Disclaimer: Do not own Lord of the Flies.
A/N: This is an alternate ending to the novel that I wrote for a project in English in tenth grade. I still really like it, and thought I might as well post it. Enjoy (or not)!
Standing Alone
Ralph lay in one of the shelters, wide-awake. He could hear Piggy moving about next to him, rustling the leaves. Samneric were tending the fire. Ralph stared into the inky-black darkness surrounding him, listening to a couple of littluns arguing about something and one whimpering about the Beast.
After a little while, all was quiet, including Piggy, who had dropped off to sleep. Ralph laid there, the only one still awake. He couldn't sleep. His mind was buzzing with thoughts like a pig carcass surrounded by black flies.
What could he do? There were only four of them left now to tend the rescue fire. They had to keep the fire going. It was the most important thing. But with only him, Piggy, and Samneric left, that was two of them doing twelve-hour shifts. It was too much for them. How long could they keep it up?
Could he maybe talk Jack into coming back, with the other boys? No, they wouldn't come. Jack refused to acknowledge Ralph as the leader, even though Ralph had been chosen as chief. Jack was enjoying being his own chief too much to come back to Ralph's group.
Ralph lay awake for hours, the same thoughts tormenting him over and over. Finally, well after midnight, Ralph felt a new thought enter his mind.
Come. Come to me, the thought beckoned him. Ralph didn't know where the thought came from, but he felt a strong urge pulling at him. Pulling him outside, into the forest. The logical part of his mind rebelled against the urge. It was too dangerous. The Beast was out there. He couldn't go into the forest at night! It was a ludicrous idea.
But the thought and urge were too strong and insistent. They overpowered and squashed his logical voice and Ralph slowly crawled out of the shelter and walked into the forest. No one was woken by his soft movements.
Afterward, he couldn't have said how long he walked, between trees and through briar patches. He walked in a dream-like state of mind, not knowing where he was headed or why. It could have been minutes, hours, or days by the time he reached a small clearing that had a stick pointing out of the ground in the center. On the top of the stick, there was stuck a pig's skull, grinning grotesquely.
Ralph dropped to his knees a few feet away from the pig's skull. He stared at it in horror and confusion. How had he gotten here?
But his attention was quickly distracted by a bright, white light that blinded him. Ralph threw his arms up and shielded his face from the light. After a few moments, the light dimmed and Ralph slowly lowered his arms. What he saw made him stare in amazement.
It was Simon. He was standing right in front of Ralph, dimly glowing white still. He was in the same clothes he had been wearing when they…when he had died. But they were clean now. And there was something different about him. It wasn't seen physically, but Ralph could distinctly feel something different, as if Simon was stronger or wiser.
"Ralph. You must listen carefully to me," Simon said. His voice seemed both quiet as a whisper and loud and deafening as an explosion. Ralph made no reply, but continued staring dumbly.
"Ralph!"
Ralph shook his head slowly and stammered, "Are you…are you…"
"Alive? No, I'm not alive again. I'm just here for a bit, to give you a warning. That was the deal. Ralph, you must listen carefully. All right?" Simon said, walking closer to Ralph. Or at least he seemed to be walking. It could have been floating or gliding or walking.
"All right," Ralph heard himself say slowly. He still felt as though he was in a dream, though he was unsure of whether it was a good dream or bad.
"Ralph, you must kill the Beast. If you don't , you all go mad and kill each other. It'll take over all of you and all hope will be lost. You must destroy the evil, Ralph," Simon commanded in a forceful tone that seemed too big for his small form. Ralph nodded slowly, then Simon's words registered in his brain.
"Wait, what is the Beast? How do I destroy it?" he cried. He felt the beginnings of hopelessness and despair start up inside his heart. But Simon walked over to where Ralph was kneeled on the forest floor and put his hand on his shoulder. Immediately, Ralph felt the hopelessness and despair leave his heart, and courage and strength came to replace them.
"The Beast is inside you, Ralph. Inside all the boys. But its control is in him. Jack. You have to kill him, Ralph. If you do, the Beast will release its hold on all the other boys," Simon said. Ralph stared at him.
