(04) The Dream

The young boy jumped into a cluster of leaves and crouched amongst their obscuring presence. He could see the bright orange flames blazing around him, but he didn't move, lest the Hunters were to find him. Suddenly, the twins, Samneric, came into view. They were standing a short distance away and staring at him from behind their thick masks of dull paint.

'You see anything?' a demanding voice asked them.

'No,' Sam replied.

'Nothing,' added Eric.

The boy gave them a gratified smile, and they walked away. He was safe now, for the Hunters would leave this area and continue on to another. Then he would be able to find a refuge . . . somewhere, if they hadn't already burned the entire island to a crisp.

'He's over here!' Roger unexpectedly yelled, waving over some of his fellows, while he trampled his way towards him.

He immediately made a run for it, tripping over some stray logs as he went. An aching stitch appeared in the boy's side as he ran further and further from the mocking whistles of the Hunters. The smoldering flames teased at his legs, drawing from the child small gasps of pain as he tried to move on.

"I have to go on," he thought desperately. "I can't give up!"

The boy stubbornly ran away from the dreaded whistles, which were growing louder with each minute that passed. The Hunters were getting closer to their prey. The youth stumbled on a stray log, falling to the ground. He couldn't get up, for vines had somehow entwined themselves around his legs. He couldn't get away.

'No . . .' he whispered hoarsely as the Hunters came down on him, jabbing him with their sharp sticks. 'No . . .'

A single figure stood proudly amidst the gleeful throng.

'Now you know how I felt,' Ralph said with a bitter smile.

-

Jack woke with a start, having fallen out of bed. He fearfully wrenched the tangled bedsheets from his legs, reminded of the cursed vines of his nightmare. The teen remembered every dreadful detail of his dream—the fire, the whistles, the Hunters . . . his Hunters. What were they doing with Ralph? Jack shook his head slightly, trying to clear his thoughts.
"That shit never happened on the island," he reminded himself. "It was just a dream . . . just a stupid nightmare."

The dream-Ralph's words echoed mockingly through his head: "Now you know how I felt."

'That fucking island is still haunting me!' Jack exclaimed in distress, clumsily climbing back onto his bed and tossing the sheet over his body.

"Now you know how I felt."

Jack's eyes closed in a fierce attempt to block the voice from his head.

"Now you know how I felt."

"Stop it!" he screamed mentally. "STOP!"

"Now you know how I felt."

Jack threw a careless arm over his eyes, finally understanding the deeper meaning of the words. Yes, now he knew how Ralph felt. He understood the betrayal the other boy had felt—betrayal from one he had once considered a friend. He understood the distress, the pain Ralph had had to endure from the loss of his friends, whom it seemed like he would be joining soon. He understood the fear . . . the fear . . .

Jack's teeth clenched in a sort of self-fury.

'I'm sorry, Ralph,' he said, his voice scarcely above a whisper. 'I'm so fucking sorry . . . I never knew.'

Little did he know that Ralph would hear his words.

-

Contrary to Jack's abrupt wakening, Ralph gently stirred from his dreamless sleep, having been woken by a soft breath of wind, as if someone were whispering in his ear. His eyes fluttered open and he groggily glanced at the clock stationed next to his bed.

'6:00?' he muttered miserably, burying his face in his pillow and closing his eyes. For some reason, however, he couldn't sleep. It was like something—or rather, someone—was calling out to him, keeping him awake. He clenched his eyes shut in a fierce attempt to return to the Realm of Sleep, but it was to no avail.

Sighing, Ralph kicked the tangled sheets from his legs and began to pace the room. He had no idea why he was so alert. He had been up late the night before trying to catch up on all the missed work his teachers gave him, and he had had much less than 8 hours of sleep. Why then was he so awake?

"Because you're thinking of Jack," his conscience reasoned.

'Shut up,' Ralph muttered aloud. 'I was not thinking of Jack.'

But he was. He was thinking of the Jack he used to know. The playful one, who landed on the island with him, the one whom he was friends with. The Jack who tried to kill him was a different Jack, consumed by the inherent evil of all mankind. And the Jack who was now trying to befriend him was a mere shadow of the two extremes.

Ralph sighed and ran a hand through his tousled hair. Knowing that it would be useless to go back to sleep (as he would have had to wake up only a half-hour later), the teen grabbed his towel and headed to the bathroom for a shower. Once there, he stripped himself of his pyjamas, stepped into the shower, and turned on the water. Cold water ran smoothly down his back, but it was soon tempered by the following hot water and became a tolerable warmth washing over Ralph's body.

