And here's the last chapter. :D Epilogue. :D Yeah. :D

He'd been dropped off at the park for… for something-or-other. He couldn't remember. Maybe they thought he should go play with kids his age because of those insane nightmares he'd been having. But he was twelve, he was too old to play.

At least, that's what his older brother said.

There were a lot of other kids at the playground, and they all looked weirdly familiar. A dark-haired, dark-skinned little boy with green eyes was playing with the butterflies. A blond boy wasn't too far off, having a swinging contest with a redhead.

On the other end of the playground a short, skinny, and positively creepy-looking boy was chucking rocks at small children. Bill rolled his eyes. Lovely.

He wasn't the last one at the playground – last one? Were they meeting here, or something? – but one of the last. The boy playing with the butterflies looked at him. "Hello, Bill," he said, then went back to his butterflies. Bill just looked at him.

"How did you know my name?" he asked. The boy with the butterflies shrugged.

"I don't know. Hey, Maurice is here."

A broad-shouldered, grinning boy ran to help with creepy-looking boy with the tormenting of the littleuns – where had he gotten that word from? Bill swallowed and decided to go swing with the redhead and blond.

As soon as he was in their line of sight, the redhead spoke up. "I'm Jack Merridew. I can sing C sharp. And this is Ralph. He can't sing at all."

"Can too!" the blond complained. "You're just mad because I'm better at swinging than you are."

Bill rolled his eyes and left them to their arguments, instead deciding to help Maurice and creepy-boy with their taunting of the littleu- small children. Maurice looked at him and grinned. "Hi! I'm Maurice. And this is… um…"

Creepy-boy rolled his eyes. "Roger," he said.

"I'm Bill," Bill said, more than a little weirded out by the fact that Maurice had played with creepy-Roger for a while without even knowing his name. Just as Roger and Maurice had started to throw rocks again, two completely identical boys got dropped off. They bounded over to butterfly-boy, and Bill could hear the introduction even from where he stood.

"I'm Sam-"

"And I'm Eric!"

It was a while before the last boy arrived, but when he did, Bill was struck with even more weird memories that he shouldn't have. Memories of himself and this boy on a island, hunting a pig – C sharp Jack Merridew, creepy-Roger, and Maurice had been hunting, too – or keeping watch….

Another face swam in his mind, one that was in many of his nightmares. An overweight boy with glasses. Wasn't he on the island, too? Like all of these boys.

But that was crazy, the island didn't even exist. He wandered over to the new boy. "Hi. I'm Bill," he said. The boy looked up at him.

"My name's Robert."

…Yeah, short epilogue. But, still. :3 I like Bill. And Bill x Robert has become another one of my favorite pairings for this book…