Euphoria (Peter Pan FanFiction)

4. Trails

4. Trails

'Why can't anything just be okay? Just for once can I have a day when I'm not running away from something.' Katie kept running through the jungle. She thought the boys were following her so she kept on going. Vines and branches obstructed her way but her feet kept carrying her forward.

Way in the distance, she could hear the boys yelling something. A name maybe, but she wasn't going to stop to take her chances. The voices of the young boys grew further and further away with every step, and with all those steps came more need for oxygen. Here the air was fresh, but it didn't help Katie run further. Eventually she felt a tiny bit of safety and fell to the ground. That was about a week's worth of running right there, all wasted.

She didn't want to leave that spot. Everything seemed peaceful in its own way. The sounds of nature all around. No cars or factories or even people talking could be anywhere. Katie found a place where she could be happy, at least for a moment. Even the dirt that covered her face and obstructed most of her airway made her happy.

A rush of wind that Katie felt all over her body was what changed everything. She quickly got up, pat off most of the dirt clinging to her clothes and face, and just looked. She turned and examined the sky, just trying to figure out where the wind came from. A flying object quickly zoomed over her head. Her feet unconsciously started moving backward, and when there was nothing behind her to catch her fall, she found herself trying to hold onto a vine or branch. Nothing worked and she ended up with her head pressed against a rock. The pain surged through her body, the hard stone was uneven and pressed into her spine. She looked up to see she fell through a blanket of vines, perfectly lain out. But that wasn't even close to what bothered her. Katie looked up at the sky, trying to find the sun, and here it sat, a bit to the left of her vision. What worried Katie was the thought of how much darker it was here.

A few splashes of water were heard behind. At first, Katie didn't know what to do, so she just lay there, hoped whatever it was didn't notice. Her plan somehow worked. No more splashes were heard for a few minutes. Katie found it safe to get up, very cautiously still, even after no signs of danger presented themselves. That's when Smee's words ran through her mind. Not anything specific at the moment, more like random words 'boys' 'mermaids' 'Indians'. This made absolutely no sense to her.

More bubbling of the water came, Katie swiftly turned around, only to find a face of a beautiful lady.

"Peter you would never believe us." Spoke Curly.

"Try me." Peter replied with an arrogant smile on his face.

"There was a girl."

"A girl Peter."

"I'm not going crazy right."

"There's no way."

"She looked too old to be sent to Neverland."

All the boys spoke at once.

"ATTENTION!" Peter yelled at the top of his lungs. "Cubby. What has happened?"

"Well..." Cubby wasn't the best speaker but he would take blame most of the time. "We were walking... following orders. We came to shore to find that you were handling most of the situation so we started to cheer you on." He paused for a moment, maybe he ended the story without saying what happened, no one understood Cubby. Nibs nudged Cubby a bit, trying to make him properly finish. "Oh. And so the canon ball flew toward shore and hit a tree. There was a scream and sound of someone fallin' down. We turned around to see a girl. She just ran off into the forest."

Peter's face looked confused yet intrigued. "Which way did this 'girl' go?"

"She ran off down our usual scouting trail." Nibs have a quick response.