LOTF: Before and After

Phase 2: Chapter 8

It didn't take Ralph long to discover that constantly watching your own back was a full time job. Every noise he heard, and every step he took, made him turn around. He ran from nonexistent threats in the forest. He hid out in his shelter for hours when there was nothing to hide from.

A week after Piggy was killed, Ralph realized he couldn't go on living like this. At least, not indefinitely. There was no more fire watch, and without it, Jack was right; there were like eight million islands out here. They wouldn't find this one.

Ralph decided that he had to do something; anything. He thought about all the boys who were following Jack's lead out of fear, not respect. The boys had once respected Ralph, they'd trusted him, they'd had each others' backs. Now, he had nothing. He couldn't single-handedly bring them all back, but he could maybe remind a few of them of whatever shred of humanity they had left in them.

Ralph sought out the spots on the island in which he could see Jack's camp without being seen himself. Over the course of a couple days, he steaked out in these spots and learned the boys' rotation schedule. Sam and Eric switched with Tony and someone else Ralph couldn't make out in the dark every night about an hour after the sun had fully set. Exactly ten days from Piggy's death, Ralph had decided to put his plan into action that night.

Little did he know, Jack and Roger had been making a plan of their own.

Ralph crept up to the entry way to Jack's camp a few minutes after he'd watched the twins stand in for Tony and his partner to keep watch. He realized Piggy's body was gone, and wondered where the hunters put him. The ocean, perhaps, to be washed away like Simon; washed from the island, and soon from their memories.

"Sam, Eric, it's me" Ralph whispered as he crept along the rock wall, pressed up against it so he couldn't be seen by anyone who looked down from the top.

"You shouldn't be around here, Ralph" Sam warned his former friend.

"You're not allowed" Eric added, "the hunters are gonna come after you."

"Yeah, and Jack had Roger sharpen his stick at both ends" Sam confessed.

"If that happens, it'll be because you let it happen" Ralph pointed out, a pained and angry tone in his voice. "If you don't stand up to him, you're just another one of his slaves."

Sam and Eric looked as sad as Ralph felt. He knew they never wanted it to come down to this either. But unlike Ralph, it was the choices they and the other boys had made that led up to this point.

"Hey, keep alert down there!" Roger suddenly called down the rock at the twins. They looked up at him and nodded, and by the time they looked back to Ralph, he was heading back to his own camp. Deep down Sam and Eric knew Ralph was right, even if they didn't have the strength to admit it.

By this point in time, Ralph had almost learned to literally sleep with one eye open. The smallest of sounds would wake him up in an instant. He'd be on alert before he could feel tired or groggy. When he'd heard the footsteps the next morning, it sent him from out cold to awake and up in two seconds flat.

"Light another one, we oughta smoke him out" he could hear someone's voice from close by. Too close, Ralph quickly realized.

It was difficult to see through what Ralph initially thought was fog. As he scanned the space around him and saw the hunters trekking through his end, he realized it wasn't fog, it was smoke. "Smoke him out" Ralph replayed in his head.

He thought about what the twins said had last night about Roger with the double edged stick.

Oh, shit.

Feeling claustrophobic, scared, surrounded and uncertain all at once, Ralph realized that if he stayed where he was, it wouldn't be long until they found him. His only option was to run for his life, just like an island pig would. Oh, the irony.

"He's over here!" someone called from a near distance, and then someone was suddenly running at him. Ralph shoved the attacker as hard as he could to the ground and kept running.

He was right about the smoke. The island was going up in flames. It spread around him as he sped through the forest. Ralph feared being surrounded by the hunters more than he feared the flames.

Jack chased after him with determination from hell burning inside him. Jack was fast, but Ralph was faster. The problem was that Ralph couldn't out run them all.

As Ralph passed the cave where the alleged monster lived, he came across the head of the slain pig Jack had propped up to show the monster who was in charge. It stood there in the smoky forest, on a stick that was sharpened at both ends. Ralph continued to run until he found a spot he thought he could hide in. Jack wasn't far off his trail, and hiding in the flames might scare the hunters in another direction.

How did they plan to keep living on this island if they burned the whole thing to the ground?

Ralph's hiding spot was just under a large, fallen tree that was shielded from view of most spots the hunters would pass by. If he stayed there too long, he'd start to feel the burn from the flames. He started to consider which would be worse; dying the way Simon did or being burned in a forest fire. Just shy of his 13th birthday, Ralph was pained by the prospect of having to make that decision.

He jumped out of his skin at the sound of someone passing by. When he looked to see who it was, he found himself face to face with Sam and Eric. At first, they didn't move, nor did they speak. They stared at Ralph as if conflicted about what to do. Ralph silently begged them with his eyes not to holler out and give him away. He was counting on that last shred of humanity he'd reminded them of last night.

"See anything over there?" Jack called out to them from a short distance away.

"No" Eric replied without hesitation. "Nothing" they confirmed together.

Ralph felt the tears welling behind his eyes, or perhaps it was just from all the smoke inhalation. The twins turned to keep going, to keep pretending to search for him. But only a few unfortunate seconds later, Ralph's eyes met Roger's from behind where the twins were just standing.

"Jack!" the blond boy's best friend immediately called out, and Jack and the others took it as their cue to close in.

"Get 'im!" Tony screamed as all the boys began to chase after him.

Ralph ran at what felt like the speed of light. He couldn't feel his feet against the ground anymore, he'd blocked out the sense. He could hardly smell the smoke now, but he could feel it beginning to strangle his lungs as he ran. Jack was behind him. They were all behind him. Chanting, screaming, hollering like the animals they'd become.

Ralph was running on nothing but instinct, desperation, and speed. He was so tired. He had no idea where the strength and energy was coming from to keep running at full speed, but somehow, he pushed on.

Ralph made it to the end of the forest, back towards the beach front. The smoke was thinning out, and he could feel the fresh air pressing up against his skin as he ran. As he came to a pile of dirt and tree branches knocked over in a previous storm, he had no time to stop and turn. So he lept over it, thinking he had the energy to make the jump. Where he would go from there? He hadn't decided yet. It was all water in front of him. There was nowhere left to hide.

But this was where Ralph's energy had run out. In his attempt to jump the pile, he'd gotten his tired foot caught beneath a branch and he hit the ground hard. His skin was scraping against the sand aggressively as he rolled, on account of the speed at which he'd thrown himself.

This is it, Ralph thought, this is how it ends.

Just like it had for Simon, and for Piggy.

And it was the end, just not in the way Ralph thought.