A Simple Affliction
A/N: I LIVE! (cringes) Sorry, my deepest apologies to you. I was obligated to focus on my Narnia fics, and they turned out to be both time consuming and, well…rather long. SORRY!
Summary: What caused Jack Merridew to fall into ruin? What if something happened which changed the events on the island?
Disclaimer: Lord of the Flies belongs to William Golding. Don't sue, you'll only get a half empty jar of old fashioned jelly babies.
Warnings: Nothing really. Due to demand, I've decided to make this light slash. Nothing beyond a bit of kissing, really.
Rating: PG13 American, 12 English.
The story is told from the points of view of many of the characters, so it may be a little confusing at times. Apologies!
Chapter 3
It was strange, or so Simon thought. The way things went in this place. Things were so disorderly, at least, from a conventional perspective…and yet, there was still a seeming natural order which dictated everything on the island.
"Something wrong, Simon?"
Simon shook his head without looking at Ralph, who continued to stare at him with an intense gaze. Eventually, Ralph sighed, and shifted uncomfortably, turning back to drawing in the sand. It was a sweltering, humid day, and the pungent smell wafting idly through the trees was almost intoxicating.
"So, Jack took charge after…well, he took charge?"
Simon nodded. Following an uneventful night, in which Jack had, indeed, taken charge and managed to get at least two more shelters up, Ralph seemed to be on the mend. True to Simon's word, it had been simple fatigue which had plagued Ralph. Or so it seemed for now.
Ralph lifted his head, eyes roving over the newly erected shelters and the now deserted camp. His brow furrowed over dark eyes, which grew steadily darker.
"Hunting now, I suppose?"
Simon nodded once again, and licked his dry lips nervously. The air seemed suddenly thick. Ralph's hand had clenched in the sand beneath his palm.
"I should be thankful. That he got them to work, I mean. More than I could do."
There was a bitter tone to Ralph's voice, and Simon wondered at the diversity of the course of time. He felt like he was caught in a dream; no, a nightmare. A nightmare over which he held no control.
"Don't…"
Simon began, and Ralph turned to look at him, waiting. Under those dark eyes, Simon's resolve faltered. He shook his head, swallowed thickly, and Ralph sighed. A salty, coarse sea breeze lifted his fair hair and tossed it gently about his tanned face, giving him a suddenly wilder appearance.
Simon shivered.
"Hi! Ralph!"
They both turned to see one of the biguns, Maurice, if Simon recalled correctly, making his way over. From his sopping appearance, dark hair plastered to his forehead, he had just returned from bathing.
"You alright now, then, Chief?"
Ralph nodded absentmindedly, not looking up from the sand. He seemed engrossed, embellishing patterns upon patterns, gazing down as though it held the secrets of his wildest fantasies.
Maurice looked to Simon, quirking an eyebrow, and Simon shook his head in bewilderment. He glanced over Ralph's shoulder at the scrawlings. Most of it was, at least, to Simon, illegible, but some he could just about decipher.
Words (names?), and strange shapes. What looked like trees, and the vague shape of the island. Fire. Burning. Simon's eyes widened, seeing what appeared to be the head of a pig, on the end of a stick. Trailing swirls, meant to represent blood? A fat shape, perhaps a person, beside a large rock.
"What is that, Ralph?"
Maurice asked, cocking his head to the side as he, too, leant over to inspect it. Ralph started, and blinked, seemingly surprised to find them there. He flushed, colour creeping across his tanned cheeks, and abruptly swept the sand clean with a single movement.
"Nothing. Just…no, it's silly, really. It's nothing."
Ralph glanced up at the sky, drawing a long, deep breath through flared nostrils. Simon studied his face, recalling a very much younger, softer looking boy he once knew. Ralph's fair hair had grown longer, but unlike the other boy's, he kept it swept out of his face. His skin was darker, his hair lightened, and his eyelashes (rather too long, Simon thought, for a boy) had been bleached by the sun.
He was, admittedly, still the cleanest of all the boys. He also refused to rid himself of his shirt; some sort of reminder device, Simon supposed. To remind him of…before. Before the island.
