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Harry opened his eyes, snapping out of the depths of his dreams. The intense green color of the vegetation near the coast surrounded him. He was in the forest. His hands tried to support himself on the floor to get up, but he touched the glass.
“No…”
Harry looked around and his heart sped up. He was in the glass coffin. His hand desperately reached for his hook, praying that…
Yes!
In his pocket.
They hadn't checked what was on him. Harry grabbed his weapon, preparing to use it.
“LET ME GO!”
Harriet.
Harry tried to move and was met by the pirates who had served his father holding his two sisters. A mutiny. CJ was very still, her eyes on the ground, her head down. Harriet kept aggressive. She seemed to have given a strong fight and because of the group of men who were on one side, bleeding and gravely wounded, it hadn’t been easy to have her in that state. Three pirates were needed to hold her in place, and she was still putting up a fight. Harry smiled proudly.
Despite the circumstances.
“The sacrifice—” One of the pirates tried to speak.
“That's a bloody myth!” Harriet screamed louder. “A ridiculous myth started by Peter Pan and believed by you.”
Harry hid his hook again. Now he had a large audience. If he tried to do anything, they would simply open the coffin and take away his only method of escape. His eyes looked around him. The vegetation was tropical. Close to the rocky cliff where the mermaids played. If they threw him there, he could die by drowning or by the impact with the rocks. The sirens would do nothing. They didn't care about anyone but Peter Pan. All that was absurd, a ridiculous concept that a man had to be sacrificed every year to the mermaids so that they wouldn't attack the Jolly Roger. His father hadn’t believed in such ridiculousness. But after his death, some pirates began to believe that the mermaids, and not the alcohol, had killed him.
And now they had rebelled against Harriet.
Oh, and they planned to sacrifice Harry to the mermaids. That was also a relevant fact that he had to keep in mind. He was going to die.
“Is this to protect the ship?” CJ looked up at who seemed to be the leader among all the pirates. “Because if so...” She gestured forward. “Wouldn't it be better to give him to the sea witches?”
“CJ!” Harriet yelled indignantly.
On the other side of Neverland. Where the most dangerous creatures were. Some that not even Peter Pan dared to disturb. Harry frowned and looked at his little sister. But this revealed nothing. The men cheered and it didn't take long for them to lift the glass coffin and carry Harry to the new location. He fought to stay calm. Many things were uncertain in that glass box, but that Harry was low on oxygen was a guarantee. Harriet didn't stop fighting, to the point where she ended up tied up with ropes and dragged through the woods. She sounded animalistic as she vowed to kill them all. Harry knew she would obey. His eyes met CJ's, so steady and nonchalant. So different from who she was.
CJ looked at him and with her right index finger, she made a cross, as if marking the place of the treasure, right over her heart.
She had a plan.
CJ patted her pocket and kept walking.
His sister had been the one to put his hook there. Maybe the other pirates had confiscated it and CJ had managed to get it back.
The procession to his death reached the dark forest of Neverland. Where the sea was cold, and the sun didn’t shine. The pirates didn’t stop until they reached the new cliff. A higher one of black land and towards a more dangerous sea.
“Would anyone like to say a few words at the noble sacrifice of our admirable Harry Hook?” one of the pirates asked.
He wanted to laugh. And he did. A devilish, cruel laugh ripped through his bones, thinking how ridiculous this all was. A group of adults was going to kill him for following the games of a little boy who didn't even understand the consequences of his actions.
CJ walked over to the coffin, which was now in a position that forced Harry to stand on his feet and watch the fall.
“Fear not, brother. You are a Hook. The sea will embrace you.”
And CJ pushed the coffin off the ground. The last thing Harry heard was Harriet's piercing scream and the pirates' yells of glee.
Inside the coffin, Harry held his breath and forced his mouth to stay shut. The impact in the water shook the glass but didn’t break it. Instead, Harry floated a couple of times over the sea and slowly sank. The ocean was rough and the sky dark. That was the last thing he saw. The sea covered all his vision.
…and water began to seep through the joins of the coffin.
He caught his hook and began pounding the sharp point into the center of the coffin, searching for the weak spot. Harry fought to keep his breathing steady, even though the water was already over his knees and rising faster.
His hook pierced the glass.
But it didn't break into pieces.
Now the water came in faster.
“Dammit.”
Harry reached for another hit that widened the break in the glass. The water was already covering his chest, reaching his neck. His surroundings turned gloomy. At least his death wasn’t going to be slow. He was going to be pain-free before long. All because he didn't know how to use his hook effectively.
And in front of him, a tentacle encircled the coffin. Then another. The coffin stopped sinking. And Harry felt like the world had stopped.
A sea witch.
A figure formed in front of him. The owner of those tentacles wasn’t the kind of sea which spoken of in legend. She was an apparition. Harry forgot about the water rising to his chin and his impending death. In front of him was a seemingly terribly upset goddess. She raised one of her hands and rested it on the glass. Instinctively, Harry put his hand on the same spot. The goddess rolled her eyes and gestured for him to remove his hand. She formed with her finger, on the glass, two letters.
CJ.