"It's in us? But how? And how am I supposed to kill him?" he stammered. Simon silently stared past Ralph for a moment, then a slight look of panic came over his face. Ralph turned around, but there was nothing there but trees, weeds, and darkness.
"Ralph, I haven't got much time. But you must find some way to kill Jack. That's the second most important thing. The first is that, after you kill him, you must strengthen your heart. You have to only let good things fill your heart. If you don't guard yourself well, the Beast will enter you. You can't let that happen, all right, Ralph?" Simon said hurriedly.
Ralph didn't reply, only nodded. He was too busy trying to get his head around the thought that the Beast that they were all so afraid of was actually inside them.
"Ralph, you have to listen! You have to destroy the Beast! You have to make sure it leaves!" Simon called frantically. Ralph looked up at him, then panicked. Simon was becoming fainter, the light around him becoming dimmer.
"Wait, I need help! You can't leave!" he cried, scrambling to his feet. But Simon was leaving; his form was fading. Ralph tried reaching to him, but his hand went right through Simon's hand.
"You must destroy It for good, Ralph! You must destr…" Simon's voice faded away as his body did. Ralph ran after him, but then Simon was gone. Ralph tripped over a root sticking out of the ground. He fell to the ground, the breath knocked out of him. He looked up from where he lay, feeling as though he had just woken from a nice dream into a nightmare.
Right in front of him, the pig's skull grinned at him from its perch. Ralph let out a yell, scrambling back from it. His hands searched for a weapon, his fingers finding a largish stick on the ground next to him. He grasped it, then leaped at the skull, beating at it.
A few minutes later, the pig skull was scattered in pieces on the ground as Ralph gasped for breath. He looked around, expecting the nightmare to disappear, or at least become friendlier. But instead, the darkness around Ralph seemed to become darker and it pressed in on him, suffocating him.
Ralph ran. He ran blindly, hoping he was headed in the right direction. He only wanted to get away from the pressing darkness.
Finally he burst from the forest cover and collapsed onto the white sand of the beach. He lay still, exhausted, and finally passed into the comforting darkness of the sleep.
The sun's early morning brightness woke Ralph, squinting, from his bed of sand. He groaned at the painfully intense light, covering his eyes until he became re-acclimated to the light of day. He sat up and looked around him. He found that he wasn't, in fact, far from their camp. He had somehow, by luck, come out of the forest at a safe distance so as to not cause panic in the camp.
As Ralph looked back into the forest, his adventures in the night came back to him in full. He sat for a long while, thinking about what had happened. Was it real? What should he do? He couldn't kill Jack! Even if he could manage to get to Jack somehow when he was surrounded by his tribe, Ralph couldn't kill another human being!
You did it once. You helped kill him and you liked him. But you hate Jack. You could kill him easily, a sly voice whispered in the back of Ralph's mind. Shut up! Ralph furiously ordered the voice. He pushed the memory of that night away, back to the farthest nook of his memory, burying it from sight.
After a while longer of thinking, Ralph finally pushed himself to his feet. The others would be looking for him. It was his turn to watch the fire. He walked across the already scorching sands, but his feet didn't feel the heat. They had become hard and leathery from going barefoot since the crash.
"Where've you been? You were gone this morning," Piggy said as Ralph sat beside him near the small fire. Ralph just shook his head.
"We need more wood for the fire," Piggy said, pointing to the small pile next to him. It consisted of only one sizeable log and few broken sticks. Ralph nodded, then sighed and stood back up. For the next hour, he went through the forest close to camp, collecting dead logs and branches to feed the hungry fire.
Once they had a good-sized pile, Ralph sat back down next to Piggy. They were silent for a while. Piggy could tell that Ralph was thinking about something important and didn't want to talk. So he waited to be confided in. just when he was about to give up, Ralph opened his mouth.
"We have to get him. Jack. We have to kill him," he said in a toneless voice, void of emotion. Piggy blinked and stared in amazement; this wasn't what he had been expecting to hear.
