The Neverland Wars

Chapter 17

I don't sleep. The bed feels much too big and much too empty. And I'm freezing, despite the fact that I'm dripping sweat. Rolling sensations hit my body in intense waves, rippling through me as I fist the sheets, groaning in pain. It feels as though it lasts for hours. After the intense heat waves and body tremors come the dreams.

The smell of burning metal burns the insides of my nose, but I can't move. My legs are pinned by a section of the hovercraft: a row of seats that have me squished, completely immobile. I can feel blood trailing down the side of my face; I can taste it in the back of my throat. My head throbs. I try to cry out for someone, anyone that might be around to help me, but the smoke suffocates me, ripping my own voice from my throat. I think at some point I start screaming, crying, wondering how I could let this happen, wondering if anyone else is even alive.

Colors dance across my vision in psychedelic patterns, blinding me before shifting into a different hue. I'm not sure how many moments pass before the intense all-over pain I feel is reduced to nothing but a dull throb, and I'm convinced I'm dying.

This is it, I tell myself. I failed. And now it's going to cost me my life.

"The Pan," I hear a faint voice call my name. It feels far away; I'm surprised I can hear anything over the roar of my heartbeat in my ears. Something pokes my shoulder, making me squirm uncomfortably, but I'm unable to see any of my surroundings. I'm blind and almost completely numb to everything. A dead man.

I'm acutely aware of the weight suddenly being lifted off my legs, and I take what feels like my first full breath in awhile.

"The Pan," the voice says again, followed by the same poke in my shoulder. My hand shoots out, latching onto what is clearly someone's wrist, startling me.

"We must hurry," another, much softer voice says. I can feel myself get lifted off the ground by several pairs of hands, igniting a fresh wave of pain in my back.

"His wounds are more severe than we realized, Princess," the first voice says somewhere to my left.

"Grandmother will know what to do."

I pass out only to wake up what feels like moments later but has clearly been a considerable amount of time. My vision, although blurry, has returned enough that I can make out that I'm in some kind of hut, face down on a stone table, my cheek pressed against the cool surface. Something large, flat, and cool is placed on my back; maybe a strip of fabric or cloth? It's coated in a gel-like substance that is cooling at first, but is quickly replaced by an intense burning sensation. I cry out, trying to squirm away from the uncomfortable substance on my skin, but I feel hands on my arms and legs pinning me down, forcing me to endure the burning. A second strip is placed on my back, and a third, a fourth...so on, until my entire back is covered in the burning gel. Each strip hurts worse than the one prior; I'm held immobile full-on screaming in pain by the end of the process.

I feel someone's fingertips brush against my forehead, brushing my hair off my face, their skin much cooler than my burning flesh. The same soft voice from before speaks right next to my ear. "This substance is meant to clean your wounds, to prevent infection."

I nod feebly, trying to manage my pain level by taking deep breaths as the cool fingers grab my chin gently, turning my face to the side, exposing the bloodied side where I can feel the stinging of a fresh wound.

"We must clean this one as well," the voice says before pressing a strip directly to the opened skin on my face, eliciting a cry of anguish from my lips before I ultimately pass out.