Nostrum Solemn Hora

By Kari

Rating: R

Paring: Undecided

Warnings: Violence and intense smooching and blood and other things… ^-^ ~meow.

Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the flies or any of its characters sadly, cause if I did... fufufufu 0=3

Summary: They are back from the island and safely home yet why is none of them safe and who exactly are the society of the Black rose?

Chapter 1: Primoris Hora

The hour and the atmosphere were unfriendly, but Ralph was oblivious to both as he wandered home lost to the thoughts that had turned from discomforting to an unnatural obsession and had soured him in the process. If anyone had been there to see him passing, they might have thought him a fallen angel; tall, slim like a boxer with olive skin emphasized by the lightness of his hair and a dark expression, which added sadness to the air of disquieting air which surrounded him. The evening walks had become increasing regular over the past three months. During the routines of the day, of school, he could lose himself, but when evening fell the memories returned in force, too realistic by far, forcing him out on to the street in the futile hope he could walk them off, leave them behind. It was as hopeless as any childhood wish, when he returned home he could never escape the phone calls from newspapers editors wanting to do his story or the family members who thought their presences were needed. The conundrum was almost more than he could bear; it seems he was condemned to live in that dark misty world of knowing. And until the bodies were found and properly buried, he felt he could not moved on.

However, this night the routine was different. It wasn't just the memories that had drove him out but a dream that God had decided to let Simon and Piggy, Johnny, returned to the world of the living and do right what had gone astray. Inexplicably it had disturbed Ralph immeasurably.

The was a clatter of dustbins nearby some dog or cat or rat scavenging for food. However, just to be sure he paused, tense and alert, until a russet shape padded soundlessly out of the fog. The fox stopped in its tracks when it saw him, eyed him warily for a second until it seemed to recognized some similar trait, and then continued across the road until it was lost again. Ralph felt a frisson of some barely remember emotion that he gradually recognized as a sense of wonder. Something wild and untamed in a place shackled by concert and tarmac, pollution and regulation. Yet after the initial excitement, it served to only emphasized the bleak view of the world he had established since the island. Prepares his psychologist had been right.

Ralph snorted a bitter laugh. Away in the fog the fox's eerie barking howl and for a hopeful second he considered pursuing it to a better place. But he knew in his heart he was not nimble enough; his legs felt leaden and there seemed to be an unbearable weight crushing down on his shoulders. The after match affects his psychologist called it.

And then all the thought of his psychologist got him thinking about himself and his miserable life, as if the were any other subject. Was he a good person? Optimistic? Passionate? He had been once, he was sure of it, but that was before the island had turned everything on its head. How could one event sour a life so completely?

It was not the damp that drew his shiver, but he pulled his overcoat tighter nonetheless. Sometimes he wondered what the future held for him. Four month ago, there had been so much hope stitched into the direction he and his father, after his mums, had planned for his future; less traveling around, more studying for better marks and more time spend together as family. At twelve he had knew everything about himself and the world he lived in. Now at twelve and the half he knew nothing. He was failing around lost in a strange world were nothing made sense. Any insight he had thought he might have had on human nature had been destroy and dashed to the floor. It sounded pathetic to considered it in such bad terms and that made it even more painful. He had never been pathetic. He had been strong, funny, smart, confident but never pathetic. He had potential, ambitions, dreams, things that he thought he would never be able to lose them, yet here he was without any sign of them at all. Were had they all gone?

'Dead,' A little voice in his head whispered, dryly. 'all dead.' Ralph frowned then began to slowed. Yes dead like his mums, Simon, and Johnny. Dead…

Splash

With a relief that was almost childlike in its intensity his thoughts were disturbed by a splashing of water jarred against the sinuous sounds of the river. At first, Ralph thought it might have been a sea gull at the river edge, another rare signed of natural, but the intermittent noise suggested something large. Leaning on the cold wet wall, he waited patiently for the folds of mist to part as the splashing ebbed and flowed.

For several minutes he could not see anything but as he was about to leave, the mist unfurled in a manner that remained him of a theater curtain rolling back. Framed in white clouds at the river's edge was a hunched black shape like a crow. As it dipped into the eddies then rose shakily, Ralph gimped a white bony hand. An old woman in long black dress and a black shawl was washing something he could not see. The strangeness of the woman in the muddy water before dawn didn't at first strike him as odd, which was odd in itself, but the more he watched the more he started to be unease by the way she dipped and washed, dipped and watched. Finally, the jangling in his mind give way to panic and he started to pulled away from the sight. At that moment, the woman stopped her washing and turned as if she had suddenly sense his presence. Ralph gimped a terrible face, white and grunt and black piercing eyes. The woman stepped forward and he saw for the first time what she was washing and he almost throw up his lunch. It was a human head, a child's head, dripping with blood from the severed neck into the cold Thames. The woman mouth opened, revealing shape tiger like teeth, she busted out into laughter the sound like nails against a broad then she attacked.

Jack Merridew had a song stuck in his head, something by Irving Berlin he thought. Then he considered the reason he was not home having dinner with his family, before frowning at the pearly luminescence of the mist as it suddenly rolled across the surface of the land. And when he finally opened his ears again, Bill was still whining irritatedly.

"And another thing you don't come marching into another person house like that."

Bill gesticulated like he was berating a small child. He did not even look at the red hair; he had been lost in his rant for so long that he had no more need for the other in the conversion.

"Said who? Mental midget?" It was the wrong thing to say, but Jack didn't care. He stifle rolling his eyes when a sound like a boiler venting stream erupted from the chestnut hair boy throat. Such nastiness was not normally in his attitude toward his hunters, but Bill had been whining throughout the past fifteen minutes that he felt justified, while still acknowledging the childishness in his own response.

