You've got the choice.

Disclaimer : All characters except Simon's brother belong to William Golding, whom I deeply admire. No offence intended.

Warnings: Everyone who was able to read the book without being scarred for life will be able to read this, too. That means: Violence, language, philosophical thoughts and angst. Slashy themes as well. Rating is PG-13 - R

Summary: It's 1968, twenty years after the events of 'Lord of the Flies'. The survivors reunite and travel to the island once more, to have a little ceremony for the dead ones. But then, unforeseen things happen... have they learned or will the past repeat itself?

Note: That Ralph is married with child does not mean that there isn't going to be anything between him an Jack. And as for Roger – read this chapter.

This story is probably not going to be as good as my last one. It's not as original (I'm beginning to think I'm repeating a lot of what was going on in 'I am here'). But I like writing it, as I like to imagine the different characters and what has become of them. I like inventing their histories, like Jack's for example.

Bagheera (who would also like to excuse for any terrible grammatical errors, for she is not a native speaker!)

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3 Jack's story

Suckling at the tip of his ball-pen, Maurice overlooked the beach. How to describe the infinite beauty of this place? So sweet, with the sun rising in a blaze of soft light, so chaste with the sand white as snow, so fresh with the palm-trees slowly waving in the breeze, so like at the beginning of time, with the small waves rolling up the beach, crowned with light. But he had not come here to describe the wonderful setting. He looked at what he had already written, since the sun had begun to rise an hour ago. Seven pages, scribbled hastily, in which he described the events of the day before, the plane crashing, Jack and Ralph fighting, the men scattering on the beach. And before these pages, there were already pages and pages in which he described their meetings. A whole diary for the little group of men.

Somebody came walking from the part of the island where the little river was, carrying four halves of empty coconuts, obviously filled with water that spilled every now and then when the man staggered in the sand. It was Johnny, his longish hair still tied back but a lot more ruffled than the day before. The baggy shirt he wore flapped in the breeze from the sea and he squinted at the sun. Maurice closed the booklet.

"I brought some water," he offered and Maurice gratefully took on of the shells, drinking thirstily.

"Thanks. You're up early."

"You, too. A bird woke me up. What are you writing?"

"A kind of journal. I started writing it when we started our first meetings. It's about... well, us." Johnny sat down with his legs crossed. Maurice noticed that he didn't wear his shoes anymore.

"Somehow this is fascinating, don't you think so, too? On a completely scientific level, of course. I mean, this group of men, stranded on an island. It's like a real life experiment, only that it is real." He shook his head. "My professors would love to hear about that. I could even write my Ph.D. about it."

"You're studying philosophy? That's nice. When I finished school I couldn't quite decide between becoming a reporter or studying sociology or philosophy. So you're writing on your Ph.D.?" Johnny smiled and tugged a strand of hair behind his ear.

"Actually I was just... relaxing a little. You know, there's a lot going on at the universities, right now. I thought about doing a trip to the U.S., when you phoned me about the reunion. And there's also some friends who want to create a 'commune' where people can live and work freely.... ."

"Really? Well, it seems you might get your commune right here and now."

"Hm.. were you planning to write an article about this?"

"No. I just wrote it down, because I have to write, so I can think about it. But this is way too private to give it to the public."

"Where are the others, by the way?" Johnny looked around, spotting four or five of the men sleeping under the palm trees at the edge of the forest.

"We should probably call everyone together, when we're all up."

"You think so?" Maurice pocketed his pen. The younger man looked at him with surprise. "If we do that, we'll have a meeting. Things will be decided, just like when we were kids. We could also just wait for rescue. Maybe it is easier and less dangerous not to create a 'community' at all."

"I didn't think about that." Johnny scratched the blonde stubble that was appearing on his chin.

"But do you really think it's dangerous? The past won't repeat itself. Especially not after we've already been through this once." Maurice shrugged and nodded.

"Only a thought."

+++

But by the time everyone got up, they assembled by themselves, coming together in little groups, then finally meeting in the shadow of the palm trees. Everyone was carefully avoiding to speak for the group, rather they walked around, or talked to their neighbours. Even Ralph had come, and now sat at the edge of the group, silent and cautious. Daniel, who was sitting next to Maurice and Johnny, noticed how he looked weary and pale, like someone who hasn't slept well. He also looked older than most of the men, not only because he was the oldest, but also because he was a little to gaunt, and his face a little more lined than theirs.

