boy's growing impatience. I pick up a bow and a quiver of arrows that accompany it. I look over at the boy and nod, slinging the bow and arrows over onto my back. I stick the dagger into a pocket on the inside of my cloak, which proves difficult with the boy standing in front of me, as I could reveal myself at any second. He taps his fingers over the sword on his belt.

Impatient.

I follow him out of the tent anyway.

He begins to walk much faster, and I begin after him through the crowd of boys that has yet to die down at all. A never-ending party. He walks straight into the forest, cutting to a brown trail. He twists and turns about randomly until I've lost my sense of direction, which must've been difficult because I consider myself to have a great sense of direction. I follow him into a larger clearing with about fifteen boys in it. Pan Flute stands atop a rock towards the far end of the clearing. The boy I was with walks up next to Pan Flute but doesn't get up on the rock.

"Alright boys, welcome to the Night Hunt!" Pan Flute shouts into the crowd of boys.

The boys begin to cheer and pat each other on the backs. Obviously, I am missing out on some grand occasion. It seems as though half the camp is in this crowd; what could make it so special?

"Enough of the chatter. Most of you haven't ventured deep out into Neverland. None of you have done so at night. You don't have to worry about any Indians, there are no pirates, at least at the moment, and there certainly aren't any fairies, well, real ones anyway."

A few of the boys chuckle along with Pan Flute as though his joke is common knowledge. I scan the crowd, looking to see who else was picked to come along. The boy who fought Johnny is here, Alex was his name. Same as the kid from the tent, Robert I think. A few boys have their backs to me so I can't see them. One of them turns around; Johnny.

"What are we hunting tonight?" A boy shouts out.

"What are we hunting tonight?" Pan Flute echoes, cocking an eyebrow. "Tonight we hunt wild boars. You all know about those don't you? Silly little things, will give you a run for your money if you let them. Your job is to not let them."

"What happens if we don't catch a boar before dawn?" Another demands.

Pan Flute looks at me and chuckles. "That won't be possible. You have six hours."

He smiles over us, a smile that seems quite genuine. A smile that makes me wonder what exactly I've gotten myself into, seeing as Pan Flute is a certified sadist. At least, probably.

"Go," he commands, and the boys madly scramble off into the distance.

I look over at Johnny, who is running alone into the woods. I bounce on my feet once and begin to sprint towards him before I'm yanked backwards by the collar of my cloak.

"Boy," Pan Flute says into my ear, my back still to his. Cold breath on my neck. Funny, breathe is normally warm. "I'm not saying I have high expectations, because I don't, given that you are a New. What I am saying is that you'd better not die so early. That would be no fun."

I roll my eyes. Kid may actually be intimidating, but he is so full of it. I try to shrug out of his grip. I hear a loud pop, like I'm cracking my knuckles, but on every bone in my body. All of my muscles tense and for a second I can't breathe. Suddenly I'm crash down into Johnny, who was definitely a good 800 feet ahead of me. We both tumble onto the ground.

I roll off of Johnny, who begins to groan. "Who is that?"

"Charlie," I wheeze beside him, hitting my chest in an attempt to get the wind that was knocked out of me to knock back into me.

"Charlie?" He sounds confused. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought we were on the same page with you keeping a low profile."

"I thought we were on the same page with Pan Flute being psychopathic sadist who should be avoided at all costs." I counter.

I stand up and help pull Johnny to his feet. He stands up and stretches out his arms and torso for a few seconds. He looks at me and gestures to the head and that's when I realise I'm not wearing the hat. I quickly look down and scoop it off the ground, tucking all of my hair back inside.

"We should chop that off," Johnny gestures to my hair.

"We should but we won't." I argue. "If you so much as look at my hair wrong I will fight you."

He rolls his eyes. "Right now what we need to do is go find us two wild boar. I actually want to make it into the next round. The closer to Pan the better."

"So much for laying low," I mutter.

He sighs. "That rule is you specific."

I begin to jog forwards, turning around gesturing for him to jog with me. He runs up next to me and we begin to jog through the forest. Johnny is a large dude. He is taller than me, I'd say around 6"3. He has muscular arms and legs; a result of being on the football team. Despite being on the team for so many years, Johnny has yet to develop one key skill; coordination. When running on a field, he doesn't need it as much as you'd think. As we run through the forest however, he stumbles on every root we cross, hits his head on every branch hanging from the trees, and overall manages to make a huge amount of sound.

