Chapter Text
Ralph almost couldn’t believe it at first.
It all still felt like a dream. The bloodshed, the screaming, chasing, and hunting. First for pigs and now for him. The large fires that threatened to burn down the island and were now threatening to him down with it. It felt unreal.
Like maybe he’d wake up and see that he was still on the plane. He’d look around and not see savage boys painted with dirt and blood, but choir kids, little boys joking around, and everyone just enjoying themselves. He could picture Simon and Piggy both still alive and not drifting out into the ocean or being crushed beneath rocks.
Speaking of them, Ralph hated to admit it, but he was slowly beginning to forget their faces. Especially Simon after the boys mutilated him in the woods. It was grotesque, but it was real. Then, there was Piggy. Would he be destined to an eternity of blindness due to the loss of his glasses? Where was Simon’s body now, sunk to the bottom of the sea or still aimlessly floating across the ocean?
What could he have done differently to save their lives?
Nothing.
Because they were already dead.
Ralph remembered bawling his eyes out when he fell to the Navy officer’s feet after running from Jack and the other boys for days. Though tears were unable to actually form and he was only able to sob and shake uncontrollably due to dehydration and malnourishment.
More boys continued gathering as Ralph tried recalling the events that led all of this to happening to the officer. He felt nauseous yet was unable to throw anything up due to not eating during those days in hiding.
Then, the unthinkable happened. The officer said he’d be taking all of them home back on their ship.
“Home”. The word felt foreign in all of the boys’ mouths. They’d completely forgotten about their homes, their families, friends, pets, lives before everything went downhill and up in flames.
Despite this new revelation, none of the boys seemed happy about it. Nobody jumped around, sang silly chants, or laughed. They all felt empty as they realized that what happened on the island was real, it all happened. Every death, fire set, and all of the blood they shed was real.
There were consequences to their actions.
That was why nobody reacted after hearing the news that they’d now be going back to civilization because it was too late for them.
People died on that island because of them.
Nothing could bring them back.
As the boys began dropping their spears and grouping up to board the officer’s boat. Nobody said anything. There were some muffled crying noises coming from the littluns and some of the older boys, but nobody said a word. The choir didn’t insult the kids for crying this time and Jack stood farther apart from everybody else. He still had his spear in hand as he watched rescue slowly drift closer to the shore. The boat that Ralph was so adamant about that would soon arrive and save them finally came. Jack touched his face, not only to make sure that all of this was actually real, but to smear off some of the “war paint” from his cheek. It was rancid and a bit crusty, made out of mud mixed with pig blood as well as other things he seemed to have forgotten.
When the boat was finally in reach, Jack watched as the boys began grouping closer together, nervously awaiting for the rescue they could only dream of.
None of them would have ever guessed that this moment could finally arrive, and now this was it.
Finally, Ralph, who was at the very front of the group standing with the Navy officer, shuffled towards the boat. He hesitated a bit before his bare foot touched the cold metal. He flinched a bit before fully stepping inside. He looked towards the other boys, still not believing this was real.
He would’ve cried, but he was still unable to, so he looked around. He had forgotten what life was like outside of the island, which seemed ironic. Chairs and clocks seemed foreign now. Ralph could barely even remember how to read them since it had been so long since he’d even known how much time passed. But on the topic of chairs, he found a seat and watched as more boys began entering the boat, taking small steps and looking around.
Some boys were still crying while others were trying their best not to.
Afterall, how would they ever recover from doing the things they did?
Boys continued filing in and finding seats, preferably spacing out from each other except for the littluns who all sat in the same area.
The last ones to enter were Roger and Jack, who Ralph could see still grasping his spear, the last bit of power he had.
Soon, even he was onboard too, dropping his spear in the sand. He flinched with each footstep like the rest of the boys.
Nobody dared to speak up or even look at each other. Not even Maurice, the one who’d always try to lighten the mood by telling jokes, said a word.
The Navy officer could sense the tension and uneasiness, so he went into a different room, presumably to talk to the captain.
The room was dead silent with nothing but muffled crying and the clock’s ticking making noises.
Ralph dug his nails into his legs as he stared at the ground. He could feel his chest heaving and his breath shortening. He felt lightheaded and still nauseous.
It wasn’t fair.
What about Piggy and Simon? They deserved to be rescued more than Jack and the hunters had.
Eventually, the officer returned and went around asking for names, addresses, and any additional info on the boys. Most of their voices were hoarse and barely audible and the littluns couldn’t get out any words without crying. The crying got even worse when some of the boys couldn’t seem to remember their addresses. Not just the little children, but some of the older boys too. This even applied to Ralph when it was inevitably his turn for questioning. He could barely remember what his house looked like, his bed, his books, his stuffed animals, parents’ faces, the school he attended, it felt like grabbing at something far beyond his reach.
Still, he couldn’t cry. All he could do was dig his nails deeper into his legs as he tried grasping at who he was before the island. He could still vividly remember how Simon and Piggy died, but not what his mother and father looked like.
His head and eyes felt heavy as he tried his best not to pass out while talking with the officer. It was like his head was full of rocks as it randomly dipped forward as he tried to speak. When his little interview ended, he watched the officer nod and move to the next boy, Jack. He seemed to be glaring at Ralph with his arms crossed, looking unhinged like usual. Ralph’s vision was hazy as he looked around the room. He could hear the muffled talking between Jack and the officer as he faded in and out of consciousness.
As he let himself sleep, something he desperately needed since the boys started hunting him, he could picture the faces of Simon and Piggy. The faces he desperately wanted to remember. He didn’t want to forget them when they returned back to Britain.
If the rest of the boys were going to try and bury the memory of the island in the back of their minds, Ralph took it upon himself to be the one who bore the guilt of it all. Just so Piggy and Simon’s deaths meant something. So they would never be forgotten.
Finally, after days of not sleeping due to the fear of being caught and killed like the pigs they hunted, Ralph allowed himself to sleep. He could finally leave himself vulnerable without the fear of something lurking around the corner.
He wasn’t being hunted anymore.
This was the end, and tomorrow Ralph and the other boys would be integrated back into society. No longer as hunters and chiefs, but as regular, powerless children.
Ralph felt his body grow numb as he fell further into his sleep. His eyes felt heavy to the point where he could no longer open them.
Within the darkness of his dreams, he could see Simon and Piggy in the distance. They had their backs turned from him, obscuring their faces. He tried reaching out for them. Reaching out for his friends, the people that deserved to go back home more than he did. Ralph tried screaming and calling out for them, but no noise came out.
He took small steps towards them, but his body still felt heavy. Like weights were tied around his legs and were slowing him down.
Ralph continued calling out for them, but there was still no noise. Just the sound of his feet shuffling on the ground as well as the distant sound of… water? It was weird since Ralph seemed to be in an endless dark void with the corpses of his friends standing upright so casually. There was no source of water anywhere, but maybe it was all in his head, just like this whole messed up dream. He was being taunted by the deaths he caused.
As he slowly inched towards them, the sound of the water grew louder. His whole body ached, not just from the cuts and bruises he got from the island, but by a crushing weight. An invisible force that felt like gravity itself was pulling his whole body down, but he wouldn’t let that stop him.
Ralph’s feet continued to drag along the ground. He watched as Simon and Piggy just stood there, unmoving and not saying a word. Ralph had hoped it wasn’t because he had forgotten what they sounded like.
Then, something new happened. With Ralph just a few feet away from his dead friends, a light seemed to be emitting in the distance. A blinding white light forced him to use his arm to shield his eyes from it.
As the light grew brighter, Simon and Piggy were soon engulfed by it. Ralph staggered forward, desperately trying to reach them, but it was too late. The light continued to grow brighter as Ralph fell to his knees. Simon and Piggy were nowhere to be found, but Ralph could hear their faint voices as if they were spinning around his head.
He wanted to cry so badly, but he couldn’t. No tears came out like how no noises did. Their voices continued flickering in his mind, saying things he couldn’t understand. The light was blinding now, like staring into the sun. It burned Ralph’s eyes as he desperately closed them.
He wanted to wake up now, he regretted sleeping.
He regretted everything.
It was hard to stand up and move as Ralph sat paralyzed on the ground, clutching his hands over his eyes. However, the light was still too bright and it managed to seep through the cracks of his fingers.
Ralph screamed out into the darkness.
But nobody came.
Nothing changed.
The sound of the water mixed with the light now beginning to burn his back made this all feel like hell. Ralph fell onto his back, accepting his fate. His limbs sprawled out as he stared into the blinding brightness. Whether his eyes were open or not, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to wake up and go home. Wherever “home” even was. It was kind of silly that he himself didn’t know.
As his body continued to ache, Ralph just laid there for a while and accepted it, maybe he was now transitioning to the afterlife after dying on the ship. He closed his eyes, not that it mattered, and realized that this was what he deserved. More noises began slowly being added to his nightmare, howling wind, leaves rustling, rushing water, and… footsteps?
The light got blocked out and was instead replaced by a shadow, like someone was standing over him.
“Hey, are you alright? I saw you passed out and rushed over here as fast as I could– Well, as fast as I could run on account of my asthma.”
“Ass-mar…?” It came out almost robotic and forced.
Ralph flinched at his own voice. He finally allowed his eyes to open, his body still aching and numb. He flinched again when he saw who was standing over him. A fat boy, who stood cleaning his glasses with his shirt staring with a worried look on his face
It was Piggy, alive.
Ralph looked around in horror as he slowly tried to sit up.
He was back on the island.