Second Star (Niall Horan)

Chapter Eight

Christ, what the hell was he supposed to do. He felt itchy, scratching at his arms and neck as he sped up his pace to keep up with Keon, who himself was following Peter ahead of them. It seemed to Niall that anytime he felt even the smallest win, it was pulled away from him and he was falling so far backwards it felt like none of it had even occurred. It was just short and negative and decisively the worst.

Keon, a few meters ahead, used his sword to cut through some of the brush he needed to walk through, unlike Peter, who could gently fly over with ease as he whistled along.

"Mate, I'm sorry I got angry and--"

Keon quickly cut him off when he turned around to face the man behind him.

"Where is your sword?" He demanded. Niall looked down at his waistband with a puzzled look, seeing it not with him.

"Um-, uh," he quickly began to think. "I think I dropped it on the beach."

"You'd better hope Riggs finds it, I'm not giving you another one." Keon rolled his eyes.

"Hey," Niall snapped. "I'm trying to apologize, okay? I'll apologize to the other kids when we get back, I'm trying my best, ok? I have been doing everything you all have asked of me, all of this ridiculous jumping and rolling, and I'm frustrated. Okay? I need to get this right, and I'm sorry if I'm not doing a good job of that right now."

"Your best is acting like one of them?" Keon retorted, now getting into Niall's face.

"In case you hadn't noticed, this," Niall threw his hands up to gesture around him. "is not a place I'm comfortable with. This isn't a place that I feel safe, clearly you do, but I don't. And frankly, following two kids through the woods of a place that shouldn't exist, isn't exactly my idea of a good time." Niall told him off, upset that he was being compared to the same monsters that had caused him to show up here in the first place.

"If you can't handle this, then go. Let Peter do it. You can't even remember to hold onto the only weapon you have! If you want to feel safe, start thinking and stop making rash decisions, like trying to hunt down pirates when you don't even have something to fight with." Keon turned and began walking away, trying to catch up with Peter.

"I wish I could!" Niall began to chase after Keon to catch up with him, "I wish I could leave this all on him, but he's a kid, and so are you." Niall began fuming at the boy, who kept walking ahead. "I'm the adult here, I actually have a responsibility, I have people I need to protect. I have something I need to do. And if we make it out of this alive, then you can figure out what responsibility is. You can go and fight him yourself. Jesus, when you're my age you can figure this out for yourself."

Keon stopped in his tracks at the last phrase Niall spat at him, clenching his fist so tightly his tanned knuckles began to whiten. The boy had his teethed clenched, stoic, almost haunted by what Niall had yelled at him, and he quietly turned his face towards Niall, uttering:

"No. I can't." The boy sadly met Niall's gaze, his dark eyes telling a story of a thousand pages in just three tiny words. Everything Niall had just exploded at him, whether or not it was true, all of it just engulfed him in his largest sorrow. The one thing the island prevented he, or anyone else from doing. He finally had been able to open up to someone about his feelings of the place he had called home for so long, and suddenly felt the rejection he had always feared would come if he had to discuss his thoughts with anyone.

Keon, dejected and hurt, turned back and began pulling himself through the woods again, following the way that Peter had lead, leaving Niall in quiet solitude to comprehend himself.

"Christ." Niall plopped himself against a tree, and held his palms over his eyes. This wasn't like him, he didn't snap, he didn't yell, he didn't shame kids. It was everything around him beating into his spirit, he felt that it could slowly start slipping away at any second. How could he do that? What the hell was wrong with him?