Six years have passed and the island still haunts him. Everyone is a reminder. Can Jack Merridew overcome his past and forgive himself? Eventually becomes JackxRalph
A bit of a cheesy summary but it'll have to for now. Anyway.
Welcome to a story I finally agreed with. Anything prior ended up scrapped so with this, bear with me.
Yes this story involves slash. Turn back now if you so choose but let me just say that it's not my main priority to this fic.
I began writing this about a year ago and made several edits since. I hope you can at least get some enjoyment out of it.
Pairing: Jack Merridew/Ralph
Genre: Realistic fiction, Drama, Romance-ish. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.
POV: Jack Merridew (third-person)
Disclaimer: Everything and anyone belongs to William Golding, save for my OCs
By all means, do enjoy reading. :)
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It was when the crying had stopped that the tangled mess of former, tidier British schoolboys truly left the island behind them. It was ancient history and soon to be forgotten. At least the majority of them hoped. Some littluns had already shut their eyes and began to dream of home, letting the future catch up to them as if it never left. It is remarkable how quickly youth forgets, even when a traumatizing event manifested to enslave the mind. Are they still innocent, after every boy believed they had lost their childhood? Had they not been permanently bruised? Perhaps not all of them. Perhaps that was an illusion; those boys who claim to have already let the past remain upon the desolate, ever-burning island. The island that casted flames held countless downfalls and as it sat there, clinging to every branch it scorched and melted, the flames flitted, wavered, back and forth in such mockery, a tease bidding them adieu -the white flag - at the same time predicting this won't be the last time they'll see this power, this flame that took what was once the beauty and dawn of childhood, of boyhood, of innocence.
For some, it was the best experience of their life and they could set the memories aside into a small book, never to be published, never to be read, never to be remembered. It would sit there for the sole purpose to collect dust. No one should have to read such a horrible story. May as well call it a myth. Others, however; the other, much older boys who had the brain and the knowledge to never forget, were the ones to lie awake at night only to be escorted through hell and back, reciting what had happened, what deaths occurred, what breaks of what used to be such a promising friendship… They would never be able to fill in the hole the island carved into their heads, eyes, hands, those sticks pointed at both ends.
What had happened on the island now sitting in inferno was a series of disagreements: the want for rescue, and the want for fun. Civilization and chaos. Every side has a lead, and for each side of the argument holds one host. One who thought he was doing the right thing all along, while the other, who opposed him, said that every boy with English blood on this island should be celebrating his days of freedom, without that watchful and strict eye of an adult. He said have fun, eat freshly hunted meat; let there be piss and vinegar. On the island, this boy whose views on the world he established himself, indeed a direct one, required a dormancy of saviours. All those who said nay had been prematurely cut-short as a punishment and lesson for those who were to think similarly as the opposition. It was never like that at first: it was never intended to twist to such a violent level. But when it had reached its peak: everything lost all control. People were dying, targeted, malevolently chased. However, their stance was innocent, those who opposed the tyrant who promised happiness, entertainment, and food. Moreover, this tyrant had a name that could manifest as taboo if anyone were to care to remember him. He who detached away from his fellow hunters that didn't seem too 'fellow' any more; he immediately continued to break down in his room, or cabin upon a ship that rocked spitefully for him, back and forth, another mockery set to his demise.
Jack Merridew.
A tyrant who suppurates at his failure. Does he doubt his power now? How can he not? He led a bunch of boys whose voices of angels transformed into blood-curdling screams of murder. Teaching these kids the way of a hunter had been like raising a child: a delicate process that can never reset. Merridew raised them to be beasts, to be animals, to embrace their savage side. However, he wasn't even aware of it himself. Therefore, he sits underneath his mate's bunk upon a cramped and rusting metal-frame, a mattress that was below passing. Flat and stiff like a hardback book. The middle and corners were stained in indecipherable marks. Merridew had too many worries to digest. The bed creaked at every move he made: a wake of melancholy.
He had his elbows propped upon the tops of knees, letting two eyes nestle uncomfortably in a pillow of palm. Tears gushed through the corners of his eyes, a puddle in the depression of each palm, overflowing and spilling, descending his forearm without any mind. Each puddle in his hands played with his eyelashes, stinging his thinned skin.
