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Piggy irritably lifted himself off the jagged rock he had landed on after the sudden and brutal assault directed at him from Castle Rock. He craned his head up to the natural bridge that he’d just been knocked off of, hearing shouting from above that he was too far away to understand.
“That was a real dirty, rotten trick you just pulled!” he bellowed upwards to the crowd of schoolboys-turned-savages.
There was no answer to his yell, not even the mocking jeers that he had grown accustomed to. Piggy blinked, wondering why. It was in performing this action that he noticed something. Something strange. His vision had shifted significantly. The blobs of color that were the island, sky, and sea were now in muted tones of grey, but somehow they seemed more distinct than how they looked before.
How was that possible? He mulled it over as he scanned the great distance he fell from. The fall, of course, that was it. He hit his head on something when he fell, he recalled, something that was incredibly painful. The harsh impact, the blunt trauma. It must have jumbled his brain around in some way or another, and that's why things looked different. He quickly accepted this reasonable explanation, and got back to the business of trying to attract attention again.
He didn't want to bother with the savages on this attempt, and turned his focus to the only person on the island who was the closest thing he had to a friend (if you stretched the definition a touch).
“Ralph! Ralph!” he called, cupping his hands around his mouth for more volume, “I’m still down here! Climb down and help me! I can't do it by myself!”
Again, nothing.
Piggy thought some more, as he was wont to do, as to how he should change his tactics for a better result. Then he remembered. The conch! If he blew that, they’d be sure to hear it. And he actually had it with him! ...Didn't he? He knew it wasn't in his hands anymore, so he searched the shallow seafloor for the coveted shell. Or, at least, he was about to, before the waters rose around him, nearly up to his neck. But maybe “around” wasn't the best word to use, as it felt, oddly, as if it went through him, somehow, like he was nothing. The sensation was so bizarre that he had to look down at the surface of the water, just to try to figure out what was happening.
In this he also, incidentally, looked down at his own body, and what he saw startled him so greatly that he stood completely motionless. Shards of conch were embedded in the flesh of his belly, chest, and arms, glittering pearly white in the light of the midday sun. That alone would have been enough cause for alarm, but that was only one small detail among countless others. His body, unlike the environment surrounding him, was completely unblurred, as if he were viewing it through his specs, and in brilliant color. It was far too colorful, in fact. The hue of his skin was now a highly saturated pink, not like a real pig’s flesh, but like an illustration of a pig in a young child’s storybook. The liquid that dripped from the open parts of his lacerations, which in any other instance he would have labeled blood, was a vibrant magenta.
“Wow, I must've really hit my head…” he said to himself, rubbing one of his eyes.
The instant after he said this, he found how right he really was. His peering down had caused something on his head to teeter, and he felt the weight lift and saw it plop onto the surface of the water. It was a mass of… something, something organic, that was reddish-pink in color. The water around it was contaminated with the magenta liquid. Trembling, he reached a hand up to the spot on his head from which the chunk of the meat-like substance fell. At first, he grasped nothing but a void of air, so he plunged it deeper. He felt a cavity now, in his head, deep and wide, the interior walls moist and the inside filled with the gooey material. He felt the hand knocking around from inside his skull, a look of shock frozen on his face. Slowly, he brought his hand back down, and stared at it. It was coated in magenta. For some reason, actually seeing the evidence was what tipped him over the edge.
Everything around him shattered. Shattered like the conch, or his specs. No, no, it wasn't possible. How could his skull be split apart, his brains spilling over, yet he continue on like nothing happened and feel no pain. He shouldn't even be alive. Unless… unless…
He wasn't.
His breath quickened and he was overcome with panicked tremors. He dropped to his knees, blinded again, this time by tears, gasping for air that he didn't even need anymore. He cried out far beyond the rock, for Ralph, for his auntie, for somebody, for anybody, to help him, to save him, even if he knew he was far beyond saving. But no one came, because no one heard.
