Branches bent rustlingly, then snapped back again, and the murmur of offended leaves died out at some point, joining the muffled sound of their footsteps on the forest floor. They walked for quite a while, and the forest enclosed them tightly and mercilessly. Everywhere nothing but dark patches under the dense green, tree to tree, and only now and then smaller clearings, which they first searched suspiciously and then carefully crossed.

Every rustle made them pause in alarm, and Peter clasped the handle of his dagger tightly, which seemed much smaller and less threatening in the man's hands. There were enough adventurous dangers on this island under normal circumstances. Now, however, they had to constantly reckon with a creature like the one before attacking them from the shadows, which had become noticeably darker and blacker than usual. That was another reason this was anything but an easy walk, even before they reached the first cracks in the earth. The closer they got to the mountain, the worse it got. Trees had been uprooted. They lay crisscrossed as if an angry child had torn them out. They had to bypass some places because hissing; pungent fumes were coming up from the depths.

"Come on, it's not far anymore," Peter kept saying, holding her hand firmly and securely. He helped her over the fallen giants of the trees, hovered with her over those they couldn't avoid, and confidently guided her over a fallen redwood above a maw of glowing lava when she was frozen with fear. "I am with you. I'll always catch you," he kept promising her, and somehow, it calmed Sitara. Peter's nerves and muscles were tense.

"That's the way out of the forest up ahead. There are already the foothills of the Never Peak mountain!" Peter explained to her and quickened his pace. The adventure was in his blood; you could tell with every step. And yet something had begun to drag this boy in the last hours and days to something he never wanted to see in himself.

The forest cleared ahead of them and faded into flat land. Sitara swallowed hard, and Peter's features hardened at the sight of the mountain, for from here, they could see the huge fissures in the otherwise immovable grey rock. They cut through the rock everywhere, had loosened debris, and in some places, the waters of the underground springs, previously trapped in the mountain, flowed out into the open. Where they met lava, the wind drove away huge clouds of smoke. Never before had Neverland looked so ... broken. And all this was just the beginning.

"We have to find a star before the volcano inside the mountain erupts," Sitara said anxiously. If they did not reach the chambers under the mountain before the liquid fire or the waters perhaps flooded them... then all would be lost.

☆

It was anything but easy to recognize the old entrance. Eventually, however, they discovered it in a hidden crevice. Sitara knew that the fate of the island depended on them alone. Still, she felt a sinking feeling as they plunged into the darkness of the mountain.

For the first few meters, it seemed like a simple crack in the mountain or a cave like any other. After that, however, the walls became smoother, visibly hewn, and worked. Still, it was damp, cold, and dark. It smelled of moss and mushrooms, and one could hardly make anything out. A soft splashing sound of an underground spring drifted towards them from somewhere. After a few meters, the last vestige of light that would have filtered in from outside was completely engulfed. The only thing that guided them now was the glow around the star, whose white glow made the grey-white walls of the mountain shine damply. Because it was safer, Peter led the way with his dagger, the dull glow at his back. The further they got into the mountain, however, their steps became increasingly slower and noticeably less ... motivated in view of the pitch-black darkness.

This did not escape Peter's notice either.
"Are you all right?" he murmured softly. He dropped back a little to walk beside her and watched her features anxiously. It could be her light, but she seemed paler than before.

Panting, the frail star ran his hand over his forehead, wiping away a few drops of cold sweat.
"I am a star. We don't belong underground ..." she murmured softly. It was the narrow walls and the path that seemingly spiraled endlessly, only lower. Her gaze flickered back to where they had come from, and the light was engulfed, then back to him and the path ahead of them. She felt shabby at the thought that she was usually enthroned there in the sky with so much power and the self-assurance of many millennia, and now felt like a... stupid, inexperienced girl. For some reason that Sitara couldn't explain and whose origin she couldn't find, the star didn't want to disappoint Peter either. Maybe that was what was still a wee bit edgy in her stomach.
'Stupid Feelings,' she thought, hoping she would return to the sky quickly. They were the guardians of this world, and as such... feelings shouldn't be a concern. Not like this.

"I understand..." whispered Peter understandingly, reaching out, as a matter of course, to intertwine his fingers with hers again. "Then stay close to me."

Her hands were cold, noticing the slight tremor that weighed down his star's steps as the endless darkness finally surrounded her on all sides. In this darkness, every step, every breath seemed to echo treacherously loud on the walls. Tense, heart pounding, she put one step in front of the other as they pushed further into the depths.

Suddenly Peter's fingers gripped the slender limbs in his hand a little tighter and squeezed them gently.
"Sitara! Look, there's light ahead!" he said, pointing to the end of the now square corridor. Automatically, her steps quickened faster, faster, until they were almost running. What would be waiting for them there? A new obstacle? One or more stars that could finally mean their solution?!

But they both stopped as if rooted to the spot when they stepped out of the passage. A kind of antechamber opened up before them in front of a large, wooden gate. Behind it shone something they could not yet make out. Whether this antechamber had been created by the stars or carved into the stone by the natives, Peter could not say - and the adventurer was not interested. Instead, the Neverland hero's every further thought faltered at the sight of the horror that revealed itself to them.

The gate - or what was left of it - was half on its hinges. Parts had broken off and lay wildly scattered everywhere. Blackish marks quickly suggested or foreshadowed what had happened. Of a bloody battle of pirates, with barrels full of tar. Indigenous people who had arrived too late and whose wails had turned into cries of blind rage. They could now be seen everywhere on the walls and the stone floor: the collapsed bodies. Individual limbs or even just skulls and bones gnawed down to the white of the bones.

On some, you could still make out most of the decayed jewelry that had not been destroyed by the ravages of time and ground to dust. Although it must have been ages ago, the strange passage of Neverland's time had probably proved her waywardness here too. Some things had decayed, or probably would if touched - other remains seemed even newer as if it had perhaps only been decades ago. As if this place itself wanted to remember what had happened here.

The ground had a disgusting coloring. A mixture of red and grey ash, Peter crouched down to press his fingertips into a little of the mass and bring it to his nose. As expected, he screwed up his face before standing up, his expression ironing and hardened.
"Tree sap, blood, tar, and ash," he told his companion in a dark voice. "We.... should go around and avoid these spots," he suggested thoughtfully. "We must hope they haven't found what they were looking for."

It was a gruesome image, and yet he had seen so much in his life that it did not frighten him as perhaps it should. It was only then that he turned his gaze to the young woman at his side, as the thought occurred to him that SHE had only ever watched unconcernedly from the night sky ... and her expression pressed like a fist into his stomach.

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