This narrow room crawled with darkness: night had arrived once again. The moon was up, waning; shined through the only minuscule rotund window. The thick glass aligned with multiple layers, rejecting outside waters from entering like an unwanted guest who would overstay their welcome that was never truly welcomed. The lunar lighting easily bathed the entire room in a bright grey tinge that emphasised looming dust. Just another element to drop Merridew down a few more rungs.
He wasn't alone. From Merridew's position, numbly could he hear the very dull breathing of children who were not too much younger than he. They breathed in almost soundlessly, and exhaled smoothly with a soft gentle noise any mother considered the sound of angels sleeping. But were these children really angels like what they had been prior the island, Jack thought to himself, if he were really paying that much attention to those dreaming kids? However, the orchestra of inhales and exhales reminded Jack that he was tired, too. His tears were already drying, leaving a sad and very thin filament of salt and water. Merridew rubbed it off with the heel of his half-dried hand. He gave up shortly after, but the thought of it, those morose tear stains upon his skin, he knew, it would be a reminder when he'd have to wake again.
In a slow unsteady manner, the boy stood from his bunk, hearing a soft puff right at his feet. His startled and dry gaze snapped behind him, and only for a second had he been fooled believing the item was actually a creature. However, it was a towel he had showered across his shoulders and back. He found it somewhere within the ship. It wasn't anything important: so the boy took it as an odd comfort.
Now he stared at it like it was a monster: a wrinkled and fuzzy white mass that stayed motionless upon the cold of the floor. Merridew broke his attention away, walking out of the room into the narrow corridor of the ship. Here connected all the rooms to some of the other boys resting within. Only then did Merridew feel truly isolated, and didn't even know why. In bare feet, he searched for a washroom.
He travelled blindly through the ship's corridor, opening and closing doors, hoping he could find the right one eventually. He had already swung one open, quickly scanning through until he felt safe, and entered the vacant cramped cube.
Near the toilet smelled of something sickeningly undecipherable. Merridew ignored it instantaneously when a figure shifted within the room. Instinctively, he twirled round on fast heels, ready to pounce, with arms flung high and bent defensively. His eyes darted to where he last saw movement. Nothing. Like what any hunter shouldn't do, Merridew relaxed his guard. This room was too small anyway, he consoled to himself.
When returning toward the sink, the creature did the same. Jack snapped to it, ready to kill, but then, staring back at him was a human face. It sent daggers of fear down Merridew's spine and numbed his toes and fingers. His ears could no longer hear and blood pressed against the back of his eyeballs, dimming his vision into grey. He didn't dare blink, he couldn't look away and neither could the brokenness of the creature: their eyes were sealed.
Merridew desperately groped for his pocketknife hanging upon the remains of his corroded shorts. A furrow of concern between his russet brows and he glanced down at his hip: Missing. A memory panged throughout his head: the officers had confiscated it. Merridew hadn't felt so exposed in all his life. He felt defenceless and utterly useless. No knife: the key item that had kept him living so long as he had. The item that kept everyone he knew living. The boy gritted his teeth spitefully.
He snapped his attention back upon the beast who returned just the same. Jack knitted his brows together, confused, as did the beast. What was this thing? Why did it keep following his every move? Was it his shadow, or was it another mockery? A beast doesn't mock his victim…
Merridew, out of sheer bravery that surprised even him, drifted his dirtied hand up to the creature's solemn face that mimicked. They connected. The boy flinched off from blatant and bitter coldness against the creature's own grimy hand. His eyes morphed into that familiar mix of fear and malevolence as they darted back up to the creature. It too stared at him in the same way, holding onto their wrist as if it had burned. Confused, Jack stood straight and approached again curiously. The thing did the same. Jack came up and made contact with it again. It frowned as Jack frowned. It stared as Jack stared. Familiar freckles mapped out in its skin, blue eyes that stared sharply and coldly in return. A great mop of dirtied red hair, reached down enough to tickle his shoulders. His skin so dark, it was unfamiliar. It wasn't really a beast, he realised. It couldn't possibly be.
