A/N: My God! This ~wasn't~ written for school! I don't own LotF, but I'm working on a devilish plot to blackmail the Golding descendants, so we'll wait and see...
I love all the boys, even Piggy, unloved as he is. I hate the shallow 'good vs evil'-theme interpretations of the book. I just... I don't know why I'm ranting like this, so on with the fic.
Ocean
The boat was sailing quickly. Ralph leaned over the edge of the rail and let the wind hit his face as they plunged onwards across the ocean. The naval officer was behind him, the moonlight glinting off of his uniform buckles, the giant orb hanging suspended in mid-sky overhead.
The sky was a deep blue. It almost hurt Ralph to stare into it.
"Ralph?"
The naval officer hadn't spoken for some time. The young boy had almost lost the sense of his own name. Clumsily, he responded, turning and refusing to smile, but instead piercing the officer with a harsh cutting stare. He'd changed so much, he thought, his name didn't fit him anymore. But it was all he had left, almost, besides his life.
"Ralph... would you like to tell the other officers what happened? They'll be waiting beneath the deck- the others will be done with by and by."
Ralph didn't move. Slowly, then, his gaze bent back towards the unending ocean. So many times he'd stared over it's placid surface, he refused to believe they were actually crossing the void.
Had they been chasing him?
He couldn't think of it. In his mind, they were frozen in time, a photograph. Simon and Piggy were there, too.
Were they gone? No. Angrily, Ralph spat over the side. They're there, under the water, their bodies eaten away by now. But their bones are still there, under the water. Never buried. Never prayed for.
"Ralph..."
"Yes." He didn't turn, and whispered his answer. Then he felt the officer's strong hand clasp his own and lead him down under the deck. For a long time, his vision seemed to be lost, and he was floating between worlds, not sure of the reality of anything. His hair felt cleaner, shorter, and his story spilled out effortlessly like water off his tongue. Only at the end did he realize that his face was wet with tears.
He opened his eyes, and the room was empty except for four officers, one of them the one who had rescued them.
"Then... there were two killed?" one of them asked gently. Ralph nodded. A savage, he thought, feeling their eyes burn into his brown burnt skin, and the filth that caked his face, hair, and body. I'm a savage.
"One by Roger?" He nodded again, determination set in his stiff jaw.
"And the other one- Simon- by all of you?" Another nod.
"We went a bit mad," Ralph whispered, a glint in his eye, which then softened into another tear that rolled down his face.
"And you were incited to by Jack?" the third officer added. Ralph looked up.
"Who told you that?" he asked sharply.
"Jack himself. Of course the boy was in hysterics," the officer went on, "and he may have been taking the guilt of the whole trauma on himself."
Ralph stared long into the eyes of each officer, but they betrayed nothing. Finally, he nodded a fourth time.
"Yes, we were led by Jack."
The men said nothing, but gave curt nods to each other and then rose all at once. The first one stepped forewards towards the boy and led him to his feet.
"You're free to go now."
Jack.
"May I see him?"
The officer gave him a curious look. "See who?"
"Jack."
The officers glanced from one to another, and smiled. "If you wish. He's in the lower level of the ship, clsoed off. He wished to be alone, and we also meant to isolate him because of his... deeds. But I'm sure he'll be alright to see now."
Ralph smiled. The dirt cracked on his face and darkened the creases in his skin ans he realized that he hadn't smiled in ages. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he let his face fall limp again, and the semblence of grief fall over him. But joy had begun to stir- an almost mad joy, but in fact, it was the few vestiges of humanity still stirring in him that were coming back to life. Clinging to the feeling with a sort of desperate hunger, Ralph swallowed and followed the officer.
Jack. He was seeing Jack. And not the tyrranical chief Jack, hunter and killer on the island, rampant and deadly. He was only Jack, the boy, the poor lonely boy (and how sad, Ralph thought, he must be. Slowly, the grief and empathy for him began to creep into his mind.)
Only Jack, in a room on a boat, in that world goverend by adults which the boys had long ago forgotten to exist. Nothing to be feared, Ralph remembered the hunts- and the pained hysterical insanity which had claimed them all. Ralph too. All of them.
Hanging his head, the officer shook him a bit, smiling encouragingly, and bustled him into the small dark cabin. There was a single porthole. The moon shone in.
Jack was a huddled figure, wrapped in a thin blanked and hunched over on his bed. His dirty clothes were in a pile on the ground and there was a bucket of murky water beside him, sloshing in time with the rocking of the boat. He'd been bathing before, the rag still dripping in his hand. He ran it up his arm, then looked up and faced Ralph.
His eyes gleamed in fear, and he jumped back, the blanket falling off. He cowered in the corner.
"R-Ralph-"
"Jack?"
The prefect hugged his knees to his chest and curled his shoulders, sinking into the corner.