The teen reached over for the shampoo and squirted some of it into his hand. Then he subconsciously began to lather his hair with it. Subconsciously because, as we all know, his mind was rather diverted by a certain someone . . .

'After all these years, Jack . . .' Ralph muttered distractedly, leaving the thought unfinished.

"I'm sorry, Ralph," he heard the words trail unbidden through his head. "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . ."

What the hell?

Ralph looked around nervously, wondering where the voice had come from.

"I'm sorry . . ." the words continued to echo through his head. "I'm sorry . . . I never knew . . ."

Realization suddenly dawned on him. That was Jack's voice!

-

Still extremely distracted by the vision of Jack Merridew, Ralph stepped out of his bedroom a while later, fully-dressed and ready for school. He had just reached for his bag and was heading out the door when the doorbell suddenly rang.

'Ralph, honey, will you please get that?' his mother called to him from the kitchen.

'Um . . . sure, mum,' he replied. Now, who could be ringing at this time of day? After Ralph slung his bag over his jacket-clad shoulder, he went to open the door and his backpack abruptly fell to the ground once more.

'Hello, Ralph,' Jack said, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a small smile.

'What are you doing here?' Ralph demanded, not caring for politeness or manners when faced with his former enemy.

'Why are you raising your voice, Ralph?' his mother asked him, her voice rising just above the clanging of metal pots. 'Who's there?'

'It's no one, mum,' Ralph replied shortly. 'Um . . . I'll be going now, okay? I'll see you after school.'

'Alright. Bye, dear.'

Ralph hastily retrieved his bag and stepped outside, slamming the front door shut behind him.

'What are you doing here?' he asked his companion once more. 'What made you have the sudden urge to come to my house? And speaking of which, how the fuck do you know where I live?'

In reply, Jack balanced his books on one arm and retrieved something from his pocket.

'Look familiar, Ralph?' he asked, holding up a leather wallet. 'You left this back in the caf.' He tossed the wallet to Ralph as he made his way down the steps.

'Oh, um . . . thanks.'

"Well, that explains how he found my house," Ralph thought, absentmindedly searching through his wallet to see if Jack had stolen anything . . . Nope. Even his postage stamps were still there.

'How did you get this?' the teen asked, falling into step beside Jack as the latter walked down the street to the closest bus stop. (How he knew exactly where the bus stop was, Ralph never found out.)

'Ray found it and he gave it to me,' Jack responded. 'Told me to return it to you.'

'Why did you bother coming all the way to my house to return it? If I recall, you have equipment duty this morning from Penting.'

Jack shrugged easily.

'Penting can go screw himself. I don't give a shit what I am supposed to do . . .'

"Though I do care for what I want to do," his unfinished sentence clearly stated.

'But why didn't Ray just give it back to me himself?' Ralph asked. 'It would have made more sense!'

Jack slowed his steps for a fraction of a second, but he quickly continued on as if nothing had happened.

'I had a dream about you last night,' he said suddenly, obviously trying to avoid the question.

'Really?' Ralph inquired, rather uninterested.

'About the last day we were on the island.'

Ralph froze and his nostrils flared out angrily.

'So what? You were happily recounting the time you almost killed me?' he spat.

'No, I—' Jack began, but Ralph cut him off.

'Look, I don't think now is the time to talk about that,' he teen said, pointing at something in the distance. 'The bus is here. We're going to be late.'

Before Jack could protest, Ralph took off down the street at a hasty run.

"We were actually on normal speaking terms with one another," he thought. "We were actually getting along. Then he had to bring up that stupid island memory! That jackass!" Ralph hastily clambered up the steps of the school bus and took a seat near the rear end of the bus. Jack soon re-appeared beside him, and the bus began to shake with motion.

'Can I sit there?' Jack questioned, indicating the empty seat beside Ralph.

'No,' Ralph replied stubbornly.

'Look, Ralph,' Jack began, sitting beside the teen despite his protest, 'can we talk about this? It's not what you think!'

'I don't want to talk about your little island dream right now,' Ralph muttered, crossing his arms stubbornly over his chest.

Jack's teen clenched in anger.

'Fine!' he huffily stood up. 'I just wanted to say that I'm sorry!' He stalked off to a seat near the front of the bus.

Ralph just watched him go.

-

When Jack stepped off the bus, he was not greeted with the usual "hey" from his group of friends. Instead, they crowded around him like a swarm of hungry bees and insistently bickered amongst themselves about Ralph.

