Disclaimer: I don't own 'Lord of the Flies' or the characters they belong to William Golding.

20 years after leaving the island

I walked quietly through the graveyard, glancing at the gravestones I passed, as I searched for the reason I came here. A feeling of helplessness consumed me as I continued to search in vain until finally I turned away from the smooth polished stones that haunted me with the beauty most believed those lying below where passing on to, when I knew the real horror and terror of death even all these years on.

Stepping of the neatly cut grass that surrounded the neat and orderly graves I walked toward a wild and unattended corner of the graveyard where nature still reigned supreme. My hands ran through the long grass that grew wild up to my waist as I walked towards the willow tree that grew there, its branches hung over the gently rippling stream that flowed past creating a sanctuary of from the outside world. As I stepped through the velvet, emerald green curtain letting it swing back behind me, barely disturbed by my presence, a feeling of stillness and timelessness flooded through me.

I moved quietly to sit against the tree trunk, when a dangling hand brushed against something hard. Startled I looked down and brushed the grass aside, a gravestone smothered in vines soon appeared. Curious I began to clear the vines away, untangling the delicate vines gently and laying them aside until the stone rose from a bed of vines wrapped around its base but otherwise clear of any obscurity.

The gravestone was small and plain, barely reaching to my knees and had no design to speak off, not even an epitaph. The stone was worn and cracked with age but it was none of those things that caused my knees to give way under me causing me to fall to my knees before the stone as I reached out a trembling hand to trace the name and date engraved in the stone.

Memories flooded my mind as my fingertips grazed the stone, the years I had spent trying to find out the name now before me. My conflicting emotions of sadness and joy when I found that the friend I felt sure I had lost had washed up and been buried years ago at a walking distance from my new home.

Slowly, then in a steady building stream other memories began to rush through my mind, older memories from 20 years ago. Some of the memories I treasured while others remaindered me why I had to take sleeping pills at night.

At first the memories where blurred by time but slower grew clearer, flashes of the beautiful yet terrifying island that still haunted my dreams all these years later sent a cold shiver through me as I thought of what I had witnessed there.

I remembered my innocence and nativity when I first arrived at the island, the feeling of freedom when I realised there was no grownups to tell us what to do and best of all no rules but the island had shown me just how wrong I was.

It all started the day a littlun had been terrified of a snakething or bestie as he called it that he had seen and soon all the littluns had started getting nightmares of the same terrifying creature. Sadness swept through me as, now when I looked back all these years later, it was apparent that this had been the first warning of the terror and madness that was to come but at the time I had completely ignored the signs saying it was nightmare and that we needed to light a fire and keep it going in the hope of being rescued.

Memories of how at first everyone had been having so much fun flashed in front of my eyes, we had believed ourselves to be safe and secure in our environment with nothing to worry about other than keeping the fire burning in the hopes it would be seen and help us escape from the island. The memories sped up becoming darker and more violent and a chant rang through my head 'Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!' fear pulsed through my veins at the mere memory of these words yet at the time it had started out all so innocently. The other boys had been desperate for some meat and the choir had formed into the hunters in order to go hunting for pigs, the chant had merely been a away for them to express their excitement of the hunt yet the chant had become so much more as time passed and came to represent the key to unlock the wild untamed side of humanity.

I remembered how the hunters had gone hunting for the beastie many times and finally found what they believed it to be, realised they couldn't fight it and then left offerings of meat in order to convince the beastie to leave them alone. When I looked back now however I could clearly see what the beast had been. It may have been a figment of our imagination but what I really believed we were afraid of were ourselves or rather there the wild side of ourselves as our humanity had begun to slip away.

The fear when I'd realised just how much our humanity had slipped away came rushing back when I remembered how my friend had been murdered by the hunter's loss of humanity. The way he had stood, so vulnerable and trusting below me, waiting for me to come back and guide him to safety with his specs in hand so he could see. His scream when he heard the boulder rolling towards him and the crash as it pushed him of the ledge to his death in the sea below

I remembered being hunted, the terror as I ran through the trees not knowing where the hunters were, wondering what they were going to do to me, the words that had rebounded through my head as a ran, words that had filled me with dread, 'a stick sharpened at both ends' and the echo of my friends scream as he fell.

How long I kneeled before the gravestone immersed in my memories is uncertain however eventually the light filtering through the willow leaves grew dim and the sudden chill woke me from my memories and I glanced up towards the dimming light.

Slowly I stood up my legs shaking and unsteady after kneeling for so long, reluctantly I turned away only to turn and knelt back down again pulling a chisel from my pocket and picking up a stone revealed by the flattered grass I began to carve on the worn, cracked gravestone.

"If a man is to be independent he must stand alone,

And how many men are there who are capable of that?

On the other hand, freedom in the wilderness,

On the other, mankind... the herd is evil smelling,

But it gives warmth.

Romain Rolland

You paid a heavy price for your wisdom and warmth

When your end come oh, so fast

But your wisdom and warm

Will be forever cherished

By those who understand

And by those that where there

Rest in peace, Piggy

Later the moonlight shone down on the dirt road in front of me lighting the way home as another memory from a time on a beach long ago flashed if front of my eyes.

What's your name?" I smiled vaguely looking up from the long scar smashed into the jungle I'd been examining and turned towards Piggy as he stood behind me "Ralph."

Like most stories for 'Lord of the Flies' it was written for an English assignment so this is sort of a first timer for these sort of stories for me, plus my first FF, so I hope it was okay.