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Jack woke with a cry that cut through the silent night like a knife. He sat bolt upright, hands flailing, clutching at his bedsheets, his arms, thin air. Grasping for something that wasn’t there. His chest was tight, his lungs collapsing in on themselves, forcing his breaths to come out in desperate, shallow gasps.
Something hard hit his leg with a dull thump, and the sudden pain of it broke him out of his hysteria, his ghastly breathing quieting. He glanced down at whatever had hit him - a book, although he couldn’t make out the title in the darkness of his dorm.
“Shut up, Merridew,” hissed Roger, the cold disdain in his voice clear despite the quiet mumble he spoke in. There was a snicker from a bed to Jack’s left, and an irritated sigh from his right, before the dorm fell back into silence. Silence, apart from his still unsteady breathing.
Slowly, he closed his eyes, and forced himself to take deeper breaths. He traced small circles onto one hand with his thumb in an attempt to calm himself down.
He’d had a nightmare. Like he had done pretty much every night for the last five years. And like he expected to for the rest of his life.
No amount of time could erase the island. No amount of time could erase Simon.
He ate dinner alone. Before, he’d taken his meals surrounded by the rest of the choir, the centre of the group. Roger at one side, Maurice at the other. Simon had always sat on the edge of the group, close enough to listen in, close enough to be teased if conversation lulled, but with a gap between him and the group that only emphasised his distance from them all. His otherness.
Jack had always wondered why he still chose to sit with - well, near - them. He was never included, never spoken to, and only ever acknowledged when one of the boys had decided he needed to be picked on. Too often Jack himself had been the one teasing. And yet Simon had stayed, quietly taking it all on the chin. Locking eyes with Jack far too often for his liking. Looking at him with big, round eyes, an expression of pain but no betrayal. The cruelty was expected.
Jack would have rathered if he sat somewhere else. He had always hated the way Simon made him feel - squirmy and rotten and guilt-ridden, exposed and vulnerable. He had always been terrified that Roger would somehow see (although see what he hadn’t been sure) and he’d be forced to leave the group.
His fears had come true, in a way. He was forced to eat alone now, in the coldest, darkest corner of the dinner hall, while Roger sat in the centre of a loud, laughing group. But it was worse than he ever could have imagined. It wasn’t that he felt lonely, or jealous, or weak. It was the fact that, in all his paranoid imaginings as a child, he’d pictured at least eating with Simon. In all the precariousness that came with being Jack Merridew, the one constant in his life had been him. His Simon.
Jack ate almost robotically. He barely tasted the food he was putting in his mouth, chewing, swallowing. Hardly registered the fact that he was eating at all. He just kept on chewing, swallowing, chewing, swallowing, chewing, swallowing.
The Christmas vacs rolling around was both a blessing and a curse. He liked it when the school was emptier. Less loud, less chaotic, less cruel. He liked being able to exist as he pleased, without being bothered by the other boys or any schoolmasters. The downside, though, was his mind tended to wander in the long days without lessons or choir practice or structure. And the vacs did always make him think fervently of Simon.
He sat cross legged at the window of his dorm, watching cars come and go. The dorm was almost empty now, with only Roger remaining, shoving the last of his things into a suitcase. Neither of them said a word to each other. Jack just wanted him to leave. He wanted to be left alone, alone with his thoughts and Simon’s ghost.
Roger’s case closed with a small click, and Jack heard his footsteps start to retreat from the room. He turned his head, expecting to be met with an empty dorm. To his surprise, however, Roger stood in the doorway, looking at him with an unusual expression on his face. Jack couldn't think of what to do but stare back. It was the most they’d looked at each other since they were twelve years old.
Jack still remembered their last proper conversation as though it had happened yesterday. It had been a month or so after they’d all left the island. The choir had been back at school for two weeks. The choir minus Simon, that is.
“How is everybody acting so…” he’d asked Roger one day, quietly, secretively.
“So what?” Roger had looked back at him. Genuinely curious.
“I just mean…” he’d struggled to find the words, unsure of how direct to be. Nobody had brought up the island yet. Everyone was acting like it had never happened. “After everything. After- after Si-” he’d choked on the name, eyes stinging in an embarrassing manner. “How are we all acting so normal?”
He had felt vulnerable. He’d been drowning. And he’d desperately needed someone else to be drowning too. But Roger had just looked at him blankly and said, “Why shouldn’t we be?”
After that day, Jack had been quietly, carefully, pushed out of the group he had once been the centre of. Started to sit on the outskirts at dinner. Unlike Simon, he hadn’t had a reason to stick around.
So it was really no surprise that Jack had nothing to say to Roger now. Roger hovered at the doorway for a few more moments, like he had something he wanted to say but was unsure of how to say it. Eventually he just cleared his throat, turned on his heel, and left, without so much as a goodbye.
