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Has anyone every truly believed in Peter Pan?
When you were young and you first saw Peter and Tinkerbelle flying across the night sky, I'll bet you believed; believed in flying to that second star to the right and on 'til morning.
As you grow up, you'll learn more about the real world. I do not like the real world. It's full of death and abuse, selfishness and cruelty.
Every night I look out my window; hoping, no, praying to see a young man staring back at me; asking me if I have seen his shadow.
My dreams bring me to Neverland. Where mermaids swim the pirate-infested waters, where you can dance all night with the Indians and never, ever tire, where there's always a warm, strong chest to curl up against when you sleep.
At eighteen years of age, John had seen both his older sister and younger brother grow up and begin to forget Neverland.
He'd watched as Wendy grieved her lost childhood, her first love, and as she moved on to other things and people. She was married to the man of her dreams, living in a cozy little house, and expecting her first baby soon. Wendy was going to be the best mother a child could have, John was happy for her.
And little Michael had certainly made John a proud older brother; he'd grown into a natural leader. The captain of his polo team, mathematician club, and had already planned for college and beyond. Michael wanted to impact the world around him for the better, to show people what they could be if they'd only try.
But John had remembered; he remembered every detail of his time in Neverland. The first thing he'd done when they'd returned home was write every tiny thing into his journal. He'd written about the flight, meeting the Lost Boys and the Indians, and their constant fights with the Pirates and their leader, Captain Hook. But, most of all, he'd written about every encounter he and Peter had.
It made him sad to remember what he no longer had and he tried hard to keep the memories he had of Peter happy ones. More often than not, he was unsuccessful; he'd lie awake at night, silent tears creating silver tracks down his face in the moonlight.
John had tried; really he had, to move on after Neverland. After his failed first, and only, relationship, he hadn't been able to connect to anyone in that way. Every person he met, he compared to Peter; from the way they moved and spoke, to their personality and treatment of the people around them.
He'd finished school and had started working for a friend of his father, a Professor Kirke. He'd made friends while at school, but they always seemed to vanish whenever school let out.
John Darling felt like he was alone in the world, with no one he could turn to, no one to talk with or to give him comfort. He was, quite possibly, the loneliest boy in all of England, and the constant weight of that loneliness was slowly draining him of life.
'If I could have one wish, it would be to return to Neverland.' John thought as he raised the gun.