Unhappily Never After (Neverland Archives II) (ON HOLD)

Chapter 18 | Of Life and Love

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.