Neverland

"Thus Wendy first laid eyes on the dark figure who haunted her stories. And she was not afraid, but entranced."
-Peter Pan

Neverland
by Alexander Ingraham

Smee had built the coffin with his own two hands. A small, open, makeshift box made out of some spare boards from the hull. It was his contribution to the work he could not bear to partake in. Now, he stood at the stern of the ship, gazing out at the blue crystal waters trying hard to think of anything but what was happening behind him. It was hard to ignore, however, as the sound of the nails being driven into the coffin's lid could probably be heard for a mile around. Smee had seen his share of death in his day. It comes with the job. But the death of a child, especially such a brutal death, was never something he could get used to.
The hammering stopped, and Smee braced against the rail waiting for the sickening splash of wood on water. When it finally came, he let go of the rail and adjusted his glasses. The subsequent silence was eventually broken by gradual mumblings from the rest of the crew. Smee took one last look at the clear, open waters before turning around to face reality. The rest of the crew paid little attention to him. He was old, had been for as long as he could remember, and he didn't have the same zeal that he used to. However, they all knew that Smee remembered a time of true piracy; a time when it was a thrill to plunder and fight and then make 'em walk the plank; a time when pirates were free to do whatever they pleased instead of being forced to participate in an endless wild-goose chase.
Of course Smee didn't entirely blame the captain though. Captain James had once been an honorable man, a great pirate. Smee had fought by his side proudly for years, but circumstances had changed. Smee made his way down the steps to the main deck where most of the crew were going about their daily routine. As he reached the deck, suddenly a door was thrown open behind him and a dark, distant, yet familiar voice rang out.
"Mr. Smee!" it called. "Come here!" Smee slowly turned around and faced the dark open doorway, knowing full well what awaited him down those stairs. The screams of the second boy had faded less than half an hour before. Smee knew that what lay down in those quarters was not the man he knew, but a nightmare in its most primal form. Nevertheless, he dutifully took a step into the darkness.
The stairwell was dark and it had been quite bright outside, so it took Smee's old eyes quite a while to adjust to the darkness. He crept quietly down the stairs, and upon reaching the bottom, looked around the room for some sort of sign of the captain. As Smee stepped forward, suddenly something he had not expected touched his face. Smee jumped forward, into the room, startled, turned around, and looked up. His eyes adjusted then, and he found himself staring into what he could only assume was the second Lost Boy, though his face was warped beyond recognition.
The captain had always taken pride in his self-proclaimed affinity for torture, though Smee had never supported it. No information was ever gained, for the fact was that the captain's victims were always in so much pain that they could never talk. This particular victim was hanging on a large hook attached to a chain on the ceiling. The hook penetrated the back of the boy's head, right above the neck. Both his eyes were gouged out and all of his teeth had been pulled and stuck down his throat to swallow. His bare chest was covered in deep, bloody trenches of flesh where the captain had taken his instrument of pain and carved out his anger. The thing that Smee noticed the most, however, was that the right hand of the boy had been cut off, and was lying in the pool of blood below his hanging feet.
"Youth." The voice startled Smee and he turned around to see the captain, dressed in his finest. A clean red coat with a white lace shirt. Golden buttons and brass hooks scattered about in a seemingly useless, yet fashionable manner. His long, curly, jet black hair was combed down to his shoulders. His eyes were of the most collected-yet-maniacal dark brown and they glowed and reflected in the sharp, silvery hook in the place of his right hand. "They don't quite bounce back like they used to. I presume the other body has been taken care of?"
"At the bottom of the ocean Cap'n," said Smee, quietly.
"Splendid," replied the captain, "this one shall be a gift to the mermaids in the lagoon." He looked over at the body for a while, as if studying it. "Truly pathetic creatures aren't they?"
Smee had heard the captain say this before, and knew that only one response would do. "Aye Cap'n," he said.
"Very well, Mr. Smee, head back upstairs and find someone to get this cleaned up." Smee turned to go. He wanted nothing more than to be out of that room, away from the horrible mutilated body at the foot of the stairwell, but as he turned to go, the captain, Captain James Hook, said something completely unexpected. "Smee," he said, "what do you remember about the Otherworld?" Mr. Smee, old and wise, turned and faced the captain, a man he had known for years, generations.