He laid there on that rock, grieving his own loss, for a good long while. Eventually, the immediate horror of it dissolved, and he was left feeling numb. He gazed into the rising and falling waves, in which he didn't cast a reflection, for what else could he do? He was fairly certain he was dead, after all. It's not like he could just walk back onto to the island and meet up with Ralph again. No, things had changed now, permanently, and there was no going back. Besides, he wasn't even there, really, in a physical sense, so it's not like he could affect anything. He was only a lingering memory, the thoughts and feelings and ideas that used to belong to a “real” person, a boy that others had cruelly nicknamed “Piggy”, that were now drifting aimlessly around the rock that cracked his skull open, congealed into a form they could recognize. He laughed a little at the notion. He’d never believed in ghosts. He’d always thought the idea was ridiculous. But then again, he also believed that holding a white shell would somehow magically protect him from people who saw both him and it as meaningless objects, and look where that left him.
Even with the knowledge of his current state and his resignation to it, however, Piggy was restless. There was nothing of interest down here; the only person or thing in general that he was even vaguely invested in on this island was Ralph, and he wasn't there. That and there was dreadful screaming coming from Castle Rock that made the area an unpleasant spot for him to continue haunting. So he waded his way through the water, slowly but surely heading to shore.
When he reached the mainland he strolled along the beach, trying to differentiate between various grey blobs of rowdy, possibly painted children, hoping to find one whose hair would likely look shockingly white now, instead of the typical blond. The crowd turned out to be a bust, so he continued onward. Walking near the edge of the forest, he could swear, in the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of something yellow. He might have gone in to investigate, thinking it might have been Ralph's hair that he saw, but he stopped himself. Why would Ralph, or even just his hair, somehow be in color over everyone and everything else? It just wouldn't make sense. Besides, whatever it was seemed far too large, height-wise, to be only some hair atop a boy’s head. It more seemed to fit the height and build of an actual boy, he judged. Then… what could it be?
Piggy had already passed far away from the spot where the sighting took place when the question entered his mind, so he didn't act upon it. Yes, that was the reason, obviously. Not because, even if he knew he couldn't be hurt by anything anymore, the legends of what might lurk in the forest swayed him away. No, of course not. He didn't believe in beasties. He was a creature of logic, after all. A creature of logic that still roamed the beaches, despite the leaking, gaping hole in its head.
Piggy glanced over his shoulder. There was a nice little trail of the stuff now, as some fell out consistently, about every couple steps. It never seemed to run out; it was always just slightly overflowing, just enough so that it only took a slight movement to jostle some out. It was still the same bright reddish-pink, despite the fact that Piggy could tell it was getting dark. It glowed, faintly. There was a faint glow radiating off of himself as well. He hummed, briefly, to himself. How curious this whole thing was. He turned his head forward again and kept walking.
After a bit he stopped himself again, and surveyed his surroundings. This section of beach. He recognized it, though vaguely. He was there before, at around the same time… yesterday, it was. They all were. Jack and his cronies were having a pig roast there. That's all it started out as. Just some food and a fire, and Jack being as typically hostile to him and Ralph as he usually was. And then… and then…
He shook his head, as if he could fling the memories out of his mind through the cavity in his skull. In this, a new splotch of color caught his eye. It was blue, glistening below the water near the shore, and it was definitely bigger than the one he thought he caught a glimpse of before. And it was… moving. Some… thing, some blue, shining thing, was moving through the water and up to the shore.
Straight to him, Piggy felt in his gut. The terror tugged him out of a temporary paralysis, and he broke into a sprint. Or, at least, what constitutes as a sprint for Piggy. He ran, ran, ran, not even daring to look back, hearing its feet dragging in the sand behind him. He diverged from his path on the beach and cut through the forest, hoping to lose the unspeakable pursuer. His pink body passed through tangles of creepers and overhanging branches, until he reached a flower-speckled clearing. He paused and looked around at the jungle surrounding him, taking stock of his options. He didn't really see many. He heard it, brushing up against the trees behind him. He was hyperventilating now, and, for some reason, he slowly turned around to see it, even though that was the last thing in the world he wanted to do.
The figure was familiar in shape: lanky, with thick, coarse, dark hair that covered part of the face. Other aspects, however, strayed far from the source material. The skin that was once a dark brown was now an otherworldly azure, and the coarse hair, though still dark, was no longer black, but navy. Jutting out of its back, like quills on a porcupine, were wooden spears, that entered through the chest and stomach, the entry wounds leaking a rich purple substance, along with the mouth. The eyes, at least what Piggy assumed were eyes, were pure white and hot and piercing like two newborn stars. Even though they betrayed no expression, Piggy could feel them beating down on him. Judging him. It was the only point in his life or beyond that he wished for his horrible eyesight back, just so he didn't have to look at it in such detail.
