Arrows

by Cutxandxrun

First LotF story. Be nice? Set a couple of years after the actual story line. Ralph has survived the hunt, but doesn't know how or why. He's suffered some memory loss as well. The older Ralph walks the border between pure savagery and civilization. What happens if salvation lies with the boy who ordered his death? Terrible summery.

1. Chapter 1

Arrows: Chapter 1

Fallen Angel

Sst. Thud. Sst. Thud. Ssst. Thud.

Pale blue, almost grey, eyes narrow in concentration carefully eyeing the path of the last arrow to the target. One more shot. Another arrow is nocked into place and the string is pulled taut, slender fingers brushing softly against the archer's cheek. He sights the target again and releases his fourth arrow within seconds, watching it speed through the air and penetrate the tree trunk 20 some meters away with another satisfying thud. The teen tilts his face up towards the black sky, estimating the time from the position of the celestial bodies. Judging from the moon, it's a little past midnight. He looks back down again, assessing his surroundings with a wary eye; the cold, pale light bleaches everything to eerie silver and the shifting charcoal shadows take on lives of their own. The teen eyes them uneasily, senses on high alert for any unusual disturbance, any movement at all in the forest. When there aren't any, he slips across the pale expanse of the clearing, plucks out his arrows and melts into the shadows.

It's been nearly two years since the incident that should have killed him. By all rights and laws of nature, his life should have ended. Ralph had been sure that he would die after being cornered by the savages, but by some miraculous event, some small mistake that someone made, and he'd been left alive on the beach. Lying in his own blood and aching all over, but alive. He isn't sure how he managed to live long enough to get to safety either (actually, he isn't sure how he got to safety at all), he just remembers waking up in a secluded area of the island with the yellowing bruises and interesting scars snaking across his torso and legs. For a while, Ralph had lived off of the sour fruit the island foliage offered, but had eventually begun to crave the more substantial alternative on the island. The countless pigs running rampant in the hot jungle. Meat. He couldn't use the regular method of spears and numbers, but slowly, from memory and sheer determination, had fashioned his own weapon. The bow he possessed now was his third and best one; the arrows were fashioned easily from whatever the ocean washed up on the beach. Shattered shell fragments, pebbles, coral, anything he could chip down into razor sharp points that would penetrate flesh and penetrate deep.

He'd lost some part of himself after being beaten on the beach. Society as a whole would have severely chastised his new behavior. The old Ralph wouldn't be weaving through the forest with liquid ease, black and green stripes painted onto his body. The old Ralph wouldn't have dared even think about it. The new one does. Something, some sort of barrier, that held the beast back had weakened and the new Ralph incorporates this aspect of himself into his being with little to no problem. The black and green paint ripple on the pale skin as the lithe teen observes the patterns of a band of hunters from high up in a tree. The savages hadn't bothered him since his apparent death, and after he was strong enough to move around on his own, Ralph had watched them with an almost obsessive scrutiny. They will pay for their crimes; the teen grits his teeth, a half forgotten memory of a bespectacled boy flitting through his consciousness. He can't remember the dead boy's name. He can't remember why it makes him so angry either. He just knows that the sight of the boy's killers makes him furious beyond words. His hands itch for the bow and arrows strapped on his back, he wants to see them die in their own blood. Like what they had nearly done to him. He stops though when the members of the group become clearer, No...not yet, the two he wants most to kill are not present. He will have to wait some more. Patience presents the best opportunity for attack to the predator.

That night, he slips down to the beach, the moonlight bleaches the sand bone white and the ocean becomes a rippling mirror; if he still had the mind to appreciate the scenery, Ralph would have wondered at the resemblance of his new tropical home to an ink drawing. Instead, he stands for a brief couple of moments, vaguely recalling the need to pay homage to two boys that have long lost their faces and names in the mists of his memories. For a second, he can hear a faint voice promising his salvation from the island, but it's gone before he can actually catch the words. The wind picks up, whirling around him and throwing his already messy hair into even more disarray. Ralph backs up to the tree line, sweeps his blue grey eyes across the white span in front of him one more time with something akin to regret clouding his stare before allowing the reaching shadows to swallow him up again.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know if this will be finished. I am working on a second chapter, but I suck at writing stories that include an actual beginning, conflict, and ending. Besides that "little" problem, I have school and am busy and I get terrible writer's block. I promise I will try though. Any ideas will be helpful~ Just don't give me hate because that isn't helpful in any shape or form.