I woke up groggily, my head hurting. I tried to hold my head in my hand, but my hands wouldn't move.

I opened my eyes and looked down, the dim light causing me to open my eyes wide.

My feet were bound in front of me, my hands behind my back and tied to a pole.

I looked around and saw I was some sort of circular wood building, with bunks in the walls around me.

To my right, was another room. It looked somewhat like a kitchen, but in the dark it was hard to be certain.

I heard a noise to my left, and snapped my head around to look, grimacing in pain as I did.

A little boy stepped down from a ladder in the wall, leading to a series of bunks. He had unruly, curly hair; a Hispanic complexion; and long, thin fingers, covered in paint. In his hands was a knife and a block of wood.

The boy walked towards me, and then sat down just out of range, and proceeded to carve. How he did that in the semi dark, I have no idea.

"who are you?" I asked the boy.

The boy took this time, and sliced a long sliver of wood off the block before answering.

"my name is Fingers, but I suppose you pirates would know me as Bowerbird." he said, still carving.

"pirates?"

"pirates, buccaneers, privateers. Whatever you like."

"where am I?"

"our home. I'm guessing you wish to live so I won't tell you where it is."

"where is the rest of your group?"

"asleep in the bunks around you. Take a look. But be careful, one of the girls catches you staring and they'll put a knife through your eye." Fingers said, a little too cheerfully.

"Is this Neverland?" I asked finally.

At this question, Fingers stopped carving and looked at me.

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"what sort of question is that? Of course this is Neverland. Are you a new recruit or something? Did Cat hit you too hard? She tends to do that. Did you lose all your memories?!?!" the boy asked, with a growing level of excitement.

"wha-? No! Uh, my name is Victor Van Wolfe, but you can call me Branch. And I'm not a pirate."

"well if your not a pirate then how come your on Neverland?" Fingers asked, turning back to his carving.

"I went overboard during a storm, and got marooned here. My crew is still out there. I hope. " I realized I had no idea what happened to them after I went over. Did Clancy get the sail down? Did they all survive the storm? ....Were they looking for me?

My gut wrenched and the thought of all of them dead.

Fingers put down the carving again and looked at me. "you really have no idea how this works do you?" he said incredulously.

"How what works?" I asked.

I get the feeling that Fingers was a little annoyed by my ignorance from the way he slapped his hand over his face.

"how- okay. You can't get to Neverland by physical means, you need to wish to come here. "

"what do you mean by wish?"

"when you what something with all your heart, that's a wish. When lost boys come here, they go out into the woods for seven days, and call to the stars their wish to come here. The stars tell Pan, and he comes to bring them to Neverland. "

Something was still bugging me about this, "then how do the pirates get here?" I asked.

Fingers picked up the block of wood and kept carving. "they wish too. For them, Neverland is nothing but treasure and gold, so they wish with all of their little black hearts for all that treasure, and they end up here. "

"how do I- " I began to ask, but before I could finish, Fingers quickly leaned forward and reached his hand behind my neck and gently squeezed.

"sleep." he said, as I began to black out again. "I am not the one who can answer these questions. " and for the third time today, my mind went dark.

I might as well be Jason Grace at this point.