"Sweetheart, is it okay if I come in?" At that moment, Ralph's mother opened the door a crack and poked her head in. Ralph nodded solemnly in response to her question as he sat up to talk to her. His mother sat down on his bed and sighed softly as she put a hand on his cheek. "What is it about rain that seems to put you in such a sad mood?"
"Just thinking about a friend," Ralph answered leaning into his mother's hand as she stroked her thumb along one of the cuts from the island that had scared.
"One of the boys who didn't make it off the island?" Startled by her accuracy, Ralph jerked his head up to look her in the eyes.
"How do you always do that?" He questioned her. Ralph swore his mother was a mind reader sometimes. She chuckled a little at his slight annoyance.
"When you think about the island, you get this look right here," she paused to point at a spot between her eyes on the bridge of her nose, "every time you think of the island," she finished. Ralph sighed and looked up at her.
"His name was Simon," Ralph started, "and we killed him."
"What?" Ralph looked at his mother as an expression of both confusion and horror manifested on her face.
"It was dark and he came down the mountain stumbling and bleeding. There was a beast on that island and when the hunters saw a stumbling figure hurtling at them moaning about something, they made a conclusion too quickly." Ralph's voice was starting to tremble as he continued. "They beat him. They beat him so much and so hard and Simon was such a weak boy to begin with that I don't think it lasted more than a few minutes. Piggy and I were there, at their camp, that night. They'd killed a sow earlier that day and invited us over for food." Ralph was sobbing now as his mother looked at him as though he was a fragile glass doll about to break and began to tell him to stop but Ralph beat her to it.
No, mum, I think I need to say this." Ralph looked at her as she nodded. "Piggy and I, we didn't realize it was Simon and not the beast until the hunters threw him over the cliff and we saw his face. He fell into the ocean floated away from us." Ralph could see that his mother thought he was done, but he still hadn't finished. "Not two days later, Piggy stood up for me and it got him pushed off a cliff by a boulder." Now he was done.
"Sweetheart, they live inside you, in your heart. As long as you never forget them, they will live on in your memory." Ralph's mom whispered to him as she brought his head to her chest and held on to her baby, finally understanding the true monstrosities of the island.
"Mum," Ralph said looking up at her, "that is so cheesy."
There it is folks! I will probably have chapter 4 up by tonight if not sooner and after that my chapters will not be as rapidly posted because I will actually have to write them. So, tell me what you think and I just realized you can be alerted when a story is updated, so if y'all like this, I suggest turning that on because I don't really have a schedule for when I post. I mean, I'll try to get something up maybe every week, but it isn't gonna be like "Oh its Friday, a new chapter is up." I may post one chapter on a Friday then the next chapter on a Tuesday. You will never know. Anyway, please comment and let me know I have people enjoying this story and we shall see how the story continues.
XOXO- the beauty of nightmares