z

Young Writers Society


12+ Violence

Before Never Land

by ka67


I’m quite sure the story should not be told but a sad thing is everything slips out eventually. Even the existence of my son, his little story very different from my own. Don’t worry, you’ll learn in the end. It takes a very long time to write something such as this, being in my situation. Such a rough time, taking the time to focus a hand and then hide the papers with the mysterious writing.

Off of such a subject, I am afraid that the story of Never Land isn’t as happy as now, what with circulating stories, as it was when it began. I created Never Land, to escape such a thing as being old. It gave all those in it the ability to be eternal. I didn’t know the difference between eternal and immortal. It was my mistake. However, it didn’t happen for quite some time, centuries even.

I created my world, among the stars so only a certain few could reach it. I created it to such a preference only I thought I could truly enjoy. I crafted the most beautiful women, but eventually transformed them into beautiful mermaids, capable of no longer trapping me in a gaze where I would do such bidding, no matter the cost. Many beautiful women can do that to a man, or another woman.

I created the perfect hunting ground, full of game that would win hundreds of dollars back on Earth. There was no end to the trees and hidden places I could stay. I created another race, a pit of Indians on this island, an eternal fight of hide and seek, catch and release. Though I was very rarely caught, being a very sore loser and all.

Even then, it eventually grew lonely for me. I had the Indians, but I had no others and those who did not understand me. So I made some. I made a boy, a boy with rare hair, pointed ears and the ability to fly. A boy without a conscious, a boy who could grow but never grow old, the perfect boy anyone could ever covet. He was like a son, though I really didn’t have children.

Yet still, I did not want such a boy to grow lonely as I did. So as time passed, I gathered the dust of pixies, flying off and bringing him boys. Children to play with and spend time with, children who did not grow as he did, children who had nothing else other than a terrible and extremely short life ahead of them if I didn’t take them. So I took them, conscious clean and led them back to an island. I was always the father figure, and my word was always followed.

So my creation grew, slowly surrounded by young boys until he stopped. He could have been said to be 13 and no more, maybe less but it was of no matter to me. None of us were aging anymore anyway, so numbers were a thing of a different world.

For the last birthday, I gave my boy, my creation, something he had never had like the rest of us. I gave him a shadow, but it was a loose thing and extremely mischievous, just like my boy. It was always running off, wrecking the island but it was always fixed. I didn’t bother with discipline.

I didn’t think it would cause havoc, or lead someone with the ability to find such a place. I had not sent the rumors but those things appear on their own. A place among the stars where one may live forever, no aging till a terrible death awaits. A place of immortality and eternal entertainment, where a team of men together fought and eventually achieved such a journey, using that damned shadow. I didn’t blame it, but I hated it with a passion after such an incident occurred.

I would’ve welcomed them had they not come with a vicious intent. They had a ridiculous notion that I could reverse their age and make them young again! Which I could not of course, and if I had I would’ve done it to myself. Sadly, they didn’t understand and they turned from us, circling the island in a ship and becoming everlasting pirates. A giant kink in my neck to say the least but I took us all to the tree, an old tree with a crank in the biggest branch as if someone had hung themselves. Still, I had a cavern beneath there and it is where I hid us all. The Indians fared well, but I didn’t trust the children to understand death. They never had seen someone die and there was no memory of their time before here…I made sure of that.

Either way, I made sure to keep them hidden. The pirates were suddenly like a game though, and my creation enjoyed playing them like cards, even though I warned him not too. Still, off he went with the boys sometimes and played ‘save the brothers!’ They always came back, so eventually I stopped scolding them to quit it. It was a good game I suppose, and it never hurt them…so I just let them.

The problem, however, was the things that happened. My creation, as I have said, wasn’t created with a conscious. He was my first every making and I did indeed mess up. The playing was rough, costing the ‘pirates’ lots of scars and blood. Such things truly fascinated him and I didn’t say it was bad. I let him hurt the others, stopped when he was older than them and then moving onto the next older boy. I never scolded him and it was my fault.

He moved on, eventually, to other things that weren’t good either. He had a certain thing to him, an ability very similar to mine. He made things, like different game to slaughter or more mermaids. He made the princess of the Indian tribe. I didn’t stop him, I found it fascinating really.

And then he made the crocodile. That damned monster.

