Chapter 4: Shelters Against a Beast

It had been a while since the fire on the mountain. Ralph had lost count of the days at this point, although he'd been trying to make estimates for a while now. Their skin had been browned by the mercilessness of the sun, most of their backs and shoulders beginning to redden with the marks of sunburn, making for the great discovery of the bathing pool and the frequent usage of it. Most of them had gotten sick, at this point, of the taste of fruit; Ralph tried to not think too much about it or else he knew that he would start to crave something else as well, and he'd reminded all of them that they just had to try and make do with what the island naturally provided them. They'd separated themselves into two general groups-the littluns (populated by the younger boys, and it seemed that Piggy's nickname for them had caught on) and the biguns (everyone else, although there was a strange, smaller part of the group populated by Simon). They'd gotten used to the swing of day to night; from the unending, heated daylight to the cooled heat of the dark. In retrospect, he should have been thankful for the temperature of the first night-he would do anything to sleep in those conditions again, especially considering that the shelters had not been built yet. And that irked him to no end.

It seemed so long ago that he swore to himself that they would begin construction on the shelters and finally have a safe and cooler place to sleep. He was beginning to tire of having to sleep underneath ferns or on grass in the allocated location under the palm fronds. He'd forgotten what a normal, comfortable, and dry bed felt like at this point, so to him it seemed like sleeping in a shoddy shelter was the next best possible thing. He'd tried to convey this to the others-to Jack, especially, since he seemed like one of the most useful people to have around while building the shelters, due to his apparent strength-but they would only listen for a little while before returning to their own habits, and playing as they pleased. Jack had developed an obsession with the pigs, and nearly every day he would set out into the forest alone. He could rely on Piggy to support him, but his ass-mar still got in the way of him helping Ralph construct the shelters on a consistent basis.

Sucks to his ass-mar.

In all of this, however, there was at least one person who persisted to help him in the physical aspect. Of course, it was Simon, who went against all connotations of his smaller appearance and proved to be the most helpful, and Ralph was very thankful for that. Although there was yet another enigma surrounding him-his frequent disappearances were quite worrying at times. Sometimes it would be only an hour; other times it would go on all afternoon, or on one occasion Ralph had thought that he may have even wandered off into the night. Despite all this, though, he was still eager to give him his hand in work, and the blonde was grateful for the ounce of help despite him wishing that others would do the same-such as, again, Jack and his hunters. Although with Jack, despite how much he would have liked his help and he liked to have him around at times, they very likely would have suffered arguments. But still, with Simon it was a tranquil experience-there was only the occasional suggestion on what to improve upon or the even rarer compliment on "how good it looked". Ralph knew somewhere in his subconscious that what they were trying to create was not good at all, but he still appreciated the flattery.

In all honesty, Simon's contributions to the shelter were much more skillful and well thought-out than Ralph's. His fingers were thinner and smaller than his, providing him more dexterity in intertwining the creepers and sticks together. It was similarly impressive that he could work faster than him as well-though he supposed that that just had to do with Ralph's unfortunate clumsiness. The branches on his end would come undone every now and then, and most times he'd have to start over again. Simon would only chuckle quietly at this; not in an offending or mocking manner, just playfully. He didn't mind that, only his own frustrations got to him. Although frankly, there were quite a lot of those.

They'd been able to accomplish a mere one shelter, but that had broken apart with a gust of wind that had come in the night, and that morning Ralph was very displeased to find that all of his and Simon's hard work had gone to waste with just one push of the force of nature. Piggy had advised that they build the next one and repair the old one later, and so that was where they were now. Just like with everything else, he couldn't have accurately told anyone just how long he had been working on this shelter with him-he estimated it was only two days, but it could have been a lot longer than that. He no longer troubled himself with keeping track of time. There was only doing things. If there was only doing things, then he didn't have to worry about how long he'd been away from home, or how long people had been worrying about him.

"Bloody hell," he cursed under his breath, fumbling awkwardly with a part that had come loose, driven uncareful by frustration. As usual, there came a chuckle from the opposite side of him, and he smiled playfully, although at the moment he was too focused to give a proper reply.

