Sorry this took so long!

To be completely honest, I rushed a bit through this chapter, because it's more of the boring right-after-the-crash stuff that once again sticks closely to the plot of the actual book. The next chapter will as well, but after that, things will get exciting and more original, I promise.

MonkeeMania - Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy it.

FanOfRandomThings - Ahh, thanks! uwu I appreciate it a lot, that's very encouraging to hear. I'm happy that you like it so much, and I hope I don't disappoint you!


When Jack heard the shrill, terror-stricken shriek of an animal, he raised an arm to stop and silence Simon and Ralph, who were trailing closely behind and conversing amongst themselves as they moved through the dense jungle and back to the platform where the other boys waited. The trio had scaled the mountain, determined that it was indeed an island that they had crashed upon, and in that hour had become friends; excited, giggling boys who shared the same thrill at the realization that they were left unrestricted by the rules of the adults, free to do as they wished. Jack was both excited and daunted by this newfound freedom. He was uncertain what to do with it. A part of him wished that there were adults, or at least one, to help them figure out to do. Adults were always good with that stuff, weren't they? They always seemed to know what to do. But he was always eager to prove himself; to show his choir what a leader he truly was, to get them rescued, and even have them look up to him.

But presently, there was a more pressing matter to attend to than imagined fame and glory.

The piglet before the trio was entangled amongst the thick curtain of creepers, squealing in wild terror and scrambling to free itself and flee from the three strange monsters that watched it with curiosity and a type of nervous lust. Jack drew his knife and raised an arm as the three boys rushed forward, kneeling behind the screaming animal. The silver blade glinted in the light that managed to poke through the jungle canopy - Ralph was watching Jack, Simon the pig. It continued to scream and fight and shriek, a frightened pink thing that, much to Jack's unease, sounded similar to a person. He held the knife aloft, his hand trembling slightly as his blue eyes widened. He had to kill the pig, right? They needed some source of protein, and Ralph was watching him. . .

'You shouldn't hurt another living thing.'

That was possibly the most important rule the adults had, and he could just envision disappointment, as if it were his parents watching him instead of this fair chief and queer singer. His parents' eyes bore into the back of his head; his mother was whispering sweetly in his ear, his father watching with furrowed brows and pursed lips. But we need to eat–

And in that moment of hesitation, of sweet whispers and furrowed brows and fantastic uncertainty, the creepers gave one big jerk and the piglet tore free, squealing excitedly as it fled into the undergrowth and disappeared deep into the jungle. Jack blinked, face completely drained of colour as he glanced back at the others, who stared back wordlessly. He realized that he still held the knife up and slowly brought it down, returning it to its sheathed state as he slowly stood back up. Simon and Ralph stood as well, neither saying a word for what seemed like hours. Jack was a flurry of both relief and frustration. He imagined the hot, sticky blood pouring over his hands, staining his shirt and shorts, pooling around them, the light burning out of the piglet's eyes as the life drained out of it with its blood. . . Then he imagined Ralph and Simon, the weakness he had shown them, the subtle contempt towards him they felt but would not show. . . And he wiped sweat off his forehead, hoping that they wouldn't seem the shame his eyes betrayed. He was ashamed of himself, and angry, and indignant.

"I was choosing a place." He declared, as the three shared a sudden awkward laughter. "Deciding where to stab 'im."

"You should stick a pig," Ralph offered, his voice a bit too authoritative for Jack's liking. He thought he detected a hint of condescendence as well, but wasn't certain. Ralph continued. "They always talk about sticking a pig."

"You cut its throat," Jack grumbled indignantly. He didn't need Ralph telling him how to hunt. "If you just stab it, you ruin the meat and can't eat it."

"So why didn't you-?"

Jack turned on him, blinking, silent, frustrated. He turned away again and started walking ahead of them, not facing them as he spoke. "I was going to," he insisted, "I was just picking a place. Next time–!"

He pulled his knife out of the sheath once more and stuck it in the nearest tree, facing them once more, his eyes challenging them, daring them to contradict, to question, to doubt. When they didn't, he nodded at them, pleased with their lack of response, and pulled his knife out of the tree and sheathed it for the third time that day. They continued on down to the platform, and Jack allowed himself to fall a bit behind as the trio scavenged for any type of food they could find. He picked and ate the odd fruit, but found that he had lost his previous appetite, instead consumed by thoughts of the screaming piglet. Next time. . . Next time he'd show no mercy. He'd go right for its throat. He'd prove to Ralph that he was strong, fierce, capable. He just hoped that his two companions wouldn't share the news of his failure to kill. He had to uphold his tough reputation with the choir – no, they were hunters now, weren't they? – so that his authority over them wasn't challenged.