I heard first of it when pirates started screaming off the shores, especially the captain. The boy enjoyed making things with problems…and the crocodile’s problem was it always had this annoying ticking noise emanating from its innards. He had learned all this from Earth. He was really the only one who understands any sort of death. He had experienced it from Earth, seeing women and men, children and infants, animals all die and never show up the next day. I knew he enjoyed watching the problems evolve.

As the crocodile found its favorite meal, the old captain, the ticking increased in sound an tempo whenever it stumbled up said captain. Annoying thing, but always growing in size and only stopping when it could swallow the grown man whole. I watched from afar, never stopping it just watching it.

My creations abilities truly interested me, for them seemed to grow stronger though my boy never did himself. He kept creating things, making things and screwing things up as well. None of the boys could write, nor read so things of knowledge were never made. The only things created were those of entertainment.

Then problems made me take action.

The pirates had taken the princess and, in the end, taken her life. My creation was….furious to say the least. He flew in, his pixie creation as his side and was eventually captured by said pirates. His buddies went after him and they, too, were taken.

I was quick to step in, not enjoying the thought of my first thing being destroyed; though at the time I didn’t actually know it could be. Immortals cannot die, being eternal means you can die…only if you are fatally wounded. I didn’t know that could happen though I learned.

I marched up the rocks and, as the ship passed, I swung my sword and dropped down onto the deck. I marched across, watching the surprise at the pirates but not being attacked for there had been no command. I had marched right up the stairs and taken that captain by his stupid collar, slamming him up against a hard wood post and holding him there, glaring.

“Where is he?” my voice was dark, and it seemed to echo in the space around us. It was just the two of us for a moment, glaring each other down. The silence was shattered when that crazy old pirate began to laugh hysterically, shaking beneath my pressing arm.

“Oh, old man, you think I have him and all his fellow brothers? Think again!” he finished it by shouting it in my face. However, I knew that it wasn’t true. I turned my head as something caught the corner of my eye…and there was his blasted shadow. It was tiptoeing its way across the deck and towards me.

I dropped the captain, walking towards it and then reaching down and yanking up a trap door at the shadows feet. I tossed it back, taking a dagger from my shoe and throwing it down into the darkness. Immediately a sound of blade to rope began.

Within seconds a set of animal skins, the children’s clothing, emerged and stood behind me before the creation burst into the air with a roar exploding from deep within his chest. I looked up, frowning because he had never been so reckless. Then the children set upon the pirates, fighting them right before my eyes.

My boy was flying around, sword fighting with the captain with the upper hand by flying lightly in the air. I watched in surprise as the captains sword went flying. I watched it go before I heard a blood curdling scream. My eyes caught the delicate arch of blood flying through the air before I heard a sickening thud. My eyes cut back to my creation, grinning into the eyes of the captain. The captain, on the other hand ,was screaming as he stumbled back from a pool of blood, holding her arm to his chest and cradling his hand to his body.

Then I realized that ‘hand’ to his chest was just air. His hand was sitting in a pool of blood at my creations feet. I looked up, staring at his wild eyes as he launched forward, prepared to plunge his dagger into the captain’s chest. I heard the sound, sickening to my stomach, of a body driven through with a sword, that awful noise of smooth metal cutting into flesh, through organs inside and then exiting through the back.

Yet, when my eyes fell upon the pair it wasn’t the captain who was laying on his back, quickly laying in a pool of his own blood. It was my creation, my eternal and first true achievement. I let out a primal scream, darting forward and shoving pirates here and there, creating my own fountains of blood as my sword cut through each of them.

I lay at his side, my knees in the pool of crimson and soaking through, sticky on my knees. I leaned down, pulling him up into my arms and brushing his bangs from his face. He couldn’t speak, blood was pouring out of his lips and making glittering trails down his chin and dripping onto his clothing. I just held him, and soon the light had disappeared from his eyes…and his breathing paused, trying again before his chest feel and didn’t go up again.

Soon, the boy began to turn to dust in my arms, slipping through my fingers and being whisked away to who knows where. Maybe to become a star, maybe to lift up a pixie but in all honestly I didn’t care and I still do not. All I know is it was one of the worst feelings ever to see something so important slip away.

I stood up, turning to the captain and staring at him. I could kill him, but I was not one to do so. I didn’t kill people. So instead, I reached down. Before my boy had died, I had begun to hear that god awful ticking sound, and so I knew exactly what to do. Taking the bloody hand in my own, I marched to the edge of the ship and I hurled it over the edge.