"Go on."
Ralph didn't say a word.
"Go on, now. Hit me. Kill me, now, why don't you! I would have killed you! Just hurt me now!" Jack spat the words vengefully, and hot tears glistened on his face. His voice dropped.
"I'm sorry, Ralph. I'm so sorry for everything I did... and... because... it was another world. I felt so different, like I was dead and alive at once. And I was in a nightmare, I was so- so afraid... so I did horrible things, I can't even- I can't even-" his voice broke, and he shivered a moment.
"And I'm sorry, Ralph," he whispered, his eyes dropping to the floor.
Ralph still didn't say a word.
For a minute, all they could do was be in the room together. The feeling of walls all around them was like a dream, and they sensed each other across the cabin, just standing or sitting still. Finally, Ralph stepped forwards, and took the blanket up, draping it around Jack's shoulders. He sat beside him.
"Come on, now."
"I'm sorry."
"We're going home, Jack. Take the blanket up, you're not on the island, and it's cold."
Ralph's arm instinctively went around the other boy. He was wet. For a second, Ralph thought it was from the bath, but then it felt thick, sticky, and he smelled salt. Jack was bleeding. He'd scraped the skin off. He'd been scraping at the war paint until the skin came off.
"We're never going home."
Ralph didn't argue. They both looked out the window, lost in dreams and devoid of thought. There was no home to return to. Not because of the atom bomb, but because of the past. There was no family to return to. Even if they had been alive, no child would have hugged their mother, or shook their father's hand.
Again their minds wandered, and their futur was a terrifying ocean of chaos, confusion. When it settled, there was only black. All they could hope for was death. But it was too soon, and they couldn't...
"We don't belong there."
"We don't belong anywhere..."
"The island," Ralph said, "if we went back..."
But he couldn't finish. He stiffly leaned his head on Jack's shoulder. The cold hardened leader had melted into nothing more than a boy, a boy with a child's name. Jack's arm came out from the blanket and shaking, grasped at Ralphs, and held it until they were both warm.
"You were the only one with sense," Jack whispered, and Ralph lay silent, just shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, in silent refusal. Soon, the tears came again.
"We got rescued after all," Jack whispered, "rescued because of the fire. You'd always told us to keep it lit. And now, thinking back, if we'd just kept it lit the first time, none of this wouldn't have ever happened. None of the fighting. Piggy, and- and- Simon, all of them, all for a stupid fire!"
His voice fell again.
"A stupid pig."
Ralph's hand was warm on Jack's shoulder, and he rubbed his back tenderly, like holding a baby. Ripped out of their world, they were flung into another, then jerked back into the first... the whole island now seemed like a horrible mirage, too foreign to even accept. Ralph again looked over at Jack. The one who'd began the killing... spilled the first blood.
His heart was so heavy. Ralph closed his eyes. How could he cope? Were he in that boy's mind, he'd want to die, and kill, and- and he'd be so confused. Too confused to even want to live.
On instinct again, Ralph drew Jack closer, and this time faced him, so that Jack's arms wrapped loosely around his back, and he clung to him, one hand cradling the boy's head and clutching him so close as if to take his suffering into him.
"Jack... oh, Jack..."
"It's never going to be over, Ralph, it's here. It's still here. The-"
Jack pulled back a bit, their arms still entwined, and stared fitfully into Ralph's eyes with a look a fixed terror. His lips trembled.
"The beast."
Ralph's eyes softened into Jack's, imploring him, but the terror was there.
"The beast. It's here."
Ralph couldn't say a word. The beast. Simon had seen the beast, screamed about it. He'd seen it before he'd died, in that horrible way. The beast had appeared to him, then devoured him.
"I'll protect you," Ralph whispered, and Jack's lips still trembled. "I'll keep you safe. We're headed somewhere strange, with no family- and we'll be on our own, and afraid, but I'll stay here with you, Jack, I will. I will. And I forgive you, and I'm sorry- for everything you did, and for everything I did."
Ralph smiled, a true smile.
"You were a singer before you were a hunter. And you were head boy. You're more than a savage- we all are- and... we'll never forget. Never forget Simon, and Piggy, and the way the others were painted and screaming. Or the pigs, or the blood, or the beast. But we're away from there now. And going somewhere strange, but we'll be together. I won't leave you."
A misted look of rememberance washed over Jack, and the terror subsided. The walls of the cabin seemed ever more present, and the distance of the island, and the strangeness of the destination."I won't leave you again."
They fell against each other again, this time with mutual pain. For the insanity which had wracked them, and the horrors that had stained their eyes and dreams, they wept against each other.
The slept on the ocean.
~
Maybe a part two coming sometime. Yes, my portrayal of Jack is odd, but since I've never met a young proud boy so overcome by freedom and circumstance that he was driven into a state of primal violence, I wouldn't know how he'd react once off the island. So... yeah.