"What? Ralph, we can't…" he started, but Ralph interrupted him.
"I know we can't. But we have to anyway. Otherwise we'll all either go mad or end up dead," he said, bitterness now coming into his voice. Piggy was silent for a moment, then asked, "When did you think of this?"
"Last night. And I didn't think of it. Or at least, I don't think I did."
Piggy waited for further explanation, but this time, he waited in vain.
"I'm not telling you what all happened. You'll just laugh or think I'm mad anyway. But this is important. If we don't get rid of him, he'll make the rest of them all mad too," Ralph said. Piggy nodded silently. Ralph continued talking.
"We'll go tomorrow. You, me, and Samneric will go up to their place. We have to take spears, be ready. They could easily get one of us with that great boulder if they wanted. We'll have to be careful. We have to make this into a one-on-one fight. Just me and Jack. Otherwise, the whole tribe'll be on me and I'll have no chance," Ralph went on, speaking his plans for the next day. Later on, Samneric woke up and Piggy and Ralph told them what they were going to do. They weren't any happier about it, but they knew it was inevitable.
All Ralph could hear was the whisper of the ocean wind and the crash of the waves on the shore. The four boys that marched towards the castle on the cliffs were dead silent. They didn't talk or make any noise. The sand muted their footsteps as they marched purposefully, dragging pointed spears behind them.
All of them were thinking about the deed that was ahead of them, particularly Ralph. After all, he was the one who actually had to fight Jack.
A few minutes later, they were climbing to Castle Rock, quietly and quickly as they could. Ralph was leading, Piggy behind him, and Samneric bringing up the rear of their small procession. As they reached the narrow rock path that lead directly to the castle, they were halted by a shout.
"Hey! Stop right there or I'll roll this little pebble down on you!" a savage in paint yelled. They stopped obediently, waiting to see if their mission would be stopped where it was. Another boy was sent off to get the Chief.
"What are you lot doing here?" Jack yelled down from his perch. Ralph looked up at him with hard eyes.
"We come to talk with you," he called back up. He was a bit surprised how easy the lie came to him. It's not really a lie. You are going to talk with him. You're just going to be using a spear instead of your voice, the sly voice in Ralph's head whispered.
Jack disappeared for a few moments, as he decided whether to allow them up or not. It would be safer to make them stay down there; if they showed any sign of threat, they could loose the boulder on them. But if they came up here, they'd be surrounded by Jack's tribe anyway. Jack could show Ralph who was the real leader of the island.
"All right, come up," he finally called down. Ralph started up the path again, a bit warily now, expecting a trap at the end of the path.
Sure enough, no sooner had they set foot on the flat top, then they were surrounded by hunters.
"You three, get over there. You lot, surround them. Make sure they don't move," Jack ordered. Sam, Eric, and Piggy were herded to a corner of Castle Rock and surrounded by a group of boys with fire-hardened pointed spears. They looked apologetically at Ralph; they wouldn't be able to help him now.
But Ralph ignored their silent apologies. He had known they would be no help to him anyway. This was something that only he could do. He gripped his spear tightly and warily watched Jack walk lazily around the rock.
"So, you thought you could just come up here and attack us, huh? Four against how many? You had no chance from the moment you stood beneath that boulder there," Jack sneered, nodding towards the great boulder. Ralph stared at him levelly, refusing to show any anger, as Jack wanted him to.
"I said we wanted to talk," he said quietly, keeping his voice as void of emotion as his face.
"Talk, huh? You think you're so grown-up, don't you? Well, you're not, you know. You're just as bad as any of us. You didn't come up here to talk everything out, nice and peaceful," Jack yelled, his voice and face hard with anger and contempt. He was trying to spur Ralph into defending himself, trying to make him angry enough to attack first.
But Ralph made no reply. Jack started circling around Ralph, his spear firm in his hand, ready for use. To keep him in sight, Ralph was forced to keep turning. The two boys ended up walking in a wide circle in the center of the group, warily watching each other.