"Jack?"

The red head turned, almost startled, having not heard Simon approach him. He glanced past the small boy in search of Ralph, and found the blond down the hill, attempting to shake a tree to rid it of its brightly coloured fruits. His eyes found Simon once more, and he crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you want?"

"I found some berries."

Jack raised an eyebrow as Simon held up his hands to his face, a pile of small red berries sitting upon his palms. They were about the size of marbles, bright and plump and plentiful. "They're not poisonous." He said with a confident nod of his head. "I read about these in a book. Berries, I mean, not specific ones, but. . . Um. . . Well, see how it's red when it's squeeze it?" He carefully moved the pile to one hand and picked one from the top, giving it a squeeze until a red, jelly-like substance oozed from its skin. "It'd be white if it were bad for you."

Jack studied these berries, then looked at Simon, baffled. "Why are you showing me these?"

"Oh, I'm not showing you. They're for you. I thought you might like them, and it doesn't look like you were eating a lot, so–"

"Save them for the choir." The red boy cut in dismissively. "I don't want them."

Simon glanced down at the berries, then back up at his head chorister. Jack frowned when he noticed the hurt creeping into Simon's green orbs, so he placed a light hand on his shoulder and offered him a small smile. "I'm not all that hungry, and I've eaten quite a bit. Thank you, but the rest of the choir must be hungry as well." At that, Simon smiled again and nodded, then turned and scurried back to Ralph. Jack watched him go, sighed loudly to himself, then returned to the all-consuming thoughts of pigs.


Jack sat next to Robert, watching with distaste and exasperation as the majority of the choir argued over the berries that Simon had brought them. The giver himself was seated in the grass with Roger, offering him several berries while the dark boy stared at them in debate. Maurice and Bill were standing on either side of Harold, who held a decent amount of the red fruit in his hands, arguing over who get how many. Harold was trying to reason with them, but Bill would have none of it as he yelled at the always grinning Maurice.

Jack noticed that Henry was not amongst the choir, and glanced around, finding the smallest of singers throwing grass at a shrimp of a boy with a rather ugly mulberry-coloured marking taking up half of his face. Admittedly, Jack didn't care much for Henry; he was whiney, cried a lot, and a painfully slow learner. He couldn't hit the low notes, which definitely brought the choir down at times, and he was certainly no hunter. He figured they could do without him.

"How was exploring?" Robert asked then, his big brown eyes studying Jack's freckled face.

"Fine." He replied. "There's plenty of food, and we found a stream not far from here where we can get water. I think this is a good island."

"So this is an island?"

Jack nodded. "Like we thought."

"Are there any other people?"

"Not that we could see."

Robert nodded slowly, absorbing this information, deciding what to do with it. "So we may be here a while." He finally declared.

"Maybe, maybe not." Said Jack curtly, then he clenched his fist and shouted at Bill and Maurice, having had enough of their bickering. "Bill, Maurice! Share them equally between the two of you, for God's sake!"

Ralph blew the trumpet-sounding shell then, and Robert fell silent. Bill glowered at Maurice before snatching a handful of berries from Harold, then sat on the other side of Robert and grudgingly ate them one by one. Maurice laughed and sat next to him, which didn't make the fuming boy any happier.

The platform soon filled with the remaining boys, and Ralph sat to the left of Jack, waiting and holding the shell in his lap patiently as the chatter rose and died away. Jack looked at his feet a moment, then withdrew his knife from its sheath once more and began carving at the wood between him and Robert, listening to but not quite hearing what Ralph was saying.

"Well then–"

As he informed the group about their present situation, Jack allowed his mind to wander, continuing to carve into the wood. There were pigs, yes, and judging by how quickly the piglet had fled, they were fast and much more agile than he. They knew this island, and he didn't. Hunting on his own would be impossible, so then. . .

"You need an army," he decreed, not noticing the brief irritation that flashed in Ralph's eyes at the interruption. "For hunting. Hunting pigs."

Beside him, Ralph nodded. "Yes, there are pigs here."

And at that moment, Ralph, Simon, and Jack all spoke feverishly at once, the thrill of the squirming pink thing still livid in each of them.