And yet I stood up once more, marching my way off the ship. The others followed me, their heads hung low and in surprise for now their leader had disappeared. I knew something though, I was going to make a new one. I had to make a new one. There was no such thing as Never Land without such a boy, a mischievous, older boy.

So, I began again. I did everything as I had before, re-making a perfect thing. However, I knew better than to mess up this time. Still that had been my entire problem before. I had created something without the ability to think things through, or have empathy for its deeds. I still had no idea how to create such a thing.

So there I was, pacing night and day before I wondered. Could I give him my own? Would I be able to transfer my conscious to his mind and create him anew, without such a heavy flaw? And how would I do it?

I decided to die. It was my decision and I didn’t even think it was a bad thing. I had lived so long, and I would leave behind a legacy of some sort right? Of course, I had to believe that. So I took something with a name not worthy and I made it worthy.

I took my rope, making a noose and left the children surrounding the creation. He would surely awaken, and he would awaken with another thing his past self didn’t possess.

So, the second I started to jump, I whispered “Peter Pan.”


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37 Reviews


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Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:51 pm
wickedlygoodwriter wrote a review...



Hi!! To start off, very good story, you really captured the essence of Neverland and you gave us a reason of how everything was created. I liked your use of indirect characterization with the creator/narrarator. You have little punctuation errors here and there and a couple of tenses wrong but other than that I liked the overall "grownup" feel and such a childish story, good job.




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Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:29 pm
Vivian says...



Woo!!! Great story. Your right about eternal and immortal being different things, if you look at the definitions carefully you can tell. Since everyone else pointed out your other mistakes' I have just one.
"The captain, on the other hand ,was screaming as he stumbled back from a pool of blood, holding her arm to his chest and cradling his hand to his body."

The her, should be he right? Since it's the captain.




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Sun Jul 06, 2014 12:37 am
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Squall wrote a review...



Hey there.

I didn’t know the difference between eternal and immortal.


Pretty much means the same thing no?

I crafted the most beautiful women, but eventually transformed them into beautiful mermaids, capable of no longer trapping me in a gaze where I would do such bidding, no matter the cost.


This doesn't make sense at all. How can they trap you in a gaze like that? What bidding are you talking about? The narrator is the creator no? And also, she just transforms them into mermaids just because she feels like it?

I would’ve welcomed them had they not come with a vicious intent. They had a ridiculous notion that I could reverse their age and make them young again!


Hmm, so this person is able to make Never Land and be eternal, but can't reverse the age of some pirates? Do you see my problem with this? She is able to do one extraordinary thing, but not the other, so it's not very well defined as to what the limitations of her power. Also, is there a reason as to why she decides to leave her paradise open to the outside world? Isn't that asking for trouble?

Immortals cannot die, being eternal means you can die…only if you are fatally wounded.


No, immortal and eternal means the same thing. If you're immortal, you just don't die of old age, but a fatal wound can still kill you. Impervious is the word that you're after.

Overall impressions:

So your conflict in this was the battle between the pirates and the creations, but in my mind, that conflict should of never had took place. Now I don't know too much about the lore of Never Land, but there are some big plot holes in this. For one, how exactly are her powers defined? If she is able to create Never Land, be immortal and create things, then why can't she reverse the age of the pirates? Furthermore, why can't she just conceal her island from outsiders to avoid this whole conflict?

Let's say I gave you a benefit of a doubt and say that she can't reverse the age of the pirates, or can't conceal the island, why does your narrator + her creations think it's a wise idea to be playing teasing games with some very aggravated pirates? Aren't you just asking for a skirmish to start? You think it's appropriate to be playing games with some potentially dangerous people? Shouldn't there be some attempt at diplomacy at least? I can understand a skirmish being a final resort if both parties don't mutually agree on things are negotiating, but not when the creator + her creations think it's OK to rile some pirates up.

There are a lot of plot elements in this which are very under developed. It was never explained who the creator of Never Land is or what she used to be, and how she even got those powers in the first place to create Never Land and the denizens living on Never Land. Her motives for wanting to build Never Land are paper thin. She built it and became eternal so that she doesn't die of old age? The problem I have with that reasoning is after a while, she'll be extremely bored, being immortal and stuff, but can't live a normal life. A much stronger motivating factor is that you don't make her immortal, and say that she built Never Land because she wanted to escape the harsh realities of the world. That would be a much stronger reason, because we would then be able to relate to her more, and it doesn't make it seem as though she'll be trapped to limbo in Never Land for all of eternity (in other words, once she has retreated away from the real world for long enough, she can choose to return to reality once she feels she's ready for it).