Everything on the school grounds carried memories of him. But today, it was more than memories. Everywhere he turned, Simon was there, his wide eyes boring into Jack as he passed. He was sitting in the empty classrooms, perched on the small brick walls in the grounds, gazing out of the windows in the halls. But he wasn’t in his school uniform, or his duffel coat. He was bloody and bruised. Dark red blood flowed from gashes or holes where spears had pierced his body. He didn’t look like his Simon at all.
Sometimes his eyes were haunted, betrayed, anguished. Sometimes they held no emotion at all. Jack wasn’t sure which was worse.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to seeing things. Sometimes when he woke from a nightmare, he’d turn and see Simon asleep in the next bed over. He’d look in the mirror as he brushed his teeth and see peeling mud and paint plastered across his face. He’d look down at his hands and see fresh blood coating his palms.
And so it wasn’t the sight of this version of Simon that terrified him. It was the pure wrongness of it all, the emptiness in his face, the blood pouring out of him. He just needed it, this awful, empty version of Simon, to go away. So he retreated to the one place that felt safe. The one place that felt like home.
The school chapel was glorious. It was vast, so large that when he’d first set foot in it, it had felt like a world of its own. It still did, in a way, even though he was much bigger now. The chapel was the one place in the school, perhaps in the world, where his Simon was preserved.
Slowly, he walked down the aisle, between the empty pews. His footsteps echoed around him. The air was cold. But he hardly registered it. His full attention was fixed on the lone boy standing in the quire, just behind the altar. He wore his school-approved choir dress, the black ruffle collar in stark contrast to the white tunic. He was singing, his voice bright and beautiful.
Jack continued to walk towards him, dreamlike. This was his Simon, this was who he wanted to remember. This is who he desperately wanted back. The weather outside was dark and rainy, but somehow light shone through the stained glass window behind him, casting an array of light onto him as he sang. Jack wanted to sing with him, but he found he didn’t know the words. Simon was singing not in English, not in Latin, but in some strange, unknowable language, his words nonsensical to him.
The first time he had hidden here was a few weeks after the incident with Roger. The alienation had begun in ernest by then. Jack had found he had barely been spoken to in days.
Chatter about boredom. One of the boys had wanted to play a game.
“Jack, will you join us?” Maurice had asked. Jack had been taken off guard; he had already grown accustomed to rarely being acknowledged. It hadn’t been an intentional act of kindness, or an act of rebellion against the newly formed hierarchy. But Roger seemed to take it as such.
Jack caught the cold flash in Roger’s eyes. He recognised it. He’d had that look many times himself.
“Of course he won’t,” Roger had said, the amusement in his voice spiked with pure hatred. “He’s too busy crying over Simon like a queer.”
The boys had laughed and Jack had burned, in embarrassment and shame and anger. Tears had stung his eyes, and, terrified at the idea of crying in front of them all, he’d stood up and walked away. His walk had turned quickly into a run, and the next thing he knew, he had been curled up in a pew at the back of the church, sobbing in a way that would have his father raging.
At first he had come to the church seeking a cure. A cure for whatever was wrong with him. A cure for the crushing pain of Simon’s memory, for the tears in his eyes, for the nightmares. But that very first time, he had seen him. His Simon, singing, the song clear and familiar.
After that, the chapel became a refuge. A haven from his nightmares, a respite from the bloodied form that looked like him but could not be him, not truly. A memorial for the boy Jack had lost, the boy Jack had killed.
Jack sat at the front of the chapel and closed his eyes, just listening. He wished he could understand the song. He wished it was as clear as it had been on his first visit. Five years would do that, he supposed.
He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, transfixed by Simon’s song. It could have been years. He could have sat there for the rest of time, unmoving and undisturbed, aging and rotting in the way Simon never would.
Abruptly, the song stopped. Jack opened his eyes, and before him stood Simon. His Simon, the real Simon, with his curious wide eyes and stupid choir attire. But now, up close, Jack realised with a cold horror that something wasn’t right. Things were missing. Where was his smile? Where was the slope of his nose, the arch of his eyebrows, the waves in his hair? He was fuzzy around the edges, almost blurry, and for a single, stupid moment Jack wondered if he needed glasses, if his vision was growing impaired. But it couldn’t be. Because Simon’s eyes were as clear as ever. Those big brown eyes, still full of intensity, still able to read Jack like a book. Jack wondered what he saw.
Simon reached his hand towards Jack, holding it out, waiting. Even now he remained patient as ever. Even now he waited for him to be ready.
Jack hesitated. He was struck suddenly by a very silly fear that Simon’s hand would be cold. That it wouldn’t feel as warm and real and wonderful as it had at their final Christmas together, when it had held his and stroked his forehead and nursed him back to health.
But when he took Simon’s hand, it was just as he remembered. It was like coming home.
Simon nodded at him, illuminated by the impossible sun streaming through the stained glass, before turning, and slowly leading Jack out of the chapel.
Rain was falling hard and fast. The wind howled, as if the very sky were in pain. Agonising pain. Simon had howled that night. Simon had screamed in