"We saw–"

"Squealing–"

"It broke away–"

"Before I could kill it," announced Jack, cutting Simon off, "but next time–!" He slammed his knife into the trunk, causing Robert to flinch and the assembly to buzz – about the island, about the pigs, about the red boy and his knife.

"So you see," Ralph began once they had quieted down once more, "we need hunters to get us meat. And another thing. There aren't any grow-ups. We shall have to look after ourselves, as Jack said. And another thing–"

Jack noted his tendency to talk too much.

"We can't have everybody talking at once. It's confusing and we'll never get anything settled. We'll have a 'hands-up' rule, like at school."

He held the shell up in his hands. "Then I'll give him the conch."

"Conch?" Questioned Jack.

Ralph turned to him and nodded. "That's what this shell is called. I'll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it while he's speaking."

"But–"

"Look–"

"And he won't be interrupted," said Ralph fiercely, looking challengingly at the other boys. "Except by me, because I'm chief."

An idea sprung into Jack's red head then, and he was suddenly on his feet. "We'll have rules!" He shouted excitedly. "Lots of 'em! And when anyone breaks 'em–"

A stir rose again, and a sudden movement to Jack's left quieted him. Piggy had lifted the conch from Ralph's lap and was standing a little in front of him, cradling the shell in his grubby hands as though it were a baby.

"You're hindering Ralph," he told them sharply. "You're not letting him get to the most important thing."

He paused, and looked round at the group. Jack, still on his feet and uncertain as to what to do next, looked to Ralph, who offered him a smile and invitingly patted the log beside him. Jack slowly sat down, glaring bitterly at this fat piece of lard.

"Who knows we're here?"

Boys were on their feet and shouting all at once, and Ralph grabbed the conch from Piggy and raised it for silence. "My dad, he knows." He told the fat boy, but Piggy shook his head and took the conch once more.

"Nobody knows where we are. They might have known where we were going, but we never got there, so how do they know we're here?"

Ralph took the conch back, and Piggy sat down. "That's what I was going to say next. The plane was shot down in flames. They don't know where we are, so we may. . . We may be here a long time."

When nobody said anything, he grinned suddenly and looked to Jack and Simon. "But this is a good island. There's food and drink. We can have a good time while we wait."

Jack held out his hand for the conch, and smiled when it was given to him. "There's pigs and food and bathing water and a little stream. Didn't anyone else find anything?"

When the silence prolonged, and it was obvious that none of the other boys had even bothered looking around, he gave the conch back to Ralph and brushed red hair back from his forehead. What a great bunch we have here, he thought bitterly.

Then there was a scuffle in front of him, and he watched as the boy that Henry had been throwing grass at – the one with the birthmark on his face – was pushed towards Ralph by some of the other smaller boys. He was staring at his feet and mumbling at them, shaking at this sudden light of publicity.

Ralph urged him forward, and the boy held out his hands for the conch, but shrunk back and began to cry when the assembly burst out into harsh laughter. Piggy shouted at them for silence, and the boy took the conch, but the embarrassment of the situation had left him mute. Piggy knelt beside him and allowed him to whisper into his ear, nodding every now and then. When he stood up, he announced that the boy wanted to know what they were going to do about the snake-thing.

Ralph laughed, but stopped when the boy shrunk back even further. He urged him on, and Piggy communicated that this snake-thing was now a beastie; a monster that this small boy had seen lurking about the jungle in the dark. Arguing ensued, reassurance was needed, and Ralph cried several times that there was no beastie. Jack took the conch from him and stood up, facing the now grave and silenced assembly of scared schoolboys.

"Ralph's right, of course. There isn't a beastie; only kids believe in monsters. And if there is a snake-thing, my hunters will kill it. We'll look for it when we go hunting–"

"But there isn't a snake!" Ralph shouted, exasperation and irritation thick in his voice. Jack turned to him and blinked.

"We'll just make sure–"

Ralph threw his hands up, defeated, and tried rationalizing this idea of a beastie once more. Jack sat back down and frowned to himself, thinking what folly such an idea was. But still, if this boy had seen a snake, he knew his hunters would kill it, and then everybody would admire him–

He tuned back in to the assembly in time to hear Ralph's idea of making a fire at the mountain, as a way to signal to passing ships and hopefully get them rescued. He grinned at this suggestion and nodded, then jumped to his feet once more and shouted, the rule of the conch lost in the fervour of excitement.

"Come on! Follow me!"

And all at once the boys were all on their feet, Jack leading them through the jungle to the mountain, not noticing how Ralph was shouting at them, only taking note of how the boys were following him.