The wind had started to pick up Ralph, Piggy, and Samneric climbed the cliffs. Now it was howling, bringing black clouds to cover the bright blue sky. There was a rumble of the distant thunder that was fast coming closer. Yet no rain fell from the sky.
"You think you're better than us, don't you? Act like we're wild dogs and you're a god! But you were there too. You pretend as though it was just us. But you were there, in the circle, reaching for him. You helped murder him. You helped kill Simon!" Jack yelled over the wind. This time, he hit a nerve.
"Shut up!" Ralph suddenly yelled furiously. He had resolved not to let Jack get to him, but this wound was a painful one, large and raw. Ralph's hand came up involuntarily, raising his spear. Jack smirked as he saw the spear come up. He had gotten what he wanted. Ralph was mad. But was he mad enough to attack Jack?
"What's wrong? That guilt biting at you, Ralph? You know you did it, but you still try to make excuses. How does it feel? How does it feel to know you murdered someone you were friends with?" Jack taunted, both boys still circling.
Ralph said nothing. He was nearly quivering, trying to restrain himself. He wasn't a savage. He wouldn't attack first.
Jack continued his emotional attack. His words thrust at Ralph like dozens of tiny spears, but still, he held himself back. The thunder, however, arrived above the island with all of its force. There was a deafening boom that shook the cliffs. Everyone looked to the boulder. It teetered on its perch for a few moments, leaning first one way, then another. Finally, it moved just enough, and its mass pulled it off the edge. The crash as it bounced down the rocky cliffs the sea below were nearly as loud as the thunder.
As Jack watched the boulder, Ralph considered his enemy. He knew he should attack now, while they were all distracted, but he couldn't. He wasn't the savage. He knew he had to kill Jack, but he wouldn't start the fight that led the death of one of the two boys.
Finally, Jack grew frustrated with the circling and meaningless talk. He could see that Ralph wasn't going to break anytime soon and he wanted some action, so he took matters into his own hands.
As Jack leapt into the circle, towards Jack, two sounds erupted. One was from the sky, a great clap of lightning split the sky and thunder growled. The other was from the boys surrounding Ralph and Jack. All except Piggy, Sam, and Eric were excited to see the fight start.
Ralph was ready for Jack and blocked his spear-point, shoving it to the side as he swung around the face Jack again. The boys regarded each other warily for a moment, then Jack pounced again. This time, Ralph was off-balance and Jack's point tore a red rip in Ralph's arm. Ralph bit his lip hard to keep his yell of pain inside. He couldn't show any weakness.
This time, Jack tackled Ralph instead of using his spear, pushing them both the ground. They fought hand-to-hand for a few tense minutes, then Ralph pushed Jack off him and regained his footing.
By now, the atmosphere around the castle rock was tense and wrought with energy. The boys were chanting their hunting song, even though there was no pig. The air was alive with the sounds of chanting, gasping breaths, and thunder.
Jack leapt at Ralph again, driving them both back to the ground, but this time, Jack had kept a good hold on his spear. He kept one hand around Ralph's throat, trying to choke his breath away. Ralph's hands clawed frantically at Jack's arm, but he kept his grip. Jack's other hand raised his spear, trying to get it positioned for a killing stoke.
Piggy, who had been watching fearfully before now, knew that his friend was close to death. With a great cry, he pushed through the circle of boys around him, trying to reach Jack and Ralph. He managed to get four steps before he was set upon by the savages, like a deer attacked by a pack of wolves. They stabbed at him with spears and clawed at him with their nails.
However, Piggy's final act achieved its purpose. Jack was momentarily distracted by Piggy's charge and had released his hold on Ralph. Ralph took immediate advantage of Jack's distraction and kicked hard into Jack's stomach with both feet.
Jack staggered back for a split second, then lunged at Ralph again. But Ralph had quickly grabbed his spear and held it up in time for Jack to run straight into it.
Time seemed to pause for a moment on castle rock. All the boys were silenced by this sudden turn of events. Ralph stared at Jack, who had died with a look of surprise on his face.
