Heyo and happy holidays to killthepigbae/giffanie-chan! I figured I’d try my hand at the whole loss of innocence/post-island thing. I hope you enjoy it!
The young man leaned against the cold metal of the ship interior. He’d been charged with taking the ragged and worn group of boys below deck and keeping watch over them until the ship reached shore. Of course, the order he had been given was more of a formality; someone needed to be there to be sure none of the boys jumped ship and keep the name of both the ship and captain clear. After spending some time on watch, however, the naval man had begun to believe the young children actually did need to have a watch kept over them. Just not for the reason anyone anticipated.
He wasn’t there to protect them from themselves. He was there to protect them from each other.
He’d heard the whispers. Snatches of conversations mentioning a Simon and Piggy flickered here are there. Those names meant nothing to him, but by the way young eyes darkened and faces close off at their mere mention, he figured they must mean something terrible to the boys. Yet if the horrors the man had caught wind of so far were even close to true, why were there no tears? There were frighteningly small children among the group. No way could they have lived through any of what he’d heard and be this calm when faced again with civilization.
But maybe calm wasn’t the correct word.
There were groups of boys sitting together, dirty, torn, and lost. Some looked as if they wanted to talk but were afraid to. Even more despairing was the fact that he hadn’t seen a single smile from any of them yet. They were rescued! What savagery could have possibly occurred to harden such young faces?
The small black-haired boy sitting alone looked the least perturbed by it all by far. The others had given him a wide berth, despite him appearing the most composed. He observed the room serenely, as if immune to the discomfort of the others. Then his eyes met those of the naval man. In the instant their gazes were locked, the man saw cold darkness on a scale that shouldn’t be possible in a young boy. It shouldn’t be possible in any human, really. The connection broke. The man gave a slight shudder and looked away. That must be why the boy was sitting in seclusion.
The only two others in solitude were two older boys. One with unruly hair like flames and fearsome paintings donning his body, and the other with what was likely once radiant blond hair and an eyes vacant of all life. The redhead looked torn between anger and sorrow, each emotion fighting for dominance on his face. Each time it seemed one had won, the other came back with renewed ferocity. Not once did the man see anything resembling regret come close to touching the boy’s face, though. He may not have enjoyed his experience on the island, but he would never apologize for it.
The blond one was a mystery though. He stared off at nothing. He rarely blinked. He barely breathed. What could have possibly happened to make a young boy so defeated, so absolutely void of existence? Even what the naval man had heard of the island adventure so far couldn’t be horrendous enough to cause such lack of life in a child.
The captain had called the whole thing a ‘jolly good show’. “Like The Coral Island,” he had said. The young man shook his head. This was not fiction. This had actually happened and would be a weight never lifted from these small shoulders. It most certainly was not and could never be considered ‘good’. Together, the boys had destroyed each other.
Wasn’t war meant for adults?
killthepigbae