Jack had come too, and although he was not avoiding the others, they were avoiding him. They threw only angry glances at him. Suddenly someone raised his voice.

"So? And I say that bastard deserves being thrown into the ocean so that we don't have to look at his daft face any more!" It was Henry, who was standing with Harold, Robert, Percival and a former littlun named Phil and he was looking directly at Jack. Everyone fell silent at once. Maurice looked around, curious who would be the one to answer that challenge. Strangely, Jack stayed calm, looking almost bored. For a second, Maurice caught Ralph's gaze, but the other man looked away hastily.

"Calm down, Henry." It was Johnny speaking, sounding very diplomatic. "You can sue him when we'll be rescued, if you need to."

"You bet I'll sue him!" It was Percival, his face red to the roots of his pale hair. He was a skinny and freckled young man, lanky, with watery eyes. "That plane was the newest we had! It'll ruin our business! I'll make you pay, and if that's the last I do."

"Bah!" Henry spat. "Sue him! Suing is for nancies! There is no evidence anyway! I say, let's do it right here and now!"

"But you can't do that!" Johnny looked genuinely shocked. "Violence is not a solution!"

"I'm not asking for you opinion, hippie." Harold, Robert and Percival laughed. Henry, who was not actually a very strong man, but rather sturdy and short, turned around to them, encouraged by their support.

"We don't listen to hippies, don't we? Go back to smoking grass!" For the blink of an eye it seemed as if the long-haired man might get angry, but then he smiled.

"Listen guys, I know we're all angry and stressed. But there really isn't anything we can do about it, is there? We're stuck on this island and it would be stupid to argue. Let's talk it straight: either we stay reasonable or this'll end rather unpleasant." An ugly grin appeared on Henry's face. He made threatening step towards Johnny, crossing his arms in front of his chest, spitting into the white sand.

"The question is: unpleasant for who? Me or you?" Johnny frowned, obviously unwilling to take the challenge and aware that it would be him who would loose, but at the same time not ready to give up to such rudeness. He raised his eyes to the blue sky and sighed exasperatedly. In the very moment Henry growled and swung his fist, aiming at his jaw. But it connected with the arm of another man. Jack had, unnoticed by the two men, stepped in between them.

"I think it was me you wanted to fight with?" Henry blinked stupidly at the redhead who was looking coldly down on him. Jack was tall, and had a hard edge to his face, and that dark look in his eyes that could be very intimidating at times. He was not a big-mouthed flower child. But Henry was not to give up in front of his new-found allies. Jack, taking his hesitation for fear, shrugged.

"But you're only talk, huh?" He turned around, for a moment wholly old arrogant Jack again. In that moment Henry's fist hit his jaw.

+++

Ralph had walked almost a mile along the beach, until the back of his neck was hot from a sunburn and his shirt was so sweaty it clung to him like another layer of skin. As soon as Henry and that boy, Johnny, had started to argue, he had silently left the meeting. He had found the pool where they had used to swim and play and for a moment had stood there unaware of the smile that was creeping over his lips. His fingers had touched the blood-warm surface of the water, and he had listened to his memories for a second. Then he went on, looking for a scar in the nature but only finding perfect green. He went on, along a part of the island where the beach was only a narrow streak of wet sand, and the huge palm trees craned their brown necks far over the sea. He sat down on one nearly horizontal log, leaning back and closing his eyes. From somewhere there came a breeze that carried the scents of the island to him, a scent of aromatic green bushes, with white little flowers... his thoughts wandered along that road, and he remembered Simon.

It is strange, Ralph thought, that even as an adult, when you remember friends from your childhood, they do not seem like children to you, but like real people. They do not seem young or silly or naive to you. Is that because you yourself become young again when you remember your childhood? Or is it because you adapt the memory you have of them to the adult mind you have become? The memory of Simon did awoke other images now, though. The image of a young man, with coarse and unruly black hair and the most gentle face, a little dreamy, who looked to the ground when he smiled and talked, but into the sky with shining eyes when he was silent. He remembered last night, with that boy close to him and talking softly, words that were soothing... He thought that he had been wrong, that Simon and Daniel were alike, because Simon, too, would say words that other boys would not say, and see things that others did not see, and he would be gentler and kinder than they were.

