Author's Note: OK, so I have just finished reading Lord of the Flies (and I've got to say, when the book is threatening to fall apart at any minute it makes great motivation for finishing any story in less than a day, seriously the thing actually fell apart not long after I finished it) and then later after listening to Natsuhiboshi (Summer Fire Star) I thought that I should try my hand at a song-fic. I think the song goes pretty well with the story (or at least the end), as you are about to see. I have put the lyrics of the song in English. I got the translation off of some website, and I have a feeling its not correct, but I'm to lazy to go find the right one. :P I also suggest going and listening to the song if you don't already know it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Flies or the song Natsuhiboshi.
Story English Lyrics
Natsuhiboshi
Roger watches from the sidelines as Percival cries after getting sand in his eyes. Maurice had wandered off not long ago. Johnny also scatters sand into the air, while both Percival and Henry leave, the former still crying.
Natsuhiboshi, why are you so red?
Roger follows Henry to the beach, no longer interested in watching Johnny destroy what was left of the sand castles. Picking up some stones, Roger proceeds to through them at Henry, making sure not to throw any within a six yard diameter.
Not long after Jack appears behind him, different colored clay smeared all over his face like war paint, Samneric and Bill not far behind. Jack convinces Roger to go on a pig hunt with them, leaving the beach in search of said animals. Littluns' sit in a rough circle near the shelters, discussing in what were suppose to be hushed voices about the Beast continually haunting their dreams at night.
Because I had a sad dream last night.
At nightfall, all the members of the tribe are gathered at the meeting place. Ralph gives his long speech about all of the unfinished tasks neglected by majority of those present. Pretty soon talk turns to that of the Beast that lurks in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to strike according to the littluns. Although not in those exact words of course, or is anything of the like said out-loud.
"Fear can't hurt you any more than a dream. There aren't any beasts to be afraid of on this island... Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!" Jack yelled.
Pretty soon, almost all of the littluns are crying, after having finally realized of everything they lost the moment they landed on the island. Of mothers, fathers, sisters, and other friends and family they might never see again.
My eyes are red, from the tears that I shed.
"Ralph, wake up!" one of the twins yelled.
"What's the matter?"
"We saw–"
"–the beast–"
"–plain!"
Not even twenty minutes had pasted before the twins, Ralph, Jack, Simon, and Piggy were all discussing the Beast that the twins claimed to have seen.
"Let's be moving," Jack said, "we're wasting time."
"No we're not. What about the littluns?"
"Sucks to the littluns!"
"Someone's got to look after them."
"Nobody has so far."
"There was no need! Now there is. Piggy'll look after them."
"That's right. Keep Piggy out of danger."
"Have some sense. What can Piggy do with only one eye?"
Swollen as I cry.
"Hands up," Jack said strongly at the assembled boys, "whoever wants Ralph not to be chief?"
Silence.
"How many think–" Jack's voice trailed off and the hand holding the conch trembled. "All right then." Jack laid the conch on a patch of grass, tears running down his cheeks. "I'm not going to play any longer. Not with you."
Majority of the boys were looking down at the ground by now. Jack cleared his throat. "I'm not going to be part of Ralph's lot–" He counted in his head the number of hunters that had once been a choir. "I'm going off by myself. He can catch his own pigs. Anyone who wants to hunt when I do can come too."
With that Jack ran away from them.
"Jack!"
Jack glanced back at Ralph briefly before continuing to run away from them. Shouting all the way, "No–!"
Natsuhiboshi, why've you lost your way?
Simon stood in front of the sow's head, seemingly memorized by the flies buzzing around it. It was quiet there, where no living animal dared to tread. Even the butterflies refused to be around the Lord of the Flies.
"You are a silly little boy," it seemed to say, "just an ignorant,silly little boy."
Simon said nothing.
"What are you going to do out here all alone? Aren't you afraid of me? There isn't anyone to help you. Only me. And I'm the Beast."
"Pig's head on a stick." Simon said quietly.
"Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!" the head said. "This has gone quiet far enough. My poor, misguided child, do you think you know better than I do?"
There was a pause.
"I'm warning you. I'm going to get angry. D'you see? You're not wanted. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island. Understand? We are going to have fun on this island! So don't try on it, my poor misguided boy, or else–"
As the Lord of the Flies finished off his rant, Simon fell to the ground, unconscious.
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!" Jack and his tribe chanted on the beach. They all ran to go attack a dark figure crawling over the sand. The figure shouted out something about a man on a hill. The boys continued to attack. Eventually the "beast's" body was thrown so that it was laying right next to the water.
The tide swept Simon's body out to sea, where it would never see the light of day again beneath the depths of the ocean.
I'm searching for a child who's gone afar.
"What do you want?" Jack, who was now only recognizable by red hair and personality, walked out of the forest, a hunter crouched on either side. A headless pig lay where they had dropped it.
"Ralph don't leave me!" Piggy wailed as he pressed himself against the rock, away from the sea.
"You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is my end and my tribe. You leave me alone."
"You pinched Piggy's specs. You've got to give them back." Ralph said.
"Got to? Who says?"
Ralph snapped. "I say! You voted me for chief. Didn't you hear the conch? You played a dirty trick – we'd have given you the fire if you asked for it – you could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn't. You came sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy's glasses!"
"Say that again!"
"Thief! Thief!"
"Ralph! Mind me!" Piggy screamed.