Right now, this is incoherent to read. You did a lot of narrating (show, don't tell) but you left out a lot of explanation and logical sequencing of your plot elements. There are a lot of plot holes which you need to fill in, and some plot inconsistencies which you need to address. Hope you'll consider some of these issues if you plan to edit this.

Andy.




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Sat Jul 05, 2014 6:45 pm
dawny9791 wrote a review...



Hi! It's Dawny here for a review...

So first of all, I don't know of it was because I was reading on my phone, or if was because the thing was freakishly long, but maybe you could cut this into two chapters? I felt like I was just reading and reading, and there was no end.

But, back to the actual review, I loved how you wrote it. I loved how you described things, and how you knew the narrator's opinion on certain things, and then on others you had to guess what he thought of them. The ending was what really surprised me. The entire passage sounded as if he was writing to someone, and then all the sudden, he was dead, so he couldn't.

Okay, I'm not going to go in with things you need to fix, because they have already been said, so I guess I'm done..

Have a great day,

Dawny




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Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:19 pm
r4p17 wrote a review...



Knight r4 here to review this work and kick it our of the Green Room, ka. I certainly hope this will help you. The title of this story is what caught my attention. So I figured I might as well review it since it was in the Green Room. But let's get into the meat of the review.

I made a boy, a boy with rare hair, pointed ears and the ability to fly.
What to you mean by rare hair. Is it red, green, silver, or blue? I think you should make that clear.

A boy without a conscious
I think you meant to say conscience instead of conscious here, ka.

I didn’t bother with discipline.
Hmm...this sounds rather foreboding. I sense something isn't quite right here.

That damned monster.
Try not to use so much swearing.

I knew he enjoyed watching the problems evolve.
Sounds like the Main Character's son, could literally be a problem child.

He was really the only one who understands any sort of death.
Understands should be understood

None of the boys could write, nor read[,]so things of knowledge were never made.
The bolded word should be or, and the comma in brackets was not in the original text.

The pirates had taken the princess and, in the end, taken her life.
Since when was there a princess. She seems to have just appeared out of the blue.

He flew in, his pixie creation as his side and was eventually captured by said pirates.
This was riddled with errors. First you start of with he without giving any antecedent. Then you say "as" instead of "at". You also need a comma after side. Finally you say he was captured by "said pirates".

Immortals cannot die, being eternal means you can die…only if you are fatally wounded.
This is very confusing. You need to reword this and break it up.

Despite the many errors this was still interesting. But I think you should have had more dialogue. Sure this is cool to read if it is supposed to be a history book of a world, but it was almost completely told instead of being shown.

I am sorry if this was harsh, but there were a lot of obvious errors that needed to be corrected. Happy writing!!! :D




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Sat Jul 05, 2014 5:13 am
NafaKitty wrote a review...



Hi there, it's your friendly, neighborhood NafaKitty stopping in with a review!

I really enjoyed how you decided to write this, it truly fascinated me. I love the idea of it. Before Never Land, how Never Land was created. Brilliant, brilliant idea.

"or them seemed"
Slight typo there, "them" should be "they" but that's the first thing I've noticed so far. I'll probably go back over and read it again. Right now, I'm enjoying it.

"He kept creating things, making things and screwing things up as well."
There should be a comma between "things" and "and"

"creation as his side"
"as" should be "at" and there should be a comma after "side".

"Immediately a sound of blade to rope began."
This sentence confused me. I had to read it several times before I understood that it was the blade cutting through a rope.

"holding her arm to his"
"her" should be "his"

"I didn’t kill people."
He just killed several pirates to get to his creation, did he not?

Ok! So, there are some really repetitive things in here, like "creation" and "boy". Why did the narrator not give his "creation" a name at first? When he wished to speak, did he just say "Come here boy?" Maybe that's just me.

Some of it seems a little choppy towards the end, like you wanted to get it done quickly and be finished.

It really is a good narrative, I loved how you decided to write it. Fascinating indeed. As I stated before, I love the whole idea of it.

Please remember, all of this is my opinion and you can choose to completely ignore it all if you want, I won't mind! :)





Poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just don't get - and never would get.
— Benjamin Alire Saenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe