Chapter Text
School felt quiet the first few months after the island. It wasn’t actually quiet, but to Jack it felt like it was. Mornings at breakfast seemed to go by in slow-motion, but around him, boys laughed and littluns screamed and ran about. Recess was the same situation – although he was surrounded by boys, there was still an unnerving silence. Nothing had really changed in actuality though, so why did it feel so quiet?
Jack spent the majority of class time staring out windows, or at the clock, or even at a wall sometimes. Somehow, he managed to maintain his grades. Probably because he had Maurice. Maurice had always been particularly intelligent, even more so than Jack. Jack would never admit it, but he admired Maurice for his wit. Over time, Jack had become somewhat reliant on Maurice. Every group project, even if the boys technically weren’t allowed to choose partners, Jack would find a way to negotiate with the professor to be partnered with Maurice. For several assignments, Jack and Maurice would meet at the library or at someone’s dorm room in the afternoon to complete the assignment together. Jack wouldn’t let himself mentally accept the idea that he had become dependent on Maurice though.
On Tuesday afternoon at lunch break, Jack met up with the rest of the choir boys at their usual lunch table. Maurice was already there, eating a sad looking sandwich from his lunch caddy. Ever since returning from the island, he hadn’t been as talkative or humorous. Of course he spoke and cracked jokes, but there was just.. something off about him. Jack sat down next to Maurice and began to peel his orange.
“Hey Jack?” The others continued their chatter and conversation as Maurice addressed Jack directly.
“Hm?” Jack hummed dismissively as he popped an orange slice into his mouth.
“Where do you think Roger is?”
Jack paused chewing momentarily. He didn’t look at Maurice, he didn’t make a face, nor did he say anything. He just stopped for a moment and then went right back to chewing.
“Probably the looney bin.” Jack remarked with a shrug as he continued to separate the orange slices from each other, picking out the white fibrous bits. He would never admit it, but sometimes Jack too wondered what happened to Roger after the island.
Maurice didn’t say anything in response to Jack’s notion about Roger getting sent to a ward, though he seemed to lose interest in his sandwich as a result, and began to idly pick crumbs from the crust. Nobody really talked about what had happened on the island. It was a touchy subject for many – the choir boys especially. In the back of their minds though, everyone remembered, and everyone had their own regrets.
When the naval officer had first found the boys on the island, Ralph admitted that there had been a ‘war’. Many boys had emerged with injuries, some major and some minor. A concerning amount of them suffered from severe malnourishment, as well as dehydration. There were several counts of minor fractures and breaks, and untreated wounds that were on the brink of infection. There had even been two major accounts where two boys that were in crucial condition had to receive extensive treatment. One of the boys had gotten stabbed by a dull wooden spear, which the injury was later found out to be allegedly inflicted by another boy. The other had been hit by a large boulder, causing a severe concussion as well as other minor bodily injuries. When some of the parents got to hear about it all, intense sentiments sparked among parents and authorities, and as a result, an investigation occurred and each of the boys were interrogated individually.
Jack vividly remembered his time in the interrogation room. Three of the walls that surrounded him were a dull gray while the last one was a mirror. He knew that the mirror was not actually a mirror. He had seen in movies and television shows that the mirror was actually a window, Jack just couldn’t see the people on the other side. There was a metal table in the center of the room, and two metal chairs on either side of the table. Jack had sat on the side of the table where his back was to the door, his arms folded over his chest. He sat alone for a long while. He knew that he was legally allowed to have an adult or a lawyer there with him during the interrogation, but his father was more than likely overseas at this point in time, and Jack didn’t even know whether he had a lawyer. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the heavy iron door opening behind him. A man and a woman walked in, and a larger police officer stood guard by the door behind Jack.
The male interrogator had a stony expression. He was tall and bald, and had dark skin. He wore a dark blue windbreaker coat, black jeans, and hefty black boots. He looked at Jack with a scrutinizing glare which made him uncomfortable in the moment. The female interrogator wasn’t nearly as rigid as the man. She had softer features – dark brown hair that was somewhere in between a bob and a pixie cut, olive-toned skin, and almond-shaped eyes. Although her eyes weren’t necessarily kind, they weren’t as judgmental as the man's. Something about her was familiar.
The woman had taken a seat in the chair across from Jack while the man stood, his hands sprawled on the table.
From there, Jack’s memory of the conversation was fuzzy. It wasn’t long, but Jack remembered bits and pieces – fragments and generalities. It started off pretty tame, he remembered. Just ordinary questions about the crash. What happened? About how long were they on the island for? Were there ever any adults? What did the boys do without any adults? Jack answered each question with a certain level of awkwardness. Talking about the group of boys’ behaviors on the island felt ridiculous. And the feeling only grew as the interrogation went on.
Eventually, the questions became more direct.
“So, Jack,” the female interrogator began, looking at him very directly. She seemed to be the boss, for the man hadn’t spoken too much. “We heard that there may have been some.. drastic injuries on the island. Would you happen to know anything about them?”
Jack remembered hesitating for a moment, but he didn’t come off nervous. He just sat there, unfazed by the question. “No.”
“Are you sure, Jack? We won’t be upset with you if you know anything.”
In his head, the scene of Roger stabbing Simon played in his head. It was raining hard that night, lightning striking and thunder clapping overhead. Usually, Jack was petrified of thunder. During thunderstorms, he always found himself hiding somewhere and covering his ears, flinching at each strike. But in that moment as he was surrounded by the chaos, the sound of thunder had been drowned out. Jack couldn’t remember who it had been, but someone had seen movement in the tall grass nearby, and screamed that it was the ‘beast’. Everyone seemed to wait, ready to see what emerged. Roger didn’t wait. Before the figure could emerge, Roger had struck, stabbing whoever it was. There was a bloodcurdling scream. A human scream. It had been Simon. Jack didn’t remember what had happened after that. All he remembered was the sound of thunder.
Jack looked at the woman, straight-faced. “I don’t know anything.”
The interrogation ended shortly after, and Jack was sent back to the boarding school where he spent the rest of that day cooped up in his dorm room, the sequence of Simon getting stabbed replaying in his head over and over again.
After about a couple of months, the investigation was closed. When it was closed, Roger went missing almost right after. Jack didn’t really know the details but based on what Maurice had told him, one day he had gone to Roger’s dorm room and there was nobody there. Apparently all of Roger’s belongings were still in his dorm, but despite looking for him everywhere, he was nowhere to be found. Since that day, Maurice spent extra time around Jack both in and outside of class.
It was Thursday evening when Maurice had shown up at Jack’s dorm. It wasn’t the first time the boy had come unannounced, and Jack wasn’t sure what compelled him to let Maurice in every single time, but he did it anyway. Jack sat on his bed while Maurice sat on the chair by Jack’s desk as they chatted about irrelevant topics for some time – classes, workload, choir practices. They didn’t have much else in common quite frankly. Jack never let himself get too comfortable.
After some time, the atmosphere changed. It went back to that weird tension where neither of the boys spoke for a while, but instead just sat there with their thoughts. Eventually, Maurice broke the silence.
“Did you see Simon today?” He asked.
Jack continued to stare at his hands, keeping his fingers laced in his lap. Simon had returned to school the day before. His recovery had been on the longer side, but not longer than Piggy’s. Nicky, or Piggy to almost everybody, was the boy who had gotten hit with a boulder.
When Simon returned, he didn’t speak to anybody. Not a lot of people apart from teachers really spoke to Simon when he returned, nor did they notice his absence in the first place, but Jack saw everything.
“Yeah, I saw him.” Jack responded to Maurice flatly.
The only class Jack and Simon had together was Latin. It was one of the very few classes Jack actually enjoyed and could still pay attention in, but as soon as he saw Simon walk through the classroom door, all of his focus for Latin was out the window. He could barely even look at the back of Simon’s head as the teacher was talking, and still, all Jack could do was think about him. He wanted to talk to him, ask him if he was okay or something. But he couldn’t bring himself to. And even if he could, as soon as the bell rang, Simon practically jumped out of his seat and was out the door.
“I saw him in math. He looked dead.” Maurice said, obviously not thinking anything of his statement.
He had looked dead. Jack remembered how Simon looked earlier that day. His tan skin had gotten paler, which made the dark circles under his eyes more noticeable. His hair which was usually on the longer and thicker side now looked much finer, almost as if Simon had lost hair. It was almost sickening to Jack. Maurice noticed Jack’s silence, and decided to move on from the topic of dead-looking Simon.
“Do you think you're gonna try and talk to him?” He asked.
Jack thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said, shaking his head and leaning back on his hands now. “He probably wants nothing to do with any of us.” I can’t blame him either, Jack thought to himself.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Maurice said with a shrug.
The rest of the hangout went on in silence.