A/N: I just cant seem to stay away from Lord of the Flies. I hope you'll all enjoy this latest little story. Dedicated to Sheridan, my one true love, as ever. I do not own Lord of the Flies, only have a deep obsession with it.

I wish I could say it all started that night, when his fingers first interlocked with mine. Hell, I wish I could say it started the first time his pale green eyes looked up at me from across the room. But the truth is that it all started five years back, when two young boys first smiled at each other.

Let me just say that I used to be totally normal. But that was before everything, before those godforsaken shores took hold of me and I abandoned all innocence. Before I came home to a family that didn't understand me and friends that didn't know me at all. Before a thousand medications and doctors. That was before.

That day, I was almost feeling normal, furiously trying to decipher a few algebra problems before the tone sounded, before the teacher strode into the room like every day. He would be carrying a coffee mug and muttering under his breath. I would be sitting in the back, fighting off the need to break free from the chains called life.

"You know," said a soft voice from somewhere beside me. "Your grades would probably be better if you werent always waiting until the last minute."

Turning my head to the side, I scowled at the tiny blonde boy sitting next to me. With bright eyes and a small grin, he was ever the depiction of innocence. Sometimes I wished I could hate him for that, but the fact of the matter was that I was stuck with him and I wouldn't have had it any other way.

"Shut up, Simon," I muttered anyway, scribbling away at the worksheet in front of me. "Just because you're perfect." And he was, really. perfect grades and a perfect life, with a perfect family who didn't force him to numb everything with little pills. Not to mention, he had the voice of an angel. When Simon was singing, I swear it was hard for me to breathe.

We'd almost lost Simon back then, that hell on earth. And there would've been no one to blame but us, but me. Only, at the last minute of hope his bruised and battered body had washed up upon the shore, and in the confines of my cave I'd just barely managed to nurse him back to health. I'd been protecting him ever since.

Or maybe, maybe he was the one protecting me. Keeping me safe from myself.

"I'm just saying," he mumbled.

Because I simply couldn't concentrate on math anymore, not with his gaze fixed so intently upon me, I raised my head to look around the room. "Where's Roger?" I asked, because the horrible friend that I was had just noticed that the seat to my right was empty.

As if on que, the black haired boy strode in through the door, head down, clutching his books and a cup of coffee like it was some sort of life support. "Overslept," he muttered as he took a seat beside me.

And so it went, everything so painfully normal. It might have been any day at all, seated between my two best friends, trying not to think too much. And I'd found happiness in this routine, in the midst of anti-depressants and nights spent dreaming wide awake.

It could have been any day, but it wasn't. It was that day, that precise day, when the world I knew dared to fall apart. Right before my eyes.

XXX

"Don't look now," Roger said lowly, "but Allison is coming." I felt my grip tighten around my styrofoam coffee cup, trying to keep my gaze focused on the table. The three of us were all perched around this little high rise in the lounge area of the dorms. It was the only place girls and boys could mingle outside the classroom. Usually my trio avoided it; the social scene wasn't really our thing. But I'd been aching for a cup of coffee, caffeine to sooth my headache.

Shit, I thought, just as the girl appeared at my side. Two years younger, she had a tangled mess of dark brown ringlets and the greenest eyes I'd ever seen. "Hi, Jack," she piped.

"Hello, Allison," I said politely. Took a sip of my coffee to buy some time. I could feel Roger fighting off a smirk, Simon looking in every other direction. "How're you?"

The skinny girl brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Lovely," she replied, like people honestly used words like that in casual conversation."I heard you got the solo on Friday night. I'll come hear you."

At this, Roger couldn't seem to contain his snort. He quickly covered it up as a cough when he felt my venomous stare upon him.

"Anyway," Allison droned on, always moving a mile per second. Ever since her arrival at St. Nathaniel's Prep School, she'd followed me like some sort of lost puppy. I used to love that kind of attention, but ever since the unspeakable incident, I preferred to float along beneath the radar. "I just came to tell you that m cousin is transferring here, and I think he might be in your dorm."

There were several things wrong with that statement. Predominantly the fact that Allison knew what dorm I was in to begin with. But I'd been in a single dorm the entire time I'd been at St. Nathaniel's. With all my issues, my nightmares that sent me screaming in the dark, having a roommate was simply out of the question. I had Simon and Roger across the hall, and that was enough.

Allison's words had sent both my friends into silence. I knew we were all thinking the same thing. I couldn't have a roommate. I just couldn't. Not when I spent half the nights crying, whispering words into the shadows to myself.

Simon was the one to break the silence. "We'll keep an eye on him," he assured the girl, ever so reassuring. I felt Allison steal one last glance at me before she darted away. Without her presence, it was a little easier to think.

"This is bullshit," I grumbled, to which they both nodded. Then we slipped back into silence, sipped our coffees and let the afternoon drift away.