Maurice shrugged his shoulders and, disinterested, turned about and wandered off along the beach back towards the bathing pool. Simon watched him go, lost in thought.
"Simon."
Simon snapped back to reality, as he felt Ralph's brittle hand clench his shoulder. He glanced up, confused, and saw Ralph's darkened eyes wide with an indefinable emotion. He followed the Chief's line of vision, up, high up, to the top of the mountain.
"Do you see any smoke?"
Simon squinted, searching against the obscurity of the clouds above them for the swirling mass of smoke which was surely rising from the summit. His eyes narrowed, and he scanned the blue bowl of the sky for some movement, anything.
Beside him, Ralph chuckled bitterly.
"I hoped it was just my eyes, but…there isn't any, is there?"
Simon shook his head, swallowing thickly. There was a wild, almost ferocious burning in the depths of the elder boy's eyes. Sinister, unnatural.
Simon licked his lips nervously, and began to speak:
"They-"
"They let the bloody fire out."
Ralph cut him off brusquely, rising to his feet with neat precision. Simon scrambled up with rather less grace, and reached out to clasp Ralph's arm, then thought better of it.
Unable to think of anything else, Simon muttered a rather uncertain:
"Yes."
Suddenly, Ralph was meters ahead of him, sprinting across the stretch of beach and weaving with practiced ease between the huts and fallen trees. Simon gasped, and rushed to follow.
"Ralph!"
Simon felt again, that piercing feeling, in the base of his skull. He snapped around, to see a pair of gleaming eyes, dancing with malice, and a face overcast with shadow. Right beside him, hidden just beyond the lip of the trees.
Simon could feel a shudder run up and down the course of his spine, as Roger slowly emerged from his hiding place, a languid smile curling his thin lips. He halted just inches away from Simon, hands fondling a long, sharpened spear.
His smile fell.
"So it begins."
Simon tore his gaze away, and ducked around Roger, intent on reaching Ralph before he got to…Jack, he supposed. A hand closed around his wrist, and abruptly jerked him back.
He winced as he found himself face to face with Roger, so close their noses were almost touching. Roger's hot breath spilled over Simon's cheeks, and Simon shivered as Roger leant around and hissed a ghosting whisper against his ear, his fists clenching in Simon's shirt.
"You can't stop it, you know. You can try. Oh yes, you can try. But in the end, they'll all fall. Every single one of them."
He drew away, smiling a delirious leer.
"Fall to the Lord."
Simon stumbled backwards, rubbing a hand over his crumpled shirt, smoothing it. He swallowed, feeling his ear tingle with Roger's lingering breath against it.
"I won't."
He said, quietly, before tearing away from the other boy, feet slipping over the sand as he searched the foliage desperately for any sign of where Ralph had gone.
Things were changing. Fast, too fast.
He blundered on, through the undergrowth, over thickets, the sharp twigs slashing at his face and clawing at his torso like demented hands. Finally, he cleared the forest, and reached the base of the incline up to where the fire was.
Or should have been.
He frenziedly began his ascent, scrambling up, his heart pounding feverishly against his ribs, his thoughts in turmoil. He had never felt so…chaotic. Like Roger's mere presence had thrown him into…
He didn't know.
They will all fall, every single one of them.
But what did that mean? Fall into what? What did Roger know, that Simon did not?
Simon froze as he heard chanting, the beating of hands against bare skin, raised voices. Coming nearer, out of the forest. It was rhythmic, and somehow…savage.
He shuddered, turning once more and increasing his pace up towards the remnants of the fire.
Whatever was to follow…you could be sure it would not be easy. For any of them.
But that is what it is; to be human.
A/N: A hint of slash for you, in there. I prefer to build things up gradually! Next chapter, Ralph POV, I think. He and Jack experience a few…(cough) problems…
This fic began at the beginning of the chapter 'Huts on the Beach' in the actual book, and the storyline changes from there. It may still follow the general structure of the book, or not. What do you think?
If anybody is actually still reading this (my hat off to you if you are) please review, and let me know if it's worth continuing…
Thanks!