Jack hummed the Irving Berlins' song in his head, trying to recall the chorus, then turned his attention once more to the marvelous way the fog smothered the echoes of their footsteps. Hope I am not too late, he thought with a frown.

"And another thing-"

"If you don't shut your trap, Bill," Jack interjected calmly, "I'll be forced to perform an emergency display of how a rifle works, on you."

Bill eeps then threw his arms in the air and fell silence. As the other boy voice echoed away, Jack became acutely aware of the stifling silence. He wished he had come out early or at least agreed with Bill's suggestion for them to take their bikes in search of the fair boy. London was not a safe place for two schoolboys alone, exceptionally as night approached. , even those carrying a gun with them. His boots stumped, along with Bill's, on the slick pavement as he speeded up a little. The rhythm was soothing in the unnerving quiet, but as he approached Albert Bridge other sounds broke through, scuffles, grasps, and the smack of flesh on flesh.

Jack paused followed by Bill. His every instinct told him to run; he knew what he could find. It was three weeks ago all over again…all over…He was spurred into life by a brief cry, quickly strangled, that seems to come from the river's edge in the lonely darkness beneath the bridge. Negotiating the treacherously slick steps down to the river, the red hair found himself on a rough stone path that ran next to the slim, muddy beach at the water's edge, where an oppressive smell of rotting vegetation filled the dark air.

Keeping close to the wall so he would not be seen, Jack advanced toward the impenetrable gloom beneath the bridge, odd sounds gradually emerged: heavy boots on stones, a grunt, a choke. Finally, at the edge of the darkness, his eyes adjusted enough to see what lay beneath the bridge.

A bended over giant black shape with it left side to Jack grasped a smaller being by the lapels. For a moment, Jack thought the victim was dead, but then the boy head lolled and he muttered something deliriously. It was all he needed.

Jack stepped forward into the black figure line of vision. "Put him down." his voice was calm and firm. The bird like figure breath erupted in a plume of white as it hit the cold; there was a sound like a horse snorting. It slowly looked toward him than toward Bill, effortlessly holding its victim like a rag doll, its gaze heavy and hateful. Jack felt his heart begin to pound again; even though it was not his first time coming across frighten beyond reasons scenes like this one.

"If you don't," He smirked then continued. "I'm going to be force to take action."

The figure chucked, the was contempt in its face, it glanced once more at Jack then it hauled the fair boy of the ground with unnatural ease. Transferring its left hand to its victim chin, it braced itself, ready to snap the neck.

"Dammit!" Jack yelled, rising the rifle. "Don't!" He aimed and fried.

Bang!

Ralph felt the claws like fingers released him and he fell to the ground, hitting his backbone against the hard pavement. He let out a cry of pained. Today just was not his day or something. When the old hag had attacked him he had had no time to reacted, surprised by the attacked, the skull, and the woman herself, it had been a mistake.

The fair boy pushed himself into a sitting position, wondering what was going on and if he should be worry. He drawled his legs to himself and stood, still shock, and glanced at the scene before him, his eyes widen. Before him was a scene like no other, it was something he knew only in nightmares, it made him trembled. Before him was the killer of two boys he had knew and cherish holding a gun raised and pointed right at him but that was not what made him trembled, no, what did was the body of the old hag that was at that moment not an old person at all but something large and bird like, like a raven. Yes like a raven, he thought.

Ralph swallowed and gradually begun to back away, he wondered if he was dreaming, the bird thing continued its transformation. It started to craw then cooed. Bill who stood, quietly behind Jack stepped forward and approached the thing, his arm stretched out.

"Are you okay granny?" He questioned then smiled. "Jack, its just s lost granny why you shot at her for?"

"Get away from her!"

Jack turned the rifle on Bill and shot a bullet at the thing; it pierced it above its left cheeks then bounced off into the night, dark liquid oozed out of the cut. The Beastie laughed, it tongued slide out of its mouth and licked the cut.

"How wonderful a cut. Well…" The bird thing stood. " My turned. " It showed sharp teeth at the head boy then leaped up into the air, releasing black wings, and attacked. Jack fired repeatedly rounds after rounds at the fast approaching form, each missing its mark until he was all out. Seeing it's chanced the Beast drove in and slammed its claws, fast and hard, into Jack mid-section, the boy saw surge of white and red, he spited out blood. It was not how he had planned this save when he had left his house half an hour earlier. For a split second the head boy wondered if this was his end. Where the bloody hell is Roger? He thought then passed out.

Seeing the treated out of the way the thing that was old woman and not turned to its puppet. It had been a quick decision on its part when the two had appeared on which of the two to take. At first she, it, had wanted the red hair who compared in size was bigger and what not but when it had tried to hypnotic the older boy it had not worked. It just had not. That is why it had picked this one. It tiny lips stretched into a smiled. Oh well…

"Finished the job, my pet, kill the dog." The hag cooed and Bill nodded then slowly approached the quickly retrieving blond.

"Yes granny."

Bill grabbed Ralph by his collared, wrapped his fingers around yellow locks, pulled the fair boy into a sitting position by his own hair then jerk it back and using the momentum slammed the older boy head, hard and fast, against the pavement. He repeated the process multiples times. Ralph saw stars and as his mind slowly give way he heard another shot, this time from above them, and through the tears he saw the thing that was an old woman and yet not, fell backward screaming in pain and clawing at her own throat then blackness...

To be continued...

Kari: OK that's all folks, anyone interested in being my Bete reader? Hm-mm? Anyone? Also anyone wants to be co author?