"You're doing good," came the next compliment. "It just takes some time."

"I guess," he shrugged, satisfyingly finishing one of the segments of the branch. "It's coming along, a little bit." He held the branches together with one hand and took the other one away to push yellow bangs out of his eyes, irritated. It was a problem that plagued all of them-most of them now possessed shocks of long hair that had begun to hang in their faces and very annoyingly block out some of their vision. Aside for Piggy; it seemed that he was free from this issue, admittedly sparking some envy in Ralph, but he supposed that it was better to have hair hanging in your face than only being able to see with one eye.

The general base of the shelter had been mostly established at this point, and were two semicircles opposite to each other had been formed. They weren't quite connected yet, but for once it actually looked like there was some halfway decent craftsmanship going on. Objectively, that is. If one considered a couple of large branches tangled together that was broken in places, stuffed with mud from the stream to keep it all in one piece to be halfway decent craftsmanship, then Ralph supposed that it was what it was.

He moved on to the next set of branches, painfully aware of the heat beating down on his bare back. Wearing his school sweater and undershirt had proved to be too uncomfortable for him, so he had left them under a cluster of ferns near the shady spot underneath their sleeping area. A part of him wished that he had continued to wear them, however, since he could almost feel every part of the sunburn process redden and strip lengths of his skin as he bathed in the sun. By now he'd learned that the bathing pool was one of the best places to soothe his aching skin, but even then it seemed to be to no avail at times.

"We should take a break soon," he mumbled, more to himself than anything. He wanted desperately to get the shelters done as soon as possible, but he felt his back begin to sting again, a sure sign that it was time for a rest in the water.

"The others might help for a little bit if we just ask." An innocent suggestion.

"They're too focused on hunting."

Only silence followed, like he'd said something bad. By this point Ralph had come to the conclusion that Simon absolutely did not agree with Jack's strange, growing obsession with hunting the pigs. He'd never said anything outright, but when the matter of hunting was brought about he would either disappear off to his unknown place in the forest, or he would go completely silent. It was almost like he knew something that Ralph did not-and in fact, that seemed to be about quite a few things, especially coming into light with the matter of the pigs. He didn't know whether to be glad that he could try to protect them from some foreboding danger or unnerved that there was something of a horrible premonition lurking around that he didn't wish to discuss.

He sighed as the branch he was working on came undone with a slip of his fingers, but this time Simon gave no reaction, seemingly still disturbed by the silence that followed Ralph's statement. The blonde had considered asking him what exactly was wrong with him, but decided against it whenever he came close to doing so; it just didn't feel right. Like he would know something that he wasn't supposed to.

Just as he was about to finish rewrapping the branch, it came undone once more after he was startled by a smaller hand on his shoulder, and he whipped his head around to see one of the littluns, who was red-eyed and looked definitely as if he had been crying recently. With a sigh at the loss of his work but the reminder that he had responsibilities in taking care of the littluns, he turned around fully and stood up to meet him.

"U-uh… Ralph, I have… I have something to tell the, um… I have something to tell you."

His voice was a lot more timid than Simon's, conveying actual, genuine fear, intriguing Ralph as to what his concern was. He nodded encouragingly, his face neutral in interest. Simon continued to work behind him, and he wasn't sure if he was still focused on his work or listening to the littlun as well.

"Well… there's… there's a, uh… there's a beastie out in the jungle."

That wasn't what he had been expecting. He'd never felt particularly nervous in the jungle before, but recently he had to admit that he'd started getting the feeling that there was another presence there. Something inhuman, or perhaps something that simply wasn't human and was just an animal. He was unsure of what the feeling of unease pointed more towards, and he didn't know if he ever wanted to find out.

"A beastie?"

"Y-yes… it's in the dark. In the trees… it's in there. Me and my friends have seen it. It's like a snake-thing…"

Ralph sighed through his nose, partly because he was trying to think of what to do and partly because he didn't like his work being interrupted. Perhaps there was a beast, perhaps there was not. He'd have to call a meeting about this and see what the others thought. This was the first he'd heard of the beast, so he just had to be sure.

