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Lighting struck again as the moon reached its highest peak. Simon couldn’t sleep, he just couldn’t, thinking about how different everyone already was since they had all first crashed on the island. He could tell Jack was slowly losing himself, and the littleuns were becoming impatient.
Simon just needed time to think, he needed time to himself, maybe he could fix this, maybe he could help Ralph get everyone rescued. Lightning and thunder struck again, awaking Simon from his semi-conscious thinking and he decided to wander off to his ‘sanctuary’ as he called it. Amazingly, no-one had found it yet, even the littleuns who explored the island from almost head to toe on the first day.
His secret place was littered with leaf decorations ranging from little lizard houses, mats, and baskets to carry fruit in. And it was very deep in the forest too, providing the perfect shade and shelter for a small boy like him.
Once he entered his humble abode in the trees, he sat on his chair made of sticks and found himself, once again, lost in thought. After a few minutes he realised how little people were trying to get rescued, was it that they didn’t want to or that they couldn’t bother to? Simon didn’t know, he wanted to get rescued, he wanted to rescue everyone, he knew everyone deserved to live one way or another.
After pondering again for a few more minutes, Simon decided on one very important thing. He was going to rescue everyone, he was going to help Ralph, he was going to quell the fears of the beast, he was going to make everyone happy and calm again. He was going to restore the peace.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Simon set off back towards the camp just as the sun was rising.
Ralph was the first to notice Simon’s arrival from the woods, ‘Hey, Simon where have you been?’
‘Just a place I know, needed to clear my head. Need any help with the rescue stuff?’
Ralph’s face brightened as he quickly called over Simon to where he was and asked Simon to do a bunch of stuff, more shelters, more fire patrol, pretty much to do everything Ralph was doing and more. Simon attempted to keep track of all the tasks Ralph gave him, but it just seemed impossible.
Whilst all this was happening, Piggy was watching on in the background, silently observing Simon’s reaction to everything. He could tell Simon was slowly wearing himself out, Simon’s judgement was clouded by his want to help, he didn’t realise how much he was hurting himself for the sake of others.
Ralph, although not meaning too, kept wearing Simon down and down until he was on his last few straws. He was exhausted to say the least. But he couldn’t stop now, not until everyone was safe and rescued. If no one was doing anything, he would do anything, he would carry the boulder on his shoulder by himself, he would hold everyone up no matter what.
Several days passed, and Simon was still on the grind, working non-stop day and night, seven days a week, every hour, every minute, every second. He never stopped working, and he wasn’t really sure how his body hadn’t given out yet, but it didn’t, so he kept working and working.
But alas, everyone cracks eventually, and for Simon he was cracking, little by little. Like an egg getting tapped by a spoon by a human, and in this case he really was a little egg slowly getting tapped by all of his peers. And as time went on, his shell started deteriorating, softening, and finally breaking.
“Hey Simon? Could you check on the fire for me?” asked Ralph absentmindedly as he was munching on some bush berries.
Simon answered ‘yes’ as he always would and started walking over to the mountain, and after only a few minutes, the voices came back. The voices were Simon’s worst enemy; it was his beast, he couldn’t shake them off, he couldn’t do anything to stop them.
They kept telling him how worthless he was, how everything he was doing wasn’t helping the group at all and that he should just stop and follow the voice’s instructions. But Simon wasn’t going to give in to the voices, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t, until he almost.
His body was wracked by the force of his sobs. He couldn’t control the sheer amount tears streaming from his face, it was like years and years of pain being released. Some would say it was healthy for him, but to Simon it felt like hell. It felt like being tortured, his brain, belittling him, his body, shaking. Simon couldn’t take it anymore, he just wanted to leave, go home.
Whilst Simon was having his breakdown, Piggy was coincidentally wandering through the forest searching for more bush berries after Ralph had gobbled them all up. And deciding to be the better man, Piggy offered to find more berries.
But what Piggy didn’t expect to hear, was someone sobbing very loudly and uncontrollably. At first he determined it was probably another littlun having a breakdown in the forest because, just like Percival, were desperately missing the warmth of home and Piggy couldn’t lie he did too. Both his auntie and his parents, but Piggy shook those thoughts out of his head as that was not the point, there was someone still more emotionally unstable then he was out in the forest.
Piggy searched through the thick vegetation and through the creepers, he attempted to climb a few bushes but to no avail (he fell through the bush and cut himself). Piggy jumped over fallen tree logs, and rolled across the dirt, he visualised himself to be in the next James Bond movie, he reckoned he could make it one day. But while Piggy was in the middle of his imaginary James Bond movie scene, he spotted some curly dark hair in the distance.