"Fuck," someone cursed. Ralph's eyes flew open and his hands clawed the wood of the palm tree. He turned his head and saw, a few feet away and under his palm tree, Jack swaggering along the beach, holding his nose with one hand and his stomach with the other. Blood was all over his hand, already drying. It looked like his own blood, though.

"What have you done?" Ralph asked and Jack looked up at him, his hand still over his nose.

"Henby," he explained. "Dat bashdard hid be." Ralph frowned and had to smile weakly despite himself.

"I don't understand you." He climbed down from his seat and looked the other man up and down.

"Lie still, with your head back. And try to cool it," he advised. Jack threw him a look, curious and a little annoyed, but undressed his shirt with his free hand and drenched it with water from the sea, then held it on his neck and lay back in the shadow of the forest. Ralph stood there and watched him. After a while the bleeding became weaker.

"I said, Henry hit me. I thought that little coward wouldn't do it, but he punched me from behind. Dirty trickster."

"He only hit you once?"

"He fucking not only hit me once! But Maurice and that little hippie, Johnny, they held him back – well you know Maurice." Yes, Ralph knew Maurice. The broad-faced reporter had the neck of a box champion and his hands did not look as if their sharpest weapon was a pencil, either. He looked down at Jack. Jack was more lanky and gaunt than actually strong. He didn't seem very sporty, and seemed to skip meals regularly. A white scar, maybe ten inches long, went from his left collarbone down his chest.

"Stop staring," Jack said irritably. Ralph looked away and felt his ears become hot.

"I'm thirsty," he said after clearing his throat. Jack looked at him strangely, but then he extended one hand, waiting to be helped to his feet. Ralph took the hand.

Walking to the little river took some time. Jack felt that he should talk to Ralph, but it was Ralph who talked first.

"Your little experiment is going down pretty fast. Physical violence on the second day...".

"My little...? Oh. Well... it's not about not being violent. I'm not so stupid to think people wouldn't be angry at me for doing this... And by the way, there was physical violence on the first day."

"..."

"But that you hit me... well I was actually glad about that. You scared me quite a bit in that plane. Looking at me like a monster."

"You were one. Back then. For me."

"Alright." Jack sighed. "But I'm not anymore?"

"You're not. But the Jack of then still is."

"..."

"I still don't quite understand. All of you seem so changed, just me... what did you do? Why did you become so different?"

"Me? You really want to know what I did?"

"Yeah... actually yes." Jack didn't answer instantly. He looked thoughtful until they reached the little river, he was silent when they cupped the water with their hands and drunk thirstily in the burning sun, sitting on their haunches and drinking like the first men, like animals. Ralph, whose thoughts were wandering, too, remembered a scene from a film about Indians in the jungle of Brazil he had once seen, where that little bronzed Indian, naked, with a quiver full of poisoned arrows around his brown back, drinks from the river, sitting on his haunches, cupping his hands and looking just like that. And he thought that, when stripped of their clothes and their houses and their cars, their language and their habits, all men are quite the same. Savage and civilised are only words, words without a meaning.

And when they had finished drinking, Jack said that he was hungry, too, and they went and plucked fruits and ate them. And when they were sated, and it was afternoon and not quite as hot anymore, they went to the beach, to a place where they were alone, and sat down and watched the sea, like old friends. Jack thought that this was the way it should have been, that this was what he actually wanted, even back then. Ralph thought that he was tired, and content now, and all was right with the world for the first time in years, even though this was where his nightmare's took place, and where the ghosts of the past were very much alive, but they were not haunting him anymore, they were caressing him with their fingers of smoke.

"I was very angry." Jack finally said, staring at the sea, as if he read the words from an invisible screen that was hanging there, right above the horizon.