I love all the boys, even Piggy, unloved as he is. I hate the shallow 'good vs evil'-theme interpretations of the book. I just... I don't know why I'm ranting like this, so on with the fic.
Ocean
The boat was sailing quickly. Ralph leaned over the edge of the rail and let the wind hit his face as they plunged onwards across the ocean. The naval officer was behind him, the moonlight glinting off of his uniform buckles, the giant orb hanging suspended in mid-sky overhead.
The sky was a deep blue. It almost hurt Ralph to stare into it.
"Ralph?"
The naval officer hadn't spoken for some time. The young boy had almost lost the sense of his own name. Clumsily, he responded, turning and refusing to smile, but instead piercing the officer with a harsh cutting stare. He'd changed so much, he thought, his name didn't fit him anymore. But it was all he had left, almost, besides his life.
"Ralph... would you like to tell the other officers what happened? They'll be waiting beneath the deck- the others will be done with by and by."
Ralph didn't move. Slowly, then, his gaze bent back towards the unending ocean. So many times he'd stared over it's placid surface, he refused to believe they were actually crossing the void.
Had they been chasing him?
He couldn't think of it. In his mind, they were frozen in time, a photograph. Simon and Piggy were there, too.
Were they gone? No. Angrily, Ralph spat over the side. They're there, under the water, their bodies eaten away by now. But their bones are still there, under the water. Never buried. Never prayed for.
"Ralph..."
"Yes." He didn't turn, and whispered his answer. Then he felt the officer's strong hand clasp his own and lead him down under the deck. For a long time, his vision seemed to be lost, and he was floating between worlds, not sure of the reality of anything. His hair felt cleaner, shorter, and his story spilled out effortlessly like water off his tongue. Only at the end did he realize that his face was wet with tears.
He opened his eyes, and the room was empty except for four officers, one of them the one who had rescued them.
"Then... there were two killed?" one of them asked gently. Ralph nodded. A savage, he thought, feeling their eyes burn into his brown burnt skin, and the filth that caked his face, hair, and body. I'm a savage.
"One by Roger?" He nodded again, determination set in his stiff jaw.
"And the other one- Simon- by all of you?" Another nod.
"We went a bit mad," Ralph whispered, a glint in his eye, which then softened into another tear that rolled down his face.
"And you were incited to by Jack?" the third officer added. Ralph looked up.
"Who told you that?" he asked sharply.
"Jack himself. Of course the boy was in hysterics," the officer went on, "and he may have been taking the guilt of the whole trauma on himself."
Ralph stared long into the eyes of each officer, but they betrayed nothing. Finally, he nodded a fourth time.
"Yes, we were led by Jack."
The men said nothing, but gave curt nods to each other and then rose all at once. The first one stepped forewards towards the boy and led him to his feet.
"You're free to go now."
Jack.
"May I see him?"
The officer gave him a curious look. "See who?"
"Jack."
The officers glanced from one to another, and smiled. "If you wish. He's in the lower level of the ship, clsoed off. He wished to be alone, and we also meant to isolate him because of his... deeds. But I'm sure he'll be alright to see now."
Ralph smiled. The dirt cracked on his face and darkened the creases in his skin ans he realized that he hadn't smiled in ages. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he let his face fall limp again, and the semblence of grief fall over him. But joy had begun to stir- an almost mad joy, but in fact, it was the few vestiges of humanity still stirring in him that were coming back to life. Clinging to the feeling with a sort of desperate hunger, Ralph swallowed and followed the officer.
Jack. He was seeing Jack. And not the tyrranical chief Jack, hunter and killer on the island, rampant and deadly. He was only Jack, the boy, the poor lonely boy (and how sad, Ralph thought, he must be. Slowly, the grief and empathy for him began to creep into his mind.)
Only Jack, in a room on a boat, in that world goverend by adults which the boys had long ago forgotten to exist. Nothing to be feared, Ralph remembered the hunts- and the pained hysterical insanity which had claimed them all. Ralph too. All of them.
Hanging his head, the officer shook him a bit, smiling encouragingly, and bustled him into the small dark cabin. There was a single porthole. The moon shone in.
Jack was a huddled figure, wrapped in a thin blanked and hunched over on his bed. His dirty clothes were in a pile on the ground and there was a bucket of murky water beside him, sloshing in time with the rocking of the boat. He'd been bathing before, the rag still dripping in his hand. He ran it up his arm, then looked up and faced Ralph.
His eyes gleamed in fear, and he jumped back, the blanket falling off. He cowered in the corner.
"R-Ralph-"
"Jack?"
The prefect hugged his knees to his chest and curled his shoulders, sinking into the corner.
"Go on."
Ralph didn't say a word.