Jack lunged and tried to stab Ralph in the chest, but Ralph avoided it and caught Jack a cut on his ear. "Who's a thief?" Jack asked angrily.
"You are!" Ralph shouted back.
They continued to fight before they stopped and started to circle each other. Piggy tried to grab Ralph's attention. Key word being tried. "Ralph remember what we came here for. The fire. My specs."
Ralph nodded and tried to convince the group of savages in front of him to help keep a signal fire going, to no avail. They just laughed at him, and Jack ordered Samneric to be tied up. Ralph and Piggy could do nothing but watch.
"Let me speak!" Piggy yelled, but only Ralph was listening. He held up the conch. "I got the conch!" he continued to shout. "I tell you, I got the conch!" the two tribes were silent. A faint noise could be heard as Roger threw stones at them, his hand still on the lever that could at any moment send a giant boulder tumbling down the cliff side, and taking anyone who got in the way with it.
"I got this to say." Piggy said, holding up the now dull colored shell that had at one point been a symbol of order, now having lost most of its former glory. "You're acting like a crowd of kids." The booing rose again before dieing down. "Which is better – to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is?" the savages started yelling again, getting louder and louder as Piggy continued his speech.
Roger leaned all his weight on the lever, sending it tumbling down and sealing the fate of the wise child Piggy and the fragile shell. Piggy's body was soon lost with the fragments of the conch in the sea, thus ending whatever bit of wisdom and order was left on that hell hole of an island hiding behind the shinning beauty of nature.
There was silence for a moment before Jack, smiling like a maniac at having won this round, ran out screaming. "See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe for you anymore, and the conch is gone–" he ran forward. "I'm chief!"
Ralph had no choice but to flee then, while Jack shouted for the tribe to go back to their fort after having chased him away. "You got to join the tribe." Jack told the twins.
"You lemme go–"
"–and me."
Jack grabbed a spear and poked Sam in the ribs. "What d'you mean by that, eh? What d'you mean by coming with spears? What d'you mean by not joining my tribe?" Sam yelled as he continued to poke him with the spear.
"That's not the way." Roger walked calmly over to the twins, wielding a nameless authority as Samneric looked up at him in terror.
He can't be found though I've searched all day,
"Are you certain?" Jack asked. The twin that was addressed said nothing.
Roger spoke. "If your fooling us–"
"You're sure he meant in there? He meant he'd hide in there?"
"Yes–yes–oh–!" Ralph heard laughter from his hiding spot. They knew. Ralph was chased out of his hiding spot, and continued to be chased all though out the island.
Flames burned the surrounding foliage, eating them up and leaving behind nothing but ashes. Ralph ran out of the cover of the trees and onto the beach before stopping short at what he saw. A naval officer stood in front of him, looking at Ralph questioningly. "Hullo." the officer said.
"Hullo." Ralph answered back. Jack's tribe was now standing a ways behind Ralph, watching the scene unfolding before them.
"Are there any adults – any grown-ups with you?" the officer asked. Ralph shook his head. "Fun and games." the adult said, staring at the group of children behind Ralph. "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?" Ralph nodded. The officer inspected Ralph before continuing. "Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?"
"Only two, and they've gone."
"Two? Killed?" the older man asked, leaning down and looking closely at Ralph. One of the smaller savages took a few steps forward.
"I'm, I'm–" but Percival could no longer remember who he had once been. His time on the island had made sure of that.
"Who's boss here?" the officer asked.
"I am." said Ralph. Jack started to say something, before stopping himself.
"I should have thought," the man said, "I should have thought that a pack of British boys – you're all British aren't you? – would have been able to put up a better show than that – I mean –"
"It was like that at first," Ralph said, cutting him off. "before things –" he stopped.
My sad dreams come once more.
Ralph looked up at the officer, unable to put what he was feeling into words. Simon and Piggy were dead, both of them probably at the bottom of the ocean right now. And Jack, he had turned into a savage along with the rest of the group. Ralph was the only one left who had not turned to it. But yet, even though they were now being rescued they would never be the same again.
Could they all still remain friends after what had happened? Would they be able to get along with everyone else back in civilization, where savagery could not reach them?
No, it would always be there, Ralph realized. It would always be with them, no matter how "civilized" they seemed to be. There would always be at least a small shred of darkness in them, and nothing would be able to cover it up, not even the idyllic beauty of the island they had spent who knows how much time on.
Piggy wasn't just some innocent child, in fact none of them were anymore. Piggy was in reality one of the wisest of them all, whose shattering spectacles had signaled the end of intelligence and further decline into savagery, a warning they had paid little attention to.
The fire, which symbolized the hope of being rescued, which in the end was unable to be kept going until Jack's tribe set the whole island on fire. Then there was the parachutist, who until the officer had been the only "adult supervision" that they had. The island itself, representing the kid's isolation. And finally, the pig's head, which represented the savagery that they had all fallen to in some form during their time in isolation.
Tears had been falling from Ralph's face for some time now, but he continued to weep as the officer waited for all the children to get a hold of themselves before bringing them back to the ship and ,soon, back home where they belonged. After all they had been through, however, they would never be the same again, even the littlest of the littluns who would normally forget a lot of what happened at their age. It would haunt them for the rest of their lives – for no matter how far away they went – the Lord of the Flies, or the pig's head as they had come to know it as, and the darkness that follows it would be with them where ever they went. For there was a fine line between civilization and savagery, and it didn't take much for you to go from one side to the next.