VOLATILE (I) : peter pan ouat

When a Splitting Up Happened

We walk, following the sun deeper into the sky. I only imagine we are in the middle of Neverland when the sun reaches its peak. If it were not for the shade of the trees the sun would melt our skin off.

Sweat beads across my forehead, escaping out below the brim of my hat. Pan must be in a sour mood for it to be this hot. It's always the perfect fall day here; so whenever there's a shift in the weather, something abnormal must be occurring.

"It's too hot to keep moving like this," I sigh, letting my knees collapse beneath me. "Can we take a break?"

"Every second you sit is a second we waste." Alex argues, though he and Harry stop moving.

"Can we at least have lunch?" I ask.

"We had lunch." Harry jumps in.

I reminisce on the little we had eaten. An egg, an apple, a bun. That was lunch?

"I'm going on hunger strike." I say.

"Hunger strike is when you refuse to eat to get your way." Alex explains. "Not when you refuse to move until you eat."

"Did they even have hunger strike in your day?" I ask. "What even was your day?"

Alex rolls his eyes, but begrudgingly sits down. "You've got two minutes."

"Two?" Harry asks. "Al, give us ten. We didn't even stop for lunch."

"We're losing light." Alex says. "It's high noon, so we've only got about nine hours until it gets dark."

"Only nine," I scoff. "That's nothing."

"It is nothing," Alex snaps at my sarcasm. "We've got to find Felix, rescue him, then bring him back to the camp. And chances are if he hasn't managed to escape Dominique, he's incapacitated."

"What do you suggest?" I ask.

"We keep moving, cover more ground." He stands up.

Harry leans off of a tree, stepping closer to me. He offers me a hand that I don't take, choosing to stand up on my own.

"If we want to cover more ground, let's split up," I suggest.

Harry looks bewildered. "That's mad, that is."

"You find the boys then what, you get killed?" Alex asks. "We won't be there to take them on."

"We won't even know where you are." Harry says.

"How about this, we each walk 100 steps, one north, one east and one west-"

"The camp is west." Alex cuts in. "And 100 steps is nothing."

"Then one south." I say. "And 500 steps. It could work. We come back after the 500 steps. If anyone has found them we head that way. If no one has, then we walk forward, and do the same thing later on."

Alex looks at me, squinting. "I don't trust this idea. But that's only because it's the first thing you've ever said that makes sense."

"Are you kidding me?" Harry scoffs. "That's the worst idea I ever heard; and I'm including the time Marcus suggested we use dream shade as camouflage."

"You're tired, I'm tired, we're losing daylight." I prompt.

Harry crosses his arms and turns to Alex. "I don't like this."