Harry nodded and took his last breath before the water covered him completely. The goddess forced the coffin open. A tentacle wrapped around his waist and pulled him against her. Harry admired her dark skin and commanding eyes. Around her, her turquoise hair floated ghostly. Harry was lost in how big and strong he was. The goddess looked at him a second longer and began to swim away from the cliff, but definitely towards the surface. Harry found it harder to hold his breath because his heart was pounding.
Had CJ sent a goddess to save him? How?
And why hadn't his sister introduced him to such a beauty from the sea?
Harry went flying out of the water and fell painfully onto the rock. His lungs were grateful for the freedom, but his body resented the mistreatment. He spun around, trying to regain some balance, and his hook landed on his abdomen. Hopefully, tip to the sky.
“So do humans think that throwing cute guys into the sea will make them survive longer in this place?”
Harry was surprised that this was the voice of the goddess. For some reason, he thought that he wouldn’t be able to understand her and that it would be impossible to communicate. Maybe it was his lucky day. Harry admired her from the surface. The goddess was slightly submerged in the freezing water and shone in colors of turquoise and sea green. Her tentacles were the same color, moving in the water. Calling him. Harry found himself with the uncontrollable desire to go back to the sea and lose himself in her. The remote possibility of being in her vicinity made it worth the chance.
She had said that Harry was cute.
“CJ said not to be surprised if you couldn't talk,” She tilted her face. “I thought she was joking.”
“Harry,” He tried to give her his most attractive smile.
“I know who you are,” The goddess rested her hands on the rock and raised an eyebrow. “I know your little sister.”
“How?”
“She is a friend of one of my sisters on the father's side,” The goddess raised one of her tentacles and extended it in his direction. “Uma.”
“Uma…” Harry never thought he could lose his voice as well as gain it.
He reverently touched the tentacle in front of him, assuming it was like shaking hands. The tentacle had a long tip that wrapped around his wrist twice. The suction cups latched on to him without hurting him and then released him as they moved across his hand.
“Things have been difficult for your family since your father died, right?” The goddess sounded sympathetic to that argument and another tentacle grabbed his chin, forcing him to look away from his hand and into her bright eyes. “One catastrophe after another.”
“Mutiny,” Harry nodded, he fought not to narrow his eyes as he felt her take him by the neck.
“The same thing happened with my mother. Now my aunt is planning to attack the mermaid territory and it's going to be chaotic,” Uma shrugged. “Do you have any plans?”
Harry regretted that she moved her tentacles and released him. But Uma was right. The crew left him for dead. And obviously, he wasn't going to join the Lost Boys and Peter Pan. What could he do? He looked up at the sky. Back to the land without magic where his father had come from? Harry had grown up in Neverland, but he had heard the full repertoire of stories his father had to tell.
“You don’t know?”
Harry looked down to find Uma incredibly close to his face. She had risen from the sea. Her tentacles were on various parts of the rock to balance her and thus keep her partially in the water. Almost on him. Harry wanted her to. He longed to feel her entire body capturing him.
“I don’t know…”
“This place is not safe for me or my sisters. Our aunt wants us to keep our heads down, but we don't do it for anyone,” Uma explained with pride in her voice. “I want a fresh territory for us. And I've thought about it, I want the place where the pirates and Peter used to play games.”
“Battles,” Harry whispered, his eyes drifting to this goddess's lips and going up to her abysmal eyes. “They are not games. People die.”
“Humans die very easily,” Uma caressed his face, this time with her hand, and touched him as if she could break him. Surely, she would if she wanted to. “Help me take that territory. Be my pirate.”
Harry closed his eyes and smiled. Uma spoke as if he were an object, hopefully, an animal, that she required. But at the same time, she did it with a degree of protection, as if being hers guaranteed his happiness. Surely it was. Uma's fingers, wet from the sea, caressed his chin and moved down his neck to the edge of his shirt.
“You can stay in a hideout I found. It was probably used by a lost boy who ran away from Peter before returning to his world,” Uma played with the collar of his shirt, caressing his skin and his clothes as if they were the same thing. “What do you say?”
Harry remembered Harriet's screams. CJ's plan. His sisters.
“Can we recruit more people?”
“Do you think about your sisters?” Uma smiled proudly as if that was the only correct answer. “How loyal, Harry Hook. My sisters would hate me if I left your sisters out of this. They are fascinated with your sisters. And now I understand why. So, after recruiting other people, we can go after them.”
“Others?”
“Lost Boys who want to join me,” Uma smiled wickedly. “Of your age. Lost Boys who say they are willing to leave Peter Pan and come with me.”
Harry didn't find it strange that others felt as he did. Uma spoke as if she were going to give him friends to play with. Harry smirked. Surely, he would boil with jealousy over those Lost Boys and still empathize with them for following a goddess to their death.
“What do you say? Do you want me to give you a purpose, Harry Hook?” Uma leaned to him that her little nose nuzzled his. “Your eyes are beautiful.”
“Uma, take me with you to the depths.”
Uma laughed against his lips. He didn't even know how she had gotten even closer to him. But he wasn't complaining.
“You're crazy.”
“Until my last breath, I could give it to you if you let me go with you,” He confessed.
Uma laughed again.
Harry smiled. That hadn't been a no.