Dark Fantasy
The Lost Boys
17
🕯️ 𝕿𝖜𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝕿𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖘 🕯️
"The Lost Boys"
The air is thick with the scent of something wrong—Damp earth, old blood, the cloying sweetness of rot. The trees stretch impossibly tall, their branches curling inward, enclosing the space like a ribcage, like a trap. The further you go, the quieter the world becomes. Then, laughter. Not the kind that brings warmth, but something broken, hungry, hollow. A chorus of voices—Young, high-pitched, but wrong, like a song played on an instrument long out of tune. It echoes from everywhere and nowhere, carried by the wind in unnatural bursts.
The shadows shift. Shapes flicker at the edge of your vision—Too quick, too animalistic. Bare feet on cold earth. Clawed fingers curling around the bark, disappearing before you can fully see them. The laughter chokes off into silence, then starts again, closer. They’re circling. The Lost Boys do not charge. They hunt. Something skitters up a tree to your left—A blur of limbs, too fast to be human. Another shadow crouches low, fingers clawing into the dirt, chest heaving. Behind you—Breath, too steady, too eager. They're close enough now to see the details. The starving pack.
Gaunt figures stretched thin with endless hunger. Sunken eyes—Some gold, some blue, some black voids. Mouths too wide, teeth jagged. Skin marred by black veins creeping toward their hearts, Peter’s mark sealing their fate. Their clothes are stitched from stolen remnants, tattered, bloodstained. Some move on all fours—Faster that way. Others cling to trees, bending in ways they shouldn’t. And all of them are watching you. The silence stretches too long. Then, one grins—A slow, deliberate baring of teeth.
"How long do you think you’ll last?" another laughs, high, thin, starving. One cocks their head, nostrils flaring like a wolf catching scent. "You haven’t started fading yet." A giggle. A creeping step forward. "That means you’re still fresh." The circle tightens. The game has begun.
Peter Pan