"Johnny," I pant, "you've got to be quieter dude. There's no way will find boar if you keep up at this volume."

"It doesn't matter how loud I am right now," he exhales. "Pan didn't explain the Night Hunt very well at the debriefing. I heard from some of the stories how the whole game thing is set up, Old Longs' tales they called them. It's a play on words."

"Yeah, I know." I say. "Old Wives' Tales. What are Longs?"

"They are the boy's who've been here since the early 1900s. We are News, anyone here in the new shipment. There are also boomers, but I've got no idea what those are. People have tended to just say what year they are from and then ask me what year it is."

"They don't know the date?" I frown.

"They've been here for a near two hundred years, at least some. That guy you were with is the oldest guy. Early 1800s I think. He's the only one left from his century."

"Why so few? I ask.

"I've only been here an hour, how am I supposed to know? I've learned bits and pieces of information, but not much. I mostly just learned about the Night Hunt"

"Yeah back to that," I huff. I have no clue how Johnny can manage to talk and run at the same time.

"Right so there is a trial before we get to the boar area. It's about five kilometers away from the starting point. So we'll probably be there in like five minutes since we've been running for like twenty. At least that's how long I was told it'd take. Dumb British people and their British measurements. Anyway, after the trial the boars are all within a three kilometer radius. The trouble isn't in the catching of the boars, it's in the bringing of them back to where Pan is."

I nod, taking a deep breath in. I was never a track star. I'm good at sprinting very small distances, and jogging long distances, but I've reached my limit for the distance that I can run. As I'm about to keel over, Johnny speeds up.

"Look," he shouts, "I see something up ahead!"

I cough and wheeze for a few seconds, then run trying to catch up to him. He suddenly stops running. I catch up to him.

"Holy Mother of Christ," I pant.

Where we've stopped there is a sudden stop in the forest. Green grass that is up to my knees covers the next twenty feet. After those few feet, lies a giant ravine. I'm not quite sure how long it is across, maybe a quarter of a mile. It is insanely deep. So much so that I take a giant step back into the forest. I'm on flat ground, but suddenly I feel as if I'm standing on a tightrope. It open air, you'd assume you'd feel weightless.

I feel as if I'm being compressed. I'm suffocating.

"Now would you look at that," I hear the still familiar, yet infinitely more annoying voice of Pan Flute. "It seems that despite being the newest, you sure aren't the weakest."

I step out of the forest and on to the grass to see the brat jumping down from a tree. He saunters over. "One would think that you boys would be dead last, not the second group. I'm very impressed. And I don't impress easily."

"So is this the trial?" Asks Johnny. "The gorge?"

"Why indeed it is. Excellent detective work." Pan Flute smiles.

I roll my eyes. "What exactly are we supposed to do?"

"Silly little boy isn't it obvious?" He cocks an eyebrow at me. "You have to get from this end of the ravine. To that end of the ravine."

"How do you suggest doing that?" I ask, trying to make my voice sound free of rancor.

"Well you see, it is 200 meters long, and about 450 meters deep. So I don't suggest going down it. Going around it isn't going to work either. It's unending."

"How is it unending?" I ask.

"Magic," Pan Flute answers, a smile still etched across his face.

"How am I not surprised?" I mutter.

"Oh I forgot the most important part," he grins. "There is a bridge."

"Where might this bridge be?" Johnny asks calmly.

"It's right there," he says pointing at the empty ravine. I walk closer to the edge and look down, trying to see if he put the bridge part way down. No such luck.

"What do you mean the bridge is right there? There is no bridge. It's just ravine, and more ravine."

I figured it out, he doesn't scare me. He's just a silly boy. He makes me angry.

"Wait, you can't see the bridge?" Johnny questions me.

"You can?" I turn to Johnny.

Pan Flute laughs. "Well you certainly aren't the truest believer, are you?"

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"There is a bridge, but only if you believe in it. Johnny can walk across it, but you can't even if he lead you to it. Believing makes it real." He elaborates.

