The 13th Chapter of Lord of the Flies

Chapter 13 - The Ship

Ralph tried. He tried to stop crying, but every time he stopped he remembered and then began crying again. Ever since the boat had rescued them off the island, Ralph had been a wreck. He flinched every time the medic tried to look at his side, where he was wounded by the spear. He couldn’t get the feeling that he was still being hunted out of his head. Right when he thought he was a goner just like Piggy, Simon, and the mulberry faced kid, he was rescued. He really had survived.  

At this, Ralph began crying again. He cried for his lost childhood and innocence that was wasted and taken on the island. He cried for his friend Piggy, the one person on the island who still had his marbles, when the rest of the boys had become savages.  A creak came from somewhere in front of Ralph and he looked up quickly. Piggy stood looking out the window. He looked normal, dressed in his school uniform with brass buttons running down the front and his school emblem fully legible.

“Piggy?” Ralph said with the little voice he had, breaking the silence.

Hearing his name being called, Piggy turned towards Ralph. As Piggy turned his head, the peaceful appearance of his nice school uniform vanished. The side of Piggy’s head was hollow and dented. Piggy trembled slightly, his head was bloody and blood was running down the side of his face. The top of his head was pointed upward like his head had been smashed between two rocks. He was missing an eyeball and dried blood covered all sides of his head like lava.

Ralph watched in horror as Piggy walked over to him slowly with the smell of sea water growing stronger.

“Aren’t you dead?” Ralph said still stunned that his dead friend was standing right in front of him. Piggy stopped a foot away from Ralph.

“I wouldn’t be if you saved me!” Piggy began to cry. “We were friends! You told them I was Piggy, but I didn’t want anybody to know that! You let me die!” Piggy had his chubby finger pointing out at Ralph. “You let me die! You didn’t protect me!”

Ralph was speechless, all he could do was stare horrified at Piggy.

“You let me die! You let them take my glasses!” Piggy scolded Ralph.

 “I tried Piggy! They became savages!” Ralph muttered.  

“You let me die! I thought we were friends!” Before Ralph’s eyes, Piggy’s finger turned blue and fell to the floor with a splash. He was turning to water.

“I shouldn’t be dead! You should have saved me!” His black school shoes turned blue and became water. “You let them break my glasses!” His torso became water and gathered up in a puddle on the ground. His shoulders went next, then his neck. Piggy’s last words, before he melted into a puddle of water were, “You should have saved me!” Ralph stared at the puddle of water. Thinking about how Piggy should have been alive. He had almost made it, if only he had survived one more day.

A knock on the door paused Ralph’s thoughts. Ralph had been put into a crew member’s cabin, separated from the others. Right after the boys had been rescued, there was fights and arguing. The crew of the ship had to pull the boys off of each other. Ralph said “come in!” The door opened and the Captain, an older man with a white beard stepped inside.

“Are you ready to see your dad?”

“Yes……….Yes sir.” Before the island this would come natural to Ralph.

“Follow me then,” the Captain said as he walked out the door. Ralph got up and followed the man. He was lead through the grey halls of the ship. Pipes stuck out of the wall and crew members sometimes squeezed by them.  The halls were pretty narrow. Finally, they stopped in front of a room that had a sign that said “Conference Room” on it. The captain opened the door and Ralph peeked in. Sitting at the table inside was his dad.

“Dad!” Ralph went running toward him.

“Ralph!” his dad replied as they hugged each other. “We’re here to talk to you about the island,” the captain said after the two finished hugging.  

At these words, Ralph sat down in the chair across from his dad. The grey table that matched the walls stood between them.

“Okay, first question. How did you guys get on the island?” his dad’s voice sounded happy and cheerful.

“Our plane crashed on its way home.” Ralph knew this would be a tough conversation.

“What happened once you were safe on the island?” his dad asked as he was scribbling down notes.

“I found a conch and blew it to gather all of us together, then we started making ourselves a camp.”

“Okay, tell me about what happened once you guys really realized that you would be on the island for a long time?”

“We tried to keep a fire on the top of a hill to signal a plane or ship, but Jack left to go hunt and let the fire go out.”

“Did you guys ever fight on the island?” Ralph grew confused as to where this was going. 

“Yes, a lot of the time, especially when Jack separated into his own tribe and took half the boys with him.”

“How did you feel about that?”

 “I was really mad at him.”

“Do you think that the loss of so many of your friends affected you?”  

“How did you know that?” Ralph said, immediately after the question.

 “Aren’t you supposed to be asking me questions about what happened on the island?”

“I am… and I’m asking the questions here son.” His dad spoke with a stern voice.

The captain stepped in “Ok, I think this experiment went well and we can stop this now.”

“Experiment?” Ralph said in shock. Ralph’s dad and the captain looked at each other. Ralph jumped up from his seat and ran up to the captain the get out of the room. 

“You can’t leave.” 

“Let me out!” Ralph said as he pushed the captain.

“You can’t go!” the captain shouted at him. Then, Ralph punched the captain. Ralph jumped over the captain’s body and could hear a voice coming from the room

 “Catch him before he gets away!” the voice came from Ralph’s dad. Ralph ran down the hall. He stopped at a corner and looked around it. Suddenly, he heard people running down the hall towards him and he ran. But Ralph was no match for the five crewmembers that held him down. Ralph felt a small pinch in his leg and everything went black.