"Very little Cap'n," he said, "I remember..." At this he trailed off for a few seconds before continuing. "I remember my mother. She was kind and grew to be very old. She smelled of honeysuckle and sang to me, even when I was much older." Both men were silent for quite a while before the captain spoke again.
"Do you know why they call this place Neverland, Smee?" Smee said nothing so he went on. "It's because you can never escape. You and I are stories now. Not men. We cannot exist in other worlds or in any reality. We are symbols, Smee, and a symbol can never die. Neverland will always need a Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. These Lost Boys have no names. They have no stories. They are replaceable. They exist simply to add emotion to our story. Their deaths are tools, meant to separate us from the heroes." The captain moved over towards a porthole on the wall. "I remember the Otherworld. I remember the fear of death. Everyone went about their lives, lost, frightened. Afraid of their own mortality. We longed for a world where children never grew up and the elderly never died. In the Otherworld this boy would have been dead ten times over generations ago, living as long as he had. He just never grew up, Smee. I simply put him in his right place."
Mr. Smee thought. A thousand words rushed through his head, yet none seemed appropriate. The captain moved over to his desk and began to look at his collection of fairies. Like his torture, the captain took his collection seriously. The fairies all hung in a glass-faced box, pierced through the chest and wings with nails. Most were naked; however, some still wore pieces of the tattered cloth that most fairies wore. These were the ones that the captain found most beautiful, and he refused to present them in a defaming way. All the fairies had been properly identified and documented in the most organized fashion. Now, the captain looked at them as he never had before.
"Oh, Smee. What I wouldn't give to fly again." Smee suddenly felt very anxious to leave the room. He had stolen a bag of pixie dust from an abandoned Lost Boys hideout a few years back. Smee still had happy thoughts to think, and sometimes, after the rest of the crew was asleep, he would come up to the main deck with the bag and float away towards the moon with every intention of never coming back. But he always came back. Smee remembered much more about the Otherworld than he let on. He remembered the cities, the mountains, and the food. Most of all, he remembered all the wonderful books. Entire libraries full of stories and information. He even remembered how to get back. Second star to the right... But he couldn't go. What the captain said was true. He wouldn't exist in the Otherworld. Everything he knew would be dead and decayed. Dust. Everything would be gone but Smee, alone in a world that had forgotten him.
“How many times have we been through this, Smee?” said the captain. “How many times has the story been told?” Unsure of what he meant, Smee looked inquisitvely at the captain. “He comes back with the intention of fighting pirates and having fun. He brings along a mother to care for him and tell him stories. Then we find her and take her. His fairy sacrifices herself...” At this he drifted away and slumped down at his desk. “Maybe we need a new plan Smee. We are governed by a set of rules created by a ten-year-old who has lived much longer than ourselves. And when they tell the story, our story, they'll leave this part out. Captain Hook is a villain, Mr. Smee is a dimwit. And the boy will be the hero.” Then he put his face in his hands and said, “You can never escape.”
Suddenly, Smee felt a bit more cheerful. He thought of the bag of pixie dust. “No. No Cap'n. There is a way. We can go back. We can be men again. Forget the boy. Forget your hand. Forget Neverland. We don't have to be just characters Cap'n. We're people. We can learn to live again.” At this the captain, Captain James Hook, stood up and reached for his hat.
“No Mr. Smee. There is only one way that I can be free. The Lost Boys flew here Smee and the secret to flight is happy thoughts. Those boys have something to be happy about. He's back. There's a way I can fly yet, and it lies in that boy. We will dump the body at the lagoon and wait for him there. Load the cannons. We will find him and we will shoot him down. This time will be different Smee. This time he will be mine.” The captain put on his hat, strode to the stairs and pushed the hanging boy out of his way. Some bone snapped and the boy slid off of the hook, landing on top of the severed hand below. The hook glistened with with blood. Captain Hook walked up the steps and opened the door at the top, charged with the thirst for revenge and the curse of immortality, leaving Smee alone with the body in the darkness below.
“All hands on deck!” he cried, “Avast! We have work to do.”