"I was very angry when that boat came, and that officer. It would have been the moment of my ultimate triumph. I even thought... if only they had come a minute later, an hour later! Then I would have.. I would have won. It wouldn't have been that bad to be rescued, if just I could have... killed you before. I hated you so much. Now I think that I hated you because you were anything I would have liked to be, fair, and nice and liked by everyone, and so mature and always right. I don't know if it was really like that. But I remember that I thought you were so terribly arrogant. You hadn't done anything, but everyone liked you. I thought it was unfair. Of you everyone thought 'oh, he looks nice, I want to be his friend,' but of me they only thought, 'oh, I don't want to be his enemy.' But who knows what were really the reasons."

"But we had to go on board of that ship, and wash and dress in clothes that were too big. And all the little children cried, and all the big ones, too, because they were little children, after all. Only I did not cry, and Roger did not cry. I remember how we looked at each other, 'Cry-babies,' his looks said, and 'Little children' my look said, and I think that was the moment that welded us together, that created a secret pact between us. That we would not become little children again. They could wash our faces and take the masks away, but we would always stay hunters. They brought us back to England and there I learned that my father had died, and my two big brothers, too. They were like you, Ralph, my brothers, I had always envied them. I remember how my mother cried, so happy to have me again, and I lay in her arms and thought 'Now I'm her favourite son.'"

"She did not send me back to the school I had been in before, because the school had been bombed down and burned to ruins. I was happy, I had always hated the choir. I was proud that I was the best, that I could sing C sharp, but that was all. First, many of us from the choir, who all lived in the same area, did not go to school at all. The war was just finished, and people were recovering, reconstructing their country. My mother always asked me about the island, about the plane and the crash, and she cried a lot, but I told her that she shouldn't cry, that everything was okay. I felt like a man. I met Roger, almost every day. He lived only a few streets away, and we had known each other before, but been that good friends, because he was a year younger than me. But when we were sent to school again, it was the same school. For a year we went to a local school, but then his parents decided to sent him to a boarding school, and I begged my mother until I was sent there, too. I remember how I felt so very relieved to leave my home, being the favourite son had not been that great."

"Was your family very rich?"

"Not before the war, but then my mother got a lot of money from the state and the military, because my father and my brothers had died in the war. It was a very expensive school we were sent to, many little snobs went there, and we were outsiders. But we didn't care, Roger and I, we didn't want to be their friends. We did a lot of forbidden things, and every time we were caught smoking or bullying lower class-men, I told the counsellor the story about my terrible trauma from the island. I even wrote letters to my Mum when I got bad grades, telling her about my nightmares and crap. As teenagers, Roger and I felt great, like we were somehow smarter than the rest, like we knew some secret that they knew not, and that we would never submit to their rules. The thing was only, that while I was a normal teenage rebel, a boy with some complexes from childhood and a really bad temper, Roger was a wholly different case. When I smoked cigarettes, he started smoking grass. When I thought that smoking grass was the worst thing there could be, and therefore the coolest, he came up with cocaine. When I smuggled a knife into the school, Roger already had a gun. He used to shoot birds with it. And one day we were in the forest together, smoking and skipping classes, he held that gun to his head and told me that he would shoot himself if we would ever stop being hunters. And I was scared but also thrilled and I said, yes, I would too."

"How old were you when that happened?"

"I was sixteen, I think, and he was fifteen. I had never had a girl, but I already talked about suicide. From then on it became only worse. Roger wanted us to become blood brothers, but he cut his vein so deep that he nearly bled to death, all over me. I was scared to death and at the same time thrilled and fascinated. It was always like that with him. A roller-coaster ride between fear and fascination, between love and horror."

"Love?"

"Huh... we were way too close. I didn't have any other friends, and everyone always talked about it, only I didn't suspect it, when it first happened. It was my seventeenth birthday, and we were drinking together and then he told me that he was mine, mine, and that if I should ever go away, he would kill himself and everybody else, and I said that I wouldn't go away, never, because he was mine, mine, and we were brothers, hunters. And I kissed him. Understand that, it was not some kind of boarding school helplessness, boys in puberty without girls, no, it was real. I thought he was like me, angry at the world. He wasn't. He was psychotic and deranged, that was all." Jack rubbed his eyes, feeling how his hands were shaking. His fingers unconsciously traced the scar on his chest.

"I haven't ever told anyone. Damn, I wish I had a cigarette." He looked at Ralph, who had been listening, in turns shocked and appalled.

"How did it end with Roger?"