Piggy backed away, his arms spread out away from himself, trying to keep the apparition at a distance as it approached.
“S-stay away from me! Stay away!” he begged. The other did not comply, and continued staggering forward.
“Why are you coming after me?! It's not my fault that they killed you! You should've known better than to come crawling out of the woods like some… some…” His words faltered.
“Beastie?” postulated the other, with a slight raise of an eyebrow and a smirk.
It took Piggy a second to respond, struck dumb by the abruptness of the reply.
“St-stop looking at me like that!” Piggy stuttered indignantly, “There was thunder and lightning and we all were afraid! We thought you were the--”
Piggy halted his defense when he saw the blue boy double over, hands on his knees, shaking, the purple-stained wooden spears in his back quivering with him. He was about to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and ask what was wrong, thinking perhaps that even in death the boy could still succumb to one of his frequent fainting spells, when the other lifted his head and the action became clear. He was laughing, silently, but as he brought his head up noise started huffing out of his mouth. It almost seemed more like hushed coughing at first, but it grew in tone and ferocity until he was cackling like a hyena, purple-tinted seafoam sputtering from his mouth. It took Piggy aback, to say the least, seeing the form of the once quiet and demure (if slightly off-kilter) little boy acting quite literally like a loud, deranged lunatic. Death must've changed him far more than it changed Piggy. Piggy wouldn't doubt that for a second, given the highly trauma-inducing circumstances surrounding it.
He finally gathered himself up enough to speak again, and said loudly, over the rolls of laughter, “And just what's so funny about that?!”
The specter reeled himself in and sighed, “Oh, oh, nothing! It's just that I thought you were the smart one!” In finishing the statement he broke into another peal of laughter.
A darker, brighter shade of pink entered Piggy's cheeks when his credibility was put into question.
“I-it’s true! We--” he paused, and then “corrected” himself, “They thought you were the Beast! And being a buncha scared kids with weapons, they did what a buncha scared kids with weapons would do!”
The blue boy was doubled over again, trying to catch his breath, not even seeming to pay attention.
Piggy was desperate to satisfy him enough to force him out of his sight. He shouted, eyes tearing up a little again:
“I-it's not my fault! I didn't have a spear! I didn't stab you! I didn't do anything!”
This final remark silenced the other boy completely. He slowly stood straight up, the white-hot suns he had for eyes narrowing accusingly, his mouth drawing into a small frown.
“That's just the trouble, isn't it?” he said finally, “You didn't do anything. You drew into the hunting circle along with them, the ones with the painted faces and spears, and you turned a broken lense to everything you thought was true, just to fit in with the rest. And you stood by and watched me die. And you didn't do anything.”
Piggy dropped to his hands and knees, as if a giant weight had been draped around his neck. And, in a metaphorical sense, one had. He felt something he had buried deep within himself since last night bubble to the surface through loud, gross sobs. The guilt had been growing in the back of his mind like a weed. It's why he was so quick to try to exude himself from blame before, because deep down he knew he had some, some that he didn't want to face. But he was facing it now, head on: it was stared him down, in the form of Simon. He buried his face in his arms, bawling, sniveling, his body trembling and nose running, and he cried out in a broken voice, “I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!”
He repeated it over and over, but he meant it, truly, in every instance.
When the apologies faded back into meek sniffles he felt a gentle hand stroking his thin hair. He lifted his head slightly and saw Simon crouching over him, the white spotlights shining on him softly now, but with some trepidation. The hand incidentally, in the display of pitying forgiveness, dropped into the crevice in Piggy's skull, and Simon quickly jerked it away. He was silent for a moment or two, glancing between the gaping wound and his newly magenta-coated fingers.
“Wow, they… they really did a number on you, didn't they?”
Oddly, Piggy grinned at the comment, and said, “Well, Simon, at least it means you're not the only one on this island who’s cracked anymore.”
And there he sat, Simon hovering over him, giggling at his own joke, wiping away streams of tears that were coming down again with his chubby hands, because the whole thing was just… so… funny...