'So, how's it going now, buddy?' John asked, clapping him on the back.

'You got him yet, kid?' Terry questioned.

'Of course he hasn't,' Fred responded. 'He's just biding his time. He wants this Ralph guy to fall for him hard, don't you, Jack?'

'Why would he bide his time?' John inquired. 'He's only got a week.'

'Only a week?' Lee exclaimed in disbelief. (He, too, seemed to have purposely skipped his equipment duty. Whether if was because of exasperation with Mr. Penting or simple forgetfulness, Jack never found out)'Only! Remember who you're talking about, Johnny. This is Jack!'

'Yeah, I'm Jack, and I don't need the whole fucking week to win that dude over,' Jack said with false cheerfulness. How could he tell his friends that this was probably the one bet he would lose?

'That's my boy!' Terry said, putting him into a headlock and giving him a noogie.

Laughing, Jack struggled out of Terry's meaty grip and stepped away from his overenthusiastic friend. Suddenly, he noticed something from the corner of his eye.

'Erm . . . I'll be right back,' he murmured to his gang before rushing over to catch up with Ray. 'Hey!' he yelled, trying to draw the other boy's attention.

Ray turned around.

'G'day, mate,' he greeted with a cheerful smile.

'Listen,' Jack said, gasping for breath. 'I was wondering if we could add an extra week or something. It's more fun if you can take your time to lay down the foundation and stuff.'

'Ah, but it's even more fun if you have to fret about time!' Ray replied, still grinning; he casually flipped up his fur-rimmed hood.

'Yeah, I know,' Jack murmured. 'But—'

'No "buts", mate,' Ray interrupted. 'A deal's a deal.' He flicked his hair out of his face and walked away.

'Hey, wait!' Jack called after him.

'We're not changing the bet now,' Ray replied.

'No . . . I mean, I know, but I was just wondering something.'

Ray slowly turned around.

'Yeah?'

'I was wondering why you didn't just give Ralph's wallet back yourself,' Jack said, shifting his books over to his other arm. 'I mean, admittedly, Ralph likes you better, so it would probably have improved your chances, and it also would have been a perfect excuse to go to his house . . . So why'd you give the wallet to me?'

'Does it matter?' Ray inquired, raising his brow.

Jack, who expected Ray to say that he had never even thought of that, was rather taken back.

'S-so you knew what y-you were doing?' Jack stammered.

Ray just gave him a secretive wink and walked away.

-

Ralph groaned miserably as he dragged himself off to homeroom. Math was so boring, and the way Mr. Piddy taught it made it seem even more so. Granted, he had only been in that class for a day, but that was enough to understand Mr. Pid-meister's style of teaching.

Ralph entered the room, immediately heading towards the back of the class. Then he threw his bag on the ground beside his desk and slumped into his chair.

'You are here early, Mr. Macpherson,' Mr. Piddy said cheerfully, straightening some of the papers on his desk.

The teen would very much have liked to say that he was only there because he had no where else to go, but he decided against it.

'I am glad to see that my newest student is taking such an active interest in the wonderful world of mathematics,' he continued.

Ralph rolled his eyes. Everything from his facial expression to his posture showed that he would rather be digging graves in cemeteries rather than be sitting in that math class, but the professor seemed oblivious to those facts. (Heh! Some professor!) Ralph uninterestedly glanced at the blackboard, reading up on the lesson plan for the day. Just then, however, his view was blocked by the last person he wanted to see (but was obviously forced to).

'Jack,' Ralph greeted the other stiffly as Jack hurried to his seat behind him and messily dumped his books on the table.

'Ralph,' Jack said, sitting down and leaning forwards over his desk to speak quietly into the other boy's ear. 'We need to talk.'

'I have nothing to talk to you about,' Ralph replied without facing him. He busied himself for a moment by slipping out of his jacket.

'But I do!' Jack said, grasping the back of the other's chair. 'Just let me explain. That dream—'

RING!

The bell suddenly rang to signal the five-minute interlude before class started; a few students walked in and took their seats.

Jack sighed and started again.

'That dream—'

This time, it was Ralph who interrupted him.

'—was unnecessarily mentioned to me,' he said firmly. 'If you want to bask in the glory that you almost killed me, there's no need to tell me about it. Just say it to your friends, behind my back, whatever! Just don't remind me!'

'Please, Ralph,' Jack said, practically begging now. 'It's not what you think. You misunderstand what I'm trying to say.'

Ralph said nothing, so he continued.

'That dream on the island . . . well, it's the first one I've had in a while . . . but things didn't happen the way they were . . . supposed to.'