"Are you disgusted? I was in love with a man. A murderer."

"I think I'm a little shocked."

"That's good. It was shocking. Well, it ended the only possible way. Roger killed himself. We had been together for a year, and it was the day of my graduation. At first I thought he was really stoned again, but he was sober. I told him that we would meet again when he was finished with school. That everything would be like before. He said nothing, and I thought it would be okay. We did... you know. He clawed my back, so much I bled, really bled, and I hurt him, too, I think, I hit him, and he smiled when I did so. He took his hands, his bloody hands, and smeared my blood all over his face. 'If you'll ever leave me,' he said. And 'I'm a hunter.' And he took his gun and shot himself, right in his head, in that bed, while I was still inside him, and his blood spurted all over my face, as if he wanted to paint me, too."

"My god. And that was how you realised...?"

"No. That was only the beginning. They had to carry me away, naked, to the infirmary, and that was the first time in six years that I cried, that night. I went to an asylum for two months or so. There I realised how fucked up my life had become. I missed Roger's burial. It must have been a quiet affair. I don't think his family loved him very much." He fell silent for a certain time, lost in the past. But then he rattled on, unable to stop.

"Well, some time after that I went to the USA, to have a change of setting and all... have you ever been to America? No? Well, it's great... they're really strange but also nice, especially if you're a bit weird like me, because that's what they expect from Europeans. It happened in San Francisco, where I had started to study because I thought I maybe should study something. I had started with English, because I didn't know what to do, I didn't really have any interests and it seemed to me the easiest. The kids there were different from the boarding school kids I had known before. Not as snobby, and somehow... well in England the kids were like younger versions of their parents, back then, in 1954, but in America, they were changing. It appealed to me. It also was strange how suddenly I wasn't really an outsider anymore. People talked to me, girls even. It was strange. Part of me still rebelled against it, said that they were stupid kids, that I was smarter, was a hunter, and part of me was so relieved to finally be accepted. Like I was reborn. But I wasn't."

" It started when I had my first girlfriend. Her name was Lana, called Lanie, a very gentle girl, kind of sensitive, who thought she might become a writer, a poet. She was a little shy, pretty, but not the most popular one. Loving her was very... new. Awkward. I don't think I had loved anyone before. I hadn't loved Roger, or my parents in that way. Not in that way. I felt protective, and so vulnerable at the same time."

"Was she the one you told me about yesterday?"

"Yes. I found that I had difficulties to touch her. Whenever I touched her, I thought of Roger, and then I thought of her, what would be if she died. And it became worse. I imagined I would kill her, because I had to, because I was a hunter. That was the moment I realised what I had done. I didn't tell her of course. But I started to take drugs again, and to drink. She of course knew it, and she was kind of helpless, because she really loved me, that girl, and she didn't know what was up with me. One day she introduced me to a man, a psychiatrist, a friend of her parents. I agreed to meet him but I didn't. A month later I dumped her. I didn't tell her why. I don't think I ever saw anyone cry like that."

"Then I went back to England. I continued studying, English, later on Journalism. I quit, though, and started jobbing, drifting around in London... I was twenty-six, I think, when I went to an asylum once more, for half a year. That was the first time I really told anyone what happened on that... here, I mean. I already told you what the psychologist told me. Crap. It didn't help me at all. It continued like this. I saw how my friends at the university changed, how they started to believe that society could be changed, how they talked of peace and living together in new ways... I think you know the talk. And I could only laugh bitterly at them, but at the same time I so longed to be like them. You see, I hadn't changed very much. That was the time when I wanted to see you again. When I realised all my mistakes. I hated myself, but I didn't want to. And then I met Maurice. That's all. That's my story."

Ralph nodded. It was a story like Jack, rough, and always a little unhappy, and at times cruel and angry. It was a story without aim, without morals.

"Well, it's a lot more than my story." He smiled at Jack who looked weary and much older than thirty-two . It is also very different from my story, he thought. And yet he felt sympathetic with Jack. Because he understood now, that Jack had reasons for what he did. Because that had always been the thing that had frightened him most about Jack: that he seemed to be violent without an aim, cruel without reasons, chaotic. But a man with reasons, as strange as they might be, could be reasoned with.