A Pirate's Life for Me--Jenna

A long time ago I followed him. We all did. He was my idol. He said it was for our sake that he took us, he did it to protect us. We all believed him. He could do anything, everyone on the island loved him, how could we not? At the beginning I believed it was for the better. My parents were always fighting, I was going to be starting school in a few weeks and Neverland didn’t have parents or school. It was an endless summer without rules. What kid wouldn’t want that?
I was one of Pan’s favorites from the beginning. I soon raised in the rankings and in no time I outranked everyone and was Pan’s second hand boy. I helped him with everything. I would even go back to the mainland and spend a few days there searching for the child most in need of our help.
I love Neverland. Whenever I wasn’t with the other boys or Pan, I was out exploring the island. I spent long afternoons with the Indian Tribe. I wanted to learn more about the island, why didn’t we age, why was Pan the only one that could fly, and why did the fairy follow him? The Tribe told me that, until recently, the legends of the island didn’t include Pan. The island had its own source of power and magic that Pan had figured out how to harness. The tribe leader said the mermaids were the ones to discover the island and that they would know more about it than him. So my quest for knowledge led me there.
The mermaids were very informative. They said that the island’s magic was more of a curse than a blessing. When the island was first discovered, it was uninhabitable by humans. The mermaids believed it was because humans had destroyed any magic they had come in contact with. However a fairy had a debt to be paid to Pan, he used her magic to make the island habitable, but the fairy tried to preserve the islands magic source by only making it habitable to children. An adult who spent too much time on the island would begin to go insane. Pan however didn’t want to live here alone so he found the islands magic source and harnessed it to steal children’s childhood, freeze them where they were, never let them age. All so he could have company. The mermaids told me that Pan was stealing the magic from the island. He used it when he flew, he had however figured out the the future life he stole from the lost boys could be used to generate magic. So that's what he did. Whenever the magic on the island was running low, Pan made a trip to the main land to ‘recruit’ another boy.
When I returned to the treehouse that night, I told Pan that I was just playing pirate with the mermaids. He didn’t question me and still let me tag along on his trips to the mainland. However now I was more aware of the trips. I noticed before the trips, leaves began to change from lush and green to dry and brown, flowers stopped blooming, the sun wasn’t as bright and the days were shorter. Then we went to get a new boy and the island returned to it’s lush greenery and long summer days.
As the time went by, the island soon began to change faster and our trips more frequent. Pan spent less time searching for the boy living in a bad home and just looking for an open window so we could return quick.

It was on one of these trips that Pan’s shadow tried to escape. He let it leave not thinking much of it, but he soon realized that he couldn’t enter Neverland without it. It took us a week to find the dang thing, and when we finally did we barely had enough magic to get home. The island didn’t change back right away this time. The days stayed short, the weather turned cold and the leaves changed color. Pan left for the main land a few days later, he left me behind and took the fairy with him. This time he returned with twins.
Once he got back, the fairy and him seemed to be fighting. I asked him what had happened and why he took the fairy this time, and he confided in me. He confirmed what I had learned and told me that he used the fairy’s magic to make the trip, the islands magic was too low. He was gloating. Pan was proud that he could work around his issues, use others for his gain.
It was then that I decided he was taking advantage of Neverland and everyone who lives here. I confronted him and vowed to stop him. His personality changed in an instant, he laughed in my face, said I would never be able to. Our verbal fight soon turned physical. Pan had the upper hand, and as a result I lost mine. He let me live but banished me from neverland to the sea.
I have been unable to set foot on the island for fear of going mad and forgetting who I am and what I’m fighting for. Pan is brainwashing boys, making them his lost boys, his army to fight against me. I have created my own army, other lost boys to fight with me. I am no longer a lost boy, and neither are they. We have found each other and share one common cause: to stop Peter Pan. Before I came to this island I had a name, but I can’t remember that now. Everyone just calls me Hook.