Time started again and fatigue from the fight hit Ralph. He staggered away from the dead body, then slumped to the ground. In his exhaustion, the most important part of Simon's warning was wiped out of his mind. As Ralph lay on the rock, he vaguely saw a black cloud form above Jack. All the boys backed away, fearful of the cloud and confused without their leader.
As Ralph watched through his half-consciousness, the black cloud whirled, seeming to look for something. Or rather, someone. It stopped whirling and Ralph felt terror and revulsion fill him as the Beast stared at him. Then the cloud flew at him and Ralph saw only blackness.
When Ralph woke back up, it had only been an hour. He stood up as he looked around and regained his bearings. He saw Jack and Piggy's dead bodies laying in puddles of red blood. The sky was still black, but the storm's fury was dying down. However, smoke rose from the mountain in a great column; lightning had come close to the earth and touched a tree, lighting it instantly on fire. Without rain, the fire quickly spread through the dry trees.
As Ralph regarded the crowd of frightened boys huddled away from the two bodies, he felt something different in him. A new hardness, coldness about his heart. Something at the back of his mind shouted for attention, but it was quickly suppressed.
The boys, seeing the authority in Ralph's eyes and pose, quickly gathered around him. They were scared and uncertain, and waited for him to tell them what was to be done. Sam and Eric stayed at the back of the group, glad that Jack was gone, but uncertain of Ralph. Something seemed different about him, though they couldn't quite place their finger on it.
Ralph led the small group of boys down from the cliffs. They were no longer savages. They were just scared, young boys with paint on their faces.
The disheveled group pushed through the trees quickly, keeping as far away from the spreading fire as possible. They soon reached the beach where Ralph's camp had been.
Ralph didn't see the officer right away. His mind was elsewhere, thinking about what they would do until the fire died down. They couldn't hunt until then. Ralph was only stopped from running into the man as he caught a glimpse of the polished black boots on his feet. He looked up in surprise.
The officer looked upon the group of boys in surprise. He had taken his hunting knife out when he heard the rustles in the forest, but now he replaced it to his belt. There was silence for a moment at the boys looked at the man and the man looked at the boys.
"Hullo." The officer broke the silence first.
"Hullo," Ralph answered warily. Would this man challenge his authority? After all, Ralph was the chief of the island now. He had earned the title, fair and square.
"Are there any grownups here?"
Ralph shook his head, looking past the man to the cutter that was beached on the white sand. This man was here to rescue them; not to take charge.
"Been having a bit of fun, then? Playing war?" the man asked, grinning a bit. Ralph nodded.
"I hope nobody was killed. Any casualties?" the officer asked in a joking tone. Ralph nodded.
"Only three." The officer blinked, then asked in more serious tone, carefully studying Ralph's face, "Three dead? Are you sure?" Ralph nodded again. The officer shook his head in amazement; the boy was telling the truth. Other boys were appearing now, smaller ones, who joined the painted group that stood behind Jack.
"We'll get you off this island. Who's in charge here?" he asked, looking over the crowd.
"I am," Ralph said strongly. None of the other boys challenged him.
"How many are you?" Ralph shrugged. The officer was silent.
"You are all British, aren't you? I would've thought that you would have held up better than that," he said, his voice holding a bit of surprise.
Ralph said nothing. His mind was going back over memories. At first, it wouldn't go back further than when he woke up. The with the suddenness of water bursting through a dam, he remembered the rest. He remembered Simon being killed, remembered Piggy being set upon by a pack of savages, remembered his own spear killing Jack. And he remember Simon's warning.
The realization hit him like a cold slap of water. If you don't guard yourself well, the Beast will enter you. That's what Simon had said. Ralph brought up the memories of right before he passed out. He saw the black cloud turning to look at him. He saw the cloud rushing swiftly at him.
A sob rose in Ralph's throat and burst out of his mouth. His grief poured loudly and strongly out of him as he cried for the loss of innocence, the death of a friend, and the darkness that now filled Ralph's own heart.
The rest of the boys were caught up in Ralph's emotion and all started to sob and wail too. The officer suddenly found himself surrounded by the sounds of grief from the group of painted boys that were no longer savages. Except for one.