It was him.
A mirror.
The tears began to well up again. He wept without control. He forced his hands heavily upon the rim of the imperfect sink, allowing his tears to plummet from the tip of his tall nose and land into the bowl below.
It didn't take him long to get fed up with his own crying: he suddenly turned the tap and let the water rush from the pipe. The white noise of water engulfed the secluded room, filling his ears and distracting him: he was glad for once. He ran his hand beneath the heart-stopping iciness, his other hand following close behind. Already numbness settled. He bent closer and promptly shoved a crash of icicles onto his face. Burning, then cold. His tears were dead for sure. Merridew wiped himself dry with the towel that sat behind him.
When he had finished, the redhead stepped out into the empty corridor. Once again, Merridew felt completely alone. Retracing his steps and returning to his room, Merridew tossed his body onto his creaking mattress which creaked what seemed like its loudest and stirred at least one of his roommates in their slumber.
It was completely miserable on this thing. How did the others sleep as easily they do? Maybe they had comfortable beds?
The boy shut his eyes in spite and attempted sleep. As soon as his eyes closed and was about to nod off into a light sleep, memories manifested in front of his shut lids.
...
An artificial gust blew against their morose, tear-stained faces, forcing a shiver, the air slightly warm but thick. All the children, including Merridew, climbed down the narrow stairwell of their rescue ship silently as if being tested: no sign of fun or glee, taken away from a world filled with chaos to a ship of sophistication. Almost everyone kept their eyes downcast as feet followed other feet, forming a train of boys; stepping into a thin, metal passageway. No one dared to break the chain and flounder under a surge of eyes that longed for a distraction. No one wanted to be that fool. Even the adults around the small of the deck kept quiet for the embarrassment of the situation. Their duty was to keep every one of them within their silenced line until they reached the vacancy of the second floor hallway filled with nothing but stagnant air. Empty walls painted simply by a sick shade of yellow that when peeled, the true colours of the concrete exhibited, like a skin diseased old man.
The lot of children clumped together tightly, and all as if one boy, they looked up shyly (or was it shamefully?) and saw a man in white, sailor suit and all standing erect within the centre of the besmirched hallway. They stared, the premature and disgraceful hunters, at the amazing uniformity that was this man. He brought such an aura of cleanliness, authority, honorability, awe, and power. Although all he did was stand on his own two legs, and did nothing more or nothing less, he appeared like a God staring down at these children who gazed back as if they were petty ants. No one dared move. The man stood with a hardened face and paused for what felt like a millennium. Too thick for speech. Out of expectations from boys who remembered to see elders as someone to respect, however; the man had to say something broad and commanding. He examined the lot one last time, pushing the limits as if he truly didn't want to cut the gnawing silence. No one moved. The air was still. Not even the other workers behind the children roused. Everyone was waiting on the commander, that naval officer. His hairy upper lip twitched.
"Uh," Is all he uttered to begin, and only then did everyone's eyes flicker and the officer found himself deeper into awkwardness as everything clicked onto him. His posture prohibited him to reflect on this feeling.
"Hullo… to you all." He sounded strikingly familiar with his unsteady, thorny speech. There was another pause – shorter this time. The officer examined the lot of dirtied boys again, a little perplexed by their appearances compared to him. He seemed to need an excuse to keep the silence. The man continued anyway, out of duty.
"You all will be riding on this ship," The man announced, which perked up his audience once more. "And we've got spare rooms, however there are few."
Another short pause. He kept examining every eye that gazed back at him with a dry look, somehow displeased, disgusted.
"As you might have already predicted, we have decided that the matter should be taken to a division of as few kids in these spare rooms as possible. Since most of the ship is occupied by our sailors, we've got limited room."
All of his words were concise and well planned, as if he had said them on several separate accounts. The officer took another pause to make a headcount. Once his idea pulled through, he stomped his foot once somewhat triumphantly, to regain the attention that never really left.
"All right. We've only two rooms available as of now, and there are fifteen of you. That means the majority will have to fill the only room we have that's left, and that being the mess deck; whereas only eight kids may fill those two spares. The rest may be placed into the mess deck, whereas those of whom will be taken to by my men. Without further ado: who says they are the oldest here?"