"We'll call a meeting about that."

There had been no activity in this part of the forest, as far as he could tell. The redhead had been keeping a careful eye on this section, frequenting it multiple times every day if he was especially impatient for something to pass by. However, his desire for an animal to appear was not strictly his only reason for appearing so often; it was also the fact that light was scarce here, soothing the skin on his back and shoulders. Most of the pale freckles he'd once had had since deepened into a mass of dark ones, coating the more hardened parts of his skin in patches of cedar and umber. The freckles on his thighs were only protected by a pair of tattered shorts, the only thing he bothered to wear at this point since he found other clothing to increase discomfort under the tropical heat.

There was, also, his spear and knife, the only other objects he brought along with him on his excursions to the pig-runs in vain hopes of finding a pig and bringing himself to kill it. He was more certain that he would be able to, now, since he had been so instinctually driven to do so every time the thought crossed his mind. Which was, of course, often. This newfound confidence had led to him sharpening them as much as possible, even if they already were sharpened to the point of cutting through materials without much issue, like gliding scissors through paper. Although that comparison meant little to him now, what with its connotations of the world he formerly belonged to.

As he moved lithely through the underbrush, in the pig-run he had learned to be a domain of his own, he halted immediately as he thought something in his range shifted. He'd been more attuned to this environment. He tried to familiarize himself with every last detail. When something was moved, he wanted to know what it was that was moved-and more importantly, what had moved it. He knew for a fact that next to no one at all went through this part of the jungle aside for him, so logically one of the only things that could have moved it was an animal. This place brought out something in him that he didn't know he had. The primal instinct to hunt and kill was brutally awakened whenever he set foot here, and he loved it. But there was also the sense of unease present whenever he moved through the darkness, something he couldn't quite place but knew was there. It reminded him of an instinctual, evolutionary fear that perhaps humans had acquired over their long existences. A fear that was not learned. A fear that might have related to something greater than an animal.

He pushed the bangs belonging to a mop of rusty curls out of his eyes so he could focus on the environment with more ease. His eyes were accustomed to the floral darkness, but like most others who had suffered the curse of the long hair, his vision was hindered. He needed to be able to see his prey, he needed to be able to see their footprints and see where they had most recently been, so he would know to come earlier next time. Every time he told himself that next time he would catch one. That next time had not come yet. But it would. He would make sure it did.

Something shifted in the undergrowth and without thinking, his grip tightened. He sniffed the air, trying to get a location for the creature, and sniffed again once he descended deeper into the ferns and creepers. He tried to move as quietly as he could, serving as an eerie presence in the vastness of the forest. It must have heard him, though, because then the shifting sounded again and it moved to another location.

He advanced onwards. This time. This time.

He was close. He could see vulnerable, pale rouge flesh just a few plants away from him. He was going to stab it. So he leapt, to ensure it wouldn't get away, and brought his knife down, and he could hear a squeal as he was sure the blade cut through some of the hide-!

It was gone.

His prey was gone just as soon as it had left, and he was near seething. This time. This time! But it wasn't this time!

Now what would he impress the others with? Now what would he do? Now what would he feast upon? More fruit? More sickening, pale, bittersweet fruit? No. That is not what he would be eating for much longer. He would not let this opportunity slip away from him. All the pigs he encountered in this place from now on would fall to him, and he would be a real hunter.

A real one.

"Alright, then. Let him speak."

The sky was brimming with heat above the platform. At this time of day, patches of chilled, cooler surfaces were vestigial, proving themselves inferior to the bathing pool or the streams. It was unfortunate that the meeting area was not located by those places, but it wasn't like it could be changed now. Although Ralph had noticed that one minor thing had changed-or, at least he thought of it as minor-and that was that Simon had relocated his place to be much closer to the chief, although he thought that it was likely due to his newfound estrangement from the hunters.

The boy who was in possession of the conch at the moment was the same one that Ralph had spoken to earlier that day, an expression of nervousness upon his face in front of a more judgemental crowd than he had ever been in front of before. He was given some sort of confidence from Ralph's permission, and he held the glistening conch with a vice grip.

