VILLAINOUS (III) : peter pan ouat

When We Grieved

Chapter 3

It's too dark to know if any time has passed. It seems to be the dead, of night, but it always seems to be the dead of night.

I feel like I'm dead sometimes.

Max is dead.

I breathe in sharply, my hand wrapping around the bark of a tree next to me. It was hard to sleep, but I managed. I always manage. Life goes on, with or without Max.

He's dead, but I'll keep fighting for him. Until the end of days, which could last forever for me. Max wanted to be happy, and useful, but I think the Max I first met would want peace. The Max who died was tainted and tarnished by all the time he spent here. He was a murderer, a spy, and a liar.

That wasn't the Max who came here. He was a scared boy, who couldn't even look Pan in the eye when they first met. I mean, the island made him a hero. The boy tried to avenge Lyle, and would've sacrificed himself to save Thomas.

This island either makes or breaks you, I guess. Unfortunately, both happened for Max. If it wasn't for Johnny, and that stupid fire originally, he wouldn't have been paralysed. None of this would've happened. No war, no fire, no death for him.

But I would've died. Gregory was trying to kill me, and Max warned me.

Max saved my life.

I know I am supposed to be finding those new people, but I can't. Not until I visit his grave. I can't go back to the camp, not yet anyway. However, he wasn't buried at camp. It's close, but not close enough to cause a fuss if I show up there.

As I lift my back off the ground, I can feel my shirt clinging to the bark. I reach up to pull it off, the wet feeling reaching my hand.

Great, the tree ripped open the cuts during the night. Great, as if I needed a reminder that "THIS ONLY GETS WORSE".

I mean, it doesn't. Things can't only get worse from here. I mean sure, they might get worse, but they could get better.

Not for Max, but for me they must.

Screw Felix. I hope he burns in hell.

I don't even look for the ground before I jump, and my feet hit the ground. My knees bend as I pull myself to stand upright. Hood over my head, cape dragging along the dirt. I can't help but wonder what I look like; a strange figure immerging out from the dark, hidden in a cloak of black.

I didn't make it very far, so I can imagine I'll be back in only a couple of minutes. It's not a far walk but an eerie one. This island doesn't feel like mine anymore, not when there are strangers on it, out for blood.

The place where Max is buried feels like a ghost town. It's too quiet, too dark, and too musty. This isn't someplace he should be forever. Alas, the fresh dirt that covers him doesn't seem forgiving, and I can imagine how much the mud has already soaked into his skin.

I don't want to dig up a body, at least not his. At least not today.

Max should be somewhere that the sun kisses every morning, and that the bright blue sky covers. Someplace where the sound of the ocean is soft, and the flowers are always in bloom. His body is going to lie in the ground, but it doesn't have to rot and decay. He should be somewhere he would want to be forever.

Unfortunately, the world has run out of happy.

The trees rustle, and I don't move. My hand is on my dagger, but the other is on the earth that covers his grave. At least this will give me some peace.

A cough irrupts, and suddenly if I continue mourning it'll be my fresh grave and someone else's hand, and my dagger is raised to fight.

A cloak, and a white hand, and short, short red hair.