There was no response at first: a few kids rustling about, avoiding to make a sound, trying to concentrate a mute atmosphere. Then, about two long and vexing minutes later in response; one brave, long-haired boy shuffled slowly out from the grimy crowd that remained stilled even when he tried breaking through. The boy did not dare make a sound as his eyes remained glued to concrete floor, reaching the front of the crowd, presenting himself shyly. He peeked up modestly with a shy tone to his countenance.
"I-I am… sir."
Shortly after, another kid poked through the crowd, sort of shoving his way to the stage and he prodded out, not exactly proud, but trying to act as if he knew what he was doing. No one stared at him for long. The boy stood crookedly with empty hands and grotesque paints smeared across his otherwise naked skin, his head covered in thick, lengthy crimson hair beneath an undistinguishable black cap. A yard thither from the other eldest child, dared not to make any form of contact with him.
"All right then," said the officer when all was set and done and pointed his grey hair-filled nose up toward the ceiling as if dismissing the children. "Allow my men to escort you to your rooms by age, then."
The man scanned for his 'men' and when each of them came in eye-contact with the officer, they immediately sprang into action and began pointing the kids all in one direction past the officer. All this in silence.
Politely, the men escorted the majority of boys out of the narrow passageway into other hallways passed closed, iron doors. They left the eight remaining boys with sailors and the naval officer who, as soon as all arranged itself, left without a trace back into his world of usual work. The remaining few sailors shepherded the small mass of stained children into the dyads of rooms. All seemed swell and according to plan: kids from age eleven and lower all climbed into the mess deck respectively, where the floor was their bed. Meanwhile, kids eleven and older stacked into what rooms were available to them. Everything seemed fine except for one child…
"I'm not bunking with that beast!"
The boy from earlier shrieked from within one of the two cabins filled with boys. He battered frantically against the entrance door like an eagle stuck within a cage.
"He's going to kill me, I know it!"
Three sailors suddenly appeared, bursting the rounded door open and immediately stole the restless figure by the arms, off the ground, and everyone within proximity stared in astonishment and wonder as the boy wriggled round in a violent tantrum, kicking at the air and thrashing his arms. No one could peel his piercing, wide-eyed stare from the target in front of him. The target was another boy standing slump-back, as if they had an engagement together with beatings and fights. He stared malevolently at the other who played immaturely.
"He's going to kill me!"
The boy repeated, thrashing uncontrollably.
"Let me go!"
The sailors did not give, but did not move with only little knowledge. They kept their hold on the frantic and hysterical boy as he flung his limbs within their grasp. The boy was decently strong, but still no match.
"What on Earth is going on here?"
The room stopped. All eyes followed the call. It was the commander of the ship. He looked too serious. No one breathed.
"Must I repeat myself?"
There was no answer. Only one glare that wasn't meant for him. They shared a brief moment in a one-sided, silent battle of eyes until the man broke off and examined everyone's evading eyes. The boy with fair hair didn't dare move a muscle.
"Hm?"
The man piped up again in a sedated manner, trying to squeeze an answer out, mainly to the captive boy.
"I refuse to bunk with him."
The boy muttered after a brief pause and immediately, the authority glanced over at the child in question with red hair whose eyes hesitated to stare back. The man's upper lip twitched.
"All right then, fair enough."
He said in a final, brash tone.
"Send him off to the next room. Shouldn't be a problem. Come on, then. Go ahead."
At the command, the sailors had paused in cowardice, finally releasing the boy with long, fair hair. He did not attack at the red head like expected: instead turning around like the proper British boy he was and followed the sailors as they clambered down the hallway, out of sight.
"Will that be all for tonight?"
The authority quizzed at the room before him, not expecting an answer. And there wasn't: he walked off without a word with his fists cupped in each other behind him, accepting the reticence. Everyone's stares depleted as soon as the man left the doorway; they returned to a downcast like usual. The red head went crestfallen.
A/N: And that was chapter one. I sincerely hoped you enjoyed it. Reviews are always welcome. :)