“Simon?” Piggy curiously whispered into the air as he approached the dark figure.
In response to Piggy, the figure sniffled and slightly turned his head around to take a look at who was talking to him.
“Piggy?” The figure squeaked out as another wave of sobs overcame him.
Upon hearing the cries of what he assumed to be Simon, Piggy quickly sped forwards into the bush to where Simon had been hiding. Once Piggy was close enough to Simon he held Simon in his arms and whispered words of reassurance as the dark-haired boy cried. Hours later, the two of them were still in the same position but this time both boys were sleeping, after Simon had finished crying he fell asleep and Piggy who was holding the darker boy, was stuck, and eventually fell asleep too.
Ralph was beginning to get worried, his two best friends had just disappeared from him and he could not for the life of him find them. Ralph had looked everywhere except the forest because surely they wouldn’t go where Mulberry Boy had met his demise. As Ralph started to panic, he searched for Jack, the resident ‘fearless’ boy, who just so happened to be getting ready for another hunt. Ralph sighed, Jack and his pigs always at the forefront of his mind, but Ralph decided his best friends were worth talking to Jack.
“Jack?” Ralph uttered as he turned a corner around a particularly big tree.
“HEY RALPH!!” Jack jumped out of nowhere and screamed at Ralph.
Startled, Ralph punched Jack in the face before realising his mistake and quickly grabbed Jack’s face and started rubbing his chin. Jack was very perplexed with this action and grew increasingly concerned and confused the more Ralph stared at him monitoring the place where Ralph had punched him.
Unbeknownst to Jack, Ralph was actually counting his little freckles around his face and surprisingly Jack found that he didn’t mind being in such close proximity with Ralph, nor was he going to protest about how Ralph was still holding his face.
“Your face is bruising.” Ralph said in a panic, completely forgetting about Piggy and Simon, as he rushed off and pulled Jack over to the ice-cold ocean.
While Ralph was slowly splashing the cold water onto Jack’s face, he couldn’t help but admire the way Jack’s face shown in the sunlight with the water droplets glistening in the sun.
Jack’s heart hammered as Ralph continued to care for him, until Ralph snapped himself out of his Jack induced haze and realised the whole point he came to see Jack was indeed not to admire him but to recruit him to find Piggy and Simon.
After a few more minutes checking over the bruise on Jack’s chin, Ralph deducted it would be fine for the time being and asked Jack if he would help him find Simon and Piggy. Jack was reluctant to say yes, but decided it wouldn’t hurt to help, after all Ralph did just help him even though he did punch him first.
As the two of them ventured around the island for a while the sky became increasingly darker, and Ralph knew that the time they had left to find Piggy and Simon was decreasing.
“Jack! We need to find them now.” Ralph shouted from across a few trees.
“Yes sir!” Jack shouted back as he quickly set off like a hunter trying to find the two missing boys.
After another few hours, the sun was just beginning to set but Jack heard a few snores not too far away from him. Being slightly suspicious of the noise, he snuck up slowly towards the area in which the sounds were coming from and pounced.
Little did he know he just pounced on a sleeping Simon and Piggy. As Jack accidentally woke them both up he jumped back and apologised.
“Geez! Jack!” Piggy wheezed out. “You’re gonna get my asthma to act up!”
Jack awkwardly rubbed his neck as he helped Simon up, “C’mon boys, Ralph was worried about you we better get back to base.”
Once the boys arrived back to base with Ralph, Ralph quickly shooed away Jack knowing he would be a pain to deal with and asked Simon a very important question.
“Are you okay?” Ralph sincerely asked as he knelt down to Simon’s level.
Simon looked towards Piggy, and Piggy gave him a slight nod before Simon spoke. “No.”
Ralph then stood up and gestured the two boys to follow him, the two boys were very confused on where Ralph was taking them but didn’t question him. After a few minutes of walking, they made it to a very tall rock which they climbed and sat down on.
“You know Simon, I’m sorry I ever stressed you out and made you do so much work. Really I should be forcing Jack, it just seems like he’s always out hunting but that’s no excuse to what I did to you.” Ralph apologised to Simon just as the sun set. Simon smiled and nodded in response, accepting the apology.
The mystical glow of the sunset then illuminated the three boys, showing their silhouettes but ultimately for now they were at peace.