I roll my eyes at him, not having it. There isn't a bridge. Just ravine. This is his way of killing us all, I bet. Having us walk on to an 'invisible' bridge, only to fall to our deaths. This is exactly what I should have expected from this psychotic maniac. The night hunt was a terrible idea.

"And you'd better hurry," Pan Flute adds. "The sun is about to set, and I'd hate for you to find out what lurks in the dark of Neverland."

"What happens at-" I cut myself off. Pan Flute had disappeared without a trace. "Great, just fantastic. We're going to die before we even come near a boar. Remind me, why are we even doing this?"

"Shhhh!" Johnny hushes me. "The sun is setting now. He's right. You need to believe. We don't have all day. We don't even have all night."

I sigh and look down at the ground, breathing in and out lightly. I'm not going to believe in something that isn't real. It would be un-dignified. I look up. No bridge.

"Johnny, this is pointless," I sigh. "There is no bridge, there are no boars, and there certainly isn't anything dangerous 'lurking in the dark of Neverland' except for Pan Flute himself. Now, are we going to stay here or are we going to try to climb down deeper into the ravine?"

"I'm not climbing down there!" Johnny yells. "It's almost completely black out. We'll never be able to see a thing. I believe in you Charlotte. Come on. Trust me. You trust me, right?"

"That's a loaded question," I yawn, earning a glare from Johnny.

Johnny freezes, immediately going pale. He jumps forward tackling me.

"Johnny what the f-" I begin before Johnny clamps a hand over my mouth.

He looks at me, wide eyed, and then looks back up above us. His lips get sucked into his mouth, like an old man's who has forgotten to wear his dentures. His cheeks begin to turn red as he shakes, from what I imagine is deprivation of oxygen.

I shove him in attempt to get it off of me, but to no avail. It's getting darker out by the second. His features are shadowed over by his monstrous figure until I can barely make out his eyes. I kick him in the groin, causing his muscles to tense up even more as he rolls off of me, trying to keep silent. I laugh at him. I stand up, facing towards the forest chuckling.

That's when I see it. A tiger. A gigantic, furry beast that stand a few feet away from me. It stares right at me.

"Johnny," I whisper. "Tiger. Big tiger. Big scary tiger."

He slowly stands up next to me, still clutching himself.

"I tried," he musters. "Held you. Kicked me. Here we are."

Neither of us are breaking eye contact with the tiger. It knows we are here. It can probably sense us with its hyperactive hearing, night vision, echolocation, laser eyes. It probably is a cyborg. Probably. But not certainly. What I do know for certain is that it could eat us whole. That's not an exaggeration.

"The bridge," Johnny stammers. "Get to other side. Cut the bridge."

"There isn't a bridge. We've got to kill it." I reply.

"You've got to kill it." He replies. "I've got to take bridge. Safe bridge. Dangerous tiger."

The tiger crouches down. Its butt raises up high in the air as its shoulders and head become one. It still doesn't break eye contact. The tiger licks its lips. It's sizing us up, determining how big of a bite it needs to kill us. The tiger is most likely a mathematician. When x is how long it takes to get to the "bridge" and y is the speed of a tiger, the answer is 100% chance of death.

Johnny grabs my wrist and spins around. He looks straight at me, his face fear stricken.

"Run!" He shouts.

The tiger pounces.

I run.

Where I am running I haven't the foggiest. There is no bridge. There is only certain death. They say time slows down in life or death situations. It very well might. But in death or death situations time speeds up. There is no time. Only panic. My brain fires an idea a millisecond to try to save myself. Is this what my life has come to? Death by tiger on an island after being kidnap by 'Peter Pan' and forced to participate in some awful game where I must kill a boar? I refuse to believe so. The universe isn't so kind that it would have me die after so few hours of being on this forsaken island. It wants me to live, so I can continue to suffer. There is a bridge. There has to be a bridge.

With Johnny just behind me and the tiger just behind him I leap into the ravine.

~~~~

Hey, so I've updated a few times in the last two days, but that's because I have a few chapters already written, and so all I need to do is edit them. I also want to make sure that you, as a reader, know that I'm actually invested in this and don't plan on abandoning three chapters in.

That being said, this is going to be long. Very long. And pretty slow burn.

I'd love to hear feedback from you. It means a lot to me you took your own precious time to read this, and if you enjoyed it that's even better. God I'm sappy.