"Go on, now. Hit me. Kill me, now, why don't you! I would have killed you! Just hurt me now!" Jack spat the words vengefully, and hot tears glistened on his face. His voice dropped.
"I'm sorry, Ralph. I'm so sorry for everything I did... and... because... it was another world. I felt so different, like I was dead and alive at once. And I was in a nightmare, I was so- so afraid... so I did horrible things, I can't even- I can't even-" his voice broke, and he shivered a moment.
"And I'm sorry, Ralph," he whispered, his eyes dropping to the floor.
Ralph still didn't say a word.
For a minute, all they could do was be in the room together. The feeling of walls all around them was like a dream, and they sensed each other across the cabin, just standing or sitting still. Finally, Ralph stepped forwards, and took the blanket up, draping it around Jack's shoulders. He sat beside him.
"Come on, now."
"I'm sorry."
"We're going home, Jack. Take the blanket up, you're not on the island, and it's cold."
Ralph's arm instinctively went around the other boy. He was wet. For a second, Ralph thought it was from the bath, but then it felt thick, sticky, and he smelled salt. Jack was bleeding. He'd scraped the skin off. He'd been scraping at the war paint until the skin came off.
"We're never going home."
Ralph didn't argue. They both looked out the window, lost in dreams and devoid of thought. There was no home to return to. Not because of the atom bomb, but because of the past. There was no family to return to. Even if they had been alive, no child would have hugged their mother, or shook their father's hand.
Again their minds wandered, and their futur was a terrifying ocean of chaos, confusion. When it settled, there was only black. All they could hope for was death. But it was too soon, and they couldn't...
"We don't belong there."
"We don't belong anywhere..."
"The island," Ralph said, "if we went back..."
But he couldn't finish. He stiffly leaned his head on Jack's shoulder. The cold hardened leader had melted into nothing more than a boy, a boy with a child's name. Jack's arm came out from the blanket and shaking, grasped at Ralphs, and held it until they were both warm.
"You were the only one with sense," Jack whispered, and Ralph lay silent, just shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, in silent refusal. Soon, the tears came again.
"We got rescued after all," Jack whispered, "rescued because of the fire. You'd always told us to keep it lit. And now, thinking back, if we'd just kept it lit the first time, none of this wouldn't have ever happened. None of the fighting. Piggy, and- and- Simon, all of them, all for a stupid fire!"
His voice fell again.
"A stupid pig."
Ralph's hand was warm on Jack's shoulder, and he rubbed his back tenderly, like holding a baby. Ripped out of their world, they were flung into another, then jerked back into the first... the whole island now seemed like a horrible mirage, too foreign to even accept. Ralph again looked over at Jack. The one who'd began the killing... spilled the first blood.
His heart was so heavy. Ralph closed his eyes. How could he cope? Were he in that boy's mind, he'd want to die, and kill, and- and he'd be so confused. Too confused to even want to live.
On instinct again, Ralph drew Jack closer, and this time faced him, so that Jack's arms wrapped loosely around his back, and he clung to him, one hand cradling the boy's head and clutching him so close as if to take his suffering into him.
"Jack... oh, Jack..."
"It's never going to be over, Ralph, it's here. It's still here. The-"
Jack pulled back a bit, their arms still entwined, and stared fitfully into Ralph's eyes with a look a fixed terror. His lips trembled.
"The beast."
Ralph's eyes softened into Jack's, imploring him, but the terror was there.
"The beast. It's here."
Ralph couldn't say a word. The beast. Simon had seen the beast, screamed about it. He'd seen it before he'd died, in that horrible way. The beast had appeared to him, then devoured him.
"I'll protect you," Ralph whispered, and Jack's lips still trembled. "I'll keep you safe. We're headed somewhere strange, with no family- and we'll be on our own, and afraid, but I'll stay here with you, Jack, I will. I will. And I forgive you, and I'm sorry- for everything you did, and for everything I did."
Ralph smiled, a true smile.
"You were a singer before you were a hunter. And you were head boy. You're more than a savage- we all are- and... we'll never forget. Never forget Simon, and Piggy, and the way the others were painted and screaming. Or the pigs, or the blood, or the beast. But we're away from there now. And going somewhere strange, but we'll be together. I won't leave you."
A misted look of rememberance washed over Jack, and the terror subsided. The walls of the cabin seemed ever more present, and the distance of the island, and the strangeness of the destination."I won't leave you again."
They fell against each other again, this time with mutual pain. For the insanity which had wracked them, and the horrors that had stained their eyes and dreams, they wept against each other.
The slept on the ocean.
~
Maybe a part two coming sometime. Yes, my portrayal of Jack is odd, but since I've never met a young proud boy so overcome by freedom and circumstance that he was driven into a state of primal violence, I wouldn't know how he'd react once off the island. So... yeah.