Curiosity itched at the edges of Ralph's mind, but he remained stubbornly silent and didn't reply.

'I saw things,' Jack said, 'from your poi—'

RING!

The second bell rang, signaling the start of class.

'Argh!' Jack growled, fisting his hair. 'Talk about crap timing.'

Ralph felt the urge to laugh, but he didn't. He was still wondering about what Jack said; how things didn't happen the way they were "supposed" to, that he saw things from Ralph's . . . what? His poi? What the hell was he going to say? And what was a "poi"?

"I can't believe I'm actually listening to him," Ralph thought bitterly, retrieving his books from his bag.

"Yeah, why are you?" asked another voice in his head. "He tried to kill you, kid, remember?"

"I remember," Ralph replied mentally. "But that doesn't sate my curiosity. I want to know what he was going to say."

"No, you don't. It's probably just some shit about how you actually burned alive instead of escaping. You know, like that nightmare you had the other night."

"Yeah. Maybe." Ralph thought, sighing. Ever since they had escaped that dreadful island, he had been living an almost normal life, save for the fact that his father moved their family around a lot. Still, he was happy. Then what happened! Jack re-entered his life, that's what!

He was trapped in a nightmare from hell.

-

Jack forlornly shrugged off his jacket and sat back in his seat, just as a few last-minute stragglers hurried into the room.

'Settle down, people. Settle down,' Mr. Piddy said loudly. 'Put your textbooks away and take out a sheet of blank paper. We are going to have a little pop quiz.'

Usually, this would have caused an unhappy stir to sweep around the classroom, but Mr. Piddy had slipped up and accidentally written "Pop quiz" on the day's lesson plan on the board. A few people snickered softly at his stupid mistake.

'Ah, yes, well . . .' Mr. Piddy said uncomfortably, having just realized his slip. 'I suppose you already knew that.' He agitatedly ran a hand through his hair, unintentionally pushing his toupee off and revealing his bald, shiny head.

Jack fought the urge to smile, thinking, "Hehehe, Piddy Man is so funny sometimes."

'Yes, well . . .' the teacher said again, hastily replacing his hairpiece. 'Mr. Johnston, can you please retrieve the quiz papers from my desk and hand them out—facedown—to the class.

'Yes, sir.' The student quickly did so, and everyone soon had a quiz sheet in front of him.

Mr. Piddy consulted his watch.

'You may start . . . now!'

Irritating shuffling sounds were heard as everyone turned over their quizzes. The sound of pencils scratching along the surface of paper soon drowned out the following silence.

-

'W-we are going to have a little assignment, class,' Mr. Piddy announced about fifteen minutes later. 'It will be done in pairs."

The boys shifted slightly in their seats, turning their heads about and whispering softly to each other to pair themselves off with their friends.

'I will be choosing your partners,' Mr. Piddy said suddenly, and the murmurings immediately stopped.

'How, sir?' someone in the front asked. 'With the person beside us?'

'No. By surname,' the professor replied, consulting a long list of names on his desk. 'When I say your names, I would like you to please sit together. Let us begin then, shall we: Andrews and Barrel.'

The teen sitting beside Jack—Jacob Andrews—dragged his chair over to the opposite side of the class to sit beside his partner.

'Bing and Borginski, Bunte and Cassidi, Cedrics and Corale,' Mr. Piddy continued, pausing for a moment between each pair to allow the students to move to their appropriate places. 'Cordrinont and Davidson, Derylee and . . .'

Jack let his mind wander about for a while, knowing that his name—Merridew—wouldn't be called for a while. He watched as Mr. Piddy shakily took the list in his hands and held it closer to his face, as if trying to hide himself.

"Why is he so nervous?" Jack wondered.

His question was immediately answered by a soft cough from someone behind him.

Being as discreet as possible, Jack turned his head slightly to see who was sitting there. He sat at the very back of the room, so it was odd for someone else to be there behind him, yet there was—a woman. She looked to be somewhere in her mid-thirties, with neat bun situated at the back of her head. She wore a conservative black dress and a clipboard rested on her knee.

"It looks like she's evaluating Mr. Piddy," he thought.

It wasn't very unusual for someone from the School Board to come to the school for such a purpose; there was an assessment every year! But this was, in fact, Mr. Piddy's first year at this school, so it was obvious why he was so . . . tense.

"Tense . . . now that's a major understatement!"

Suddenly, Mr. Piddy looked up and said, as if in slow motion, 'Macpherson and . . . Merridew.'