"I heard about it from one of my friends…" he began uncomfortably, eyes flickering between the various stern expressions of the crowd around him. "The kid with the mulberry birthmark. I didn't know his name."

There was a general upheaval of discomfort that caused some of them to shift in uneasiness, and some of them grimaced. The littlun, confused as to the truth of the circumstances, teared up slightly in bewilderment and continued after a momentary pause.

"We were playing in the forest when the beastie was there… we couldn't see right, but its shadow was huge… like a… a… be-he-moth."

A murmur of chatter arose, both stemming from confusion and fear at the news. As expected, Ralph witnessed the narrowing of Jack's eyes in suspicion, and without even breaking thought, the redhead held out his hands for the conch expectantly. And seeing that his time was up, the littlun quickly shoved the conch over to him and slowly backed off into the inner edges of the crowd.

The lead hunter stood and spoke with the authority he'd always carried. "If there is a beast in the forest," he began, and suddenly, his eyes flashed with wickedness, "then we will kill it. But I've spent time in the forest alone for hours. I've never seen anything strange. Except for…" The look in his eyes faded back to normal. "Well, I suppose there have been some times when I felt something was there."

The previous mumbles swelled, stronger this time and edged with a more powerful concern. Ralph himself was now unsure of the possibilities of there being a beast or not. Beside him, Piggy only pushed up the scratched specs further up onto his face, and it became clear to the blonde that he also had something to say about this. Simon was still gazing silently at the whole event, the quietness intensified by the mere mention of murderous intentions.

One of the hunters, a dark-haired one that Ralph recognized as Maurice, requested the conch in a similar gesture to Jack's, and naturally it was given to him. He'd seen him and Jack accompany each other on excursions out into the forest or to the bathing pool, usually to discuss more useless hunting tactics. Often they were also seen with another one of Jack's closest companions, Roger, and even now he was unsure of why that boy always seemed to have a lour on his face or even why he never seemed to speak to anyone, aside for a few exceptions.

"It's been the same for me. Sometimes I can feel something else there. But I've never seen anything…"

Some of the hunters nodded in approval, signifying that they had felt the same. As the controversy continued, somehow the conch fell into Piggy's hands.

"Now wait just a minute! I didn't vote for no beastie! You all are just being a bunch of kids. There's nothing out there in that jungle as far as I'm concerned!"

An indistinguishable voice spoke. "Except for a lot of pigs. And creepers." That seemed to give the bespectacled boy an idea.

"Exactly! There must just have been a boar or something, or you might have taken one of the creepers for a monster by mistake. Or one of you could have been followed by another kid without noticing. There's a lot of things it could be. Can't you have any sense?"

Apparently the answer to that was no, because now it seemed that despite the original questioning, most of them were coming to grips with the beast's existence. The conch was passed around to various individuals who had nothing to say, until it reached someone who did.

Simon gripped the edges of the conches' interior, tracing them with his fingers gently. His mop of coarse, black hair dangled in front of his eyes-not painting him as a malicious or foreboding individual, but one that seemed almost afraid.

"I don't think there's a beast. What if it's only us?"

His theory was certainly not a hit with the crowd, the tone in the chatter changing to that of disagreement. Ralph was teetering on the edges between logic and the wild depths of assumptions and theories. He thought it over for a moment; if Simon didn't believe in the beast despite all of his solitary ventures in the forest, then perhaps there was some validity to the beast being a fabrication. But then the senseless fear overtook him, the survivalist terror experienced when a nearby predator is present, and his mind forced him to disagree with Simon as well. Although his prospect was… scary.

Simon looked to Ralph, as if trying to get some agreeance out of his friend, and his eyes flickered to Piggy briefly; however, he already knew that the latter would hopefully end up agreeing that there was no beast after all. Despite the extreme lack of need for validation for Simon, Ralph just felt that he was somehow obligated to make some sort of accommodation in his inevitable response. He furrowed his brow as the smaller boy handed the glimmering conch to him, and scratched at the interior's edges in a similar way that Simon had.

Eventually, he decided on something, and pushing back the bangs from his eyes, he gave a vague frown and presented his conclusion. "If there is a beast, we will try to corner it. It won't hurt us. But until we have solid proof of it, there's nothing to be afraid of."

He didn't really understand why, but he looked to Simon for his own validation, and he was relieved when he was met with a kind, gentle smile. But this moment of respite from the controversy was broken, when he felt the conch being taken slowly and deliberately from his hands, due to the lack of attention on the blonde's part. However, he was slightly bewildered to find that it was Jack's action; the other boy regarded him with a strange, indiscernible look.

Once that he had the object, Jack quickly stepped backwards into the center of the circle, and the wild glint in his eyes flashed into existence again.

"But even if there's a beast, we can still hunt. The beast won't stop us."

He was met with a roar of approval and the deafening silence of Simon.

"And we'll hunt the pigs better. We'll… we'll paint our faces. So they won't see us." The wicked glint was stronger this time, and sharp eyes focused directly on Ralph, as if begging for his input. He only looked down at the ground, aware of the people next to him. He did not particularly agree with the hunting himself, so when put into question he would not attest to killing; but his broken stare stemmed more from the fact that Jack's gaze unnerved him.

"And we'll have tons of meat."

The reaction was just as expected, and without any proper dismissal, the gathered cheered and jumped off the platform, descending into the forest similar to as they had when they'd searched for food all those days ago.

And just like it was before, the three on and around the raised platform of rock were left stationary and alone.

"Still just a bunch of kids, Ralph."

Ralph nodded, not particularly approvingly since he knew that he'd been grouped into that lot from time to time, albeit regrettably. He only nodded to show understanding of his statement. In concern for the mention of hunting, the blonde turned to Simon at his side, who had his head hanging and black bangs obscuring his face. But suddenly, he sighed, and brought his visage back into view. His face looked sad and remorseful and blank all at the same time.

"I'm going to go to the stream," he said, and by his tone of voice Ralph knew that he would be going there alone. He nodded again, solemnly. He felt somehow disappointed that he couldn't follow him, though. He knew it well that Simon apparently needed long periods of time alone, but at the same time he wished that he could try to convince him that despite the negative connotations of the hunting, it would be alright.

With a silent sigh, Ralph watched Simon rise and walk off into the jungle, in the general direction of the stream. In turn, the blonde laid back on the platform and contemplated what he should do to bring things back together.

Inside the forest at this time, it looked almost deceivingly peaceful. The leaves swayed whenever the air stirred and the dapples of sunlight touched places on the ground, providing sunlight to lucky ferns and other flora that lived underneath the rays. Creepers created tangled mats of shade, guarding the small thickets throughout the place. Had the jungle been silent, perhaps it would not appear as eerie as it seemed at the moment. The hum of insects was a constant that followed someone no matter where they went. That had never particularly bothered Simon; insectoid droning were only a part of nature, and that was something he liked. It was only when the buzzing of flies intermixed with the sounds that he was bothered by it.

Flies in themselves were of little concern to him: rather, it was the implications that they brought along with them. He had never been one to fear death, but now just the thought of it was enough to draw out some sort of cold fear in him. Maybe it was because now, the probabilities of death, all alone with his peers on an island, seemed to be much more realistic than when he had been in the safe-bringing presences of other people. He feared even more that eventually, the action of killing an innocent creature would spiral downward into something much more vile and malicious. Something evil.

He tried to shake the dread from him as he took interest in one mat of creepers that was familiar to him, and he pushed it out of the way with care before quickly moving to the other side of it, and it lopped back into place.

In this alcove, hidden away from the rest of the world, he found a sense of security within the shade-chilled plants. Sitting down in the middle of the minuscule clearing and scratching absentmindedly at some of the grass blades underneath him, he closed his eyes and listened carefully to the humming around him, ensuring that the dreadful buzzing was not present. When he was sure of this fact after a few moments, he released an involuntary grip on the grass and thought.