Book: Lord of the Flies
Characters: Roger (and Simon)
Many years after the end of the book. Mentions of blood, violence and murder
(English isn't my native language, i learned it playing video game, and I dont have a beta)
A Gift for his Beast
...
He watched the sun slowly set behind the seawall that hid the view of the nearest city at his right, and took a long drag on the cheap cigarette he held between his index and middle fingers. As the golden light faded from the sky and the stars began to emerge, there, on top of that rock on the small, isolated beach, the guy left his mind behind and just existed. And soon the night was dark enough that the embers of his cigarette merged with the stars.
Moving away from the hood of his Hillman Hunter where he was leaning, the young man walked to the edge of the rock and sat down. From there his mind was lost in the monotonous sound of the waves crashing against the slope below him and stretching out onto the beach. The cigarette glow forming a bonfire in the image of the beach as he reached out his arm in that direction, and the white sand beach was more of a memory than what his eyes could really see from the coast in the darkness.
He didn't think about the many years that had passed since he had been on that boat and had last seen that island. He couldn't think of any of the other boys' faces, clean after their showers, thin and dehydrated and sunburned, all staring at their feet and unable to face each other inside the rescue ship. Stripped of their masks, they all went back to being the good choir boys. He never saw any of those faces again, and over time those memories became blurs in his mind that he had no interest in trying to keep. But he always insisted on watching the sun set over the sea. He took another drag.
This was one of those nights.
Roger blew out smoke and squinted as the boy came over and sat beside him. Thick black hair covering his forehead and eyebrows, bright eyes, distant on the horizon that was no longer distinguishable from the ocean, and the mouth that opened and closed without making a sound, like a fish dying on the beach. Mute words that no one has ever tried to listen to. Roger blinked, keeping his eyes closed longer than necessary to hold the memory of that face on the underside of his lids. Perhaps there was one face he never forgot. And then came the blood. Slowly the dark, viscous substance began to flow and drip from the boy's nose to his lips. Finally flowing from the innumerable cuts and punctures that appeared on his body and face, from his eyes now empty of life. Roger opened his eyes and stared at the image again. The boy's bloody features were still kind, soft, and his lips were still saying words with no sound. The little beast dying on the beach in the blue light of a lightning.
"I brought you a gift", Roger whispered and sucked on the cigarrete, puffing smoke on the image beside him.
Simon shook his head vigorously from side to side, his soaked hair bouncing around, but the drops of blood never hit Roger. The guy huffed a laugh that sounded like a short bark and stood up.
He went to the car and opened the trunk, rummaging around inside. Suddenly the boy was at his side as Roger pulled out a bag of pig feed, its mouth tied with string and something round inside. Closing the trunk a little harder than necessary, he walked to a narrow path between the rocks of the slope that led to the beach, and Simon followed. Arriving at the edge of the beach, Roger stepped on the heels of his shoes, getting rid of them and walking barefoot along the soft, cold sand of the beach, uncomfortable with the difference in the sensation he expected to find. Reaching the shore, where the sand was damp and the waves lapped at his ankles, coming and going, he clamped the cigarette between his lips, untied the mouth of the bag, and reached inside. In the dim light of the night, Roger grabbed a tuft and pulled out a ball of golden-like-wheat hair. They were damp and sticky like Simon's hair, but Roger positioned the thing with his other hand and slipped his fingers through the hairs on that ball, and then something resembling a human face became visible. Roger's big, bony hand brushed the blond bangs to the side, and a strand of fair hair fell back over the lifeless face of a little boy.
...
When he returned to the car and lit another cigarette, the other side of the sky was starting to show a rosy glow. Roger got in, started the engine, and the headlight illuminated the rocky ground. He looked one last time at the horizon, where the lights of a ship lazily drifted along, and inhaled the hot smoke of his cigarette. Simon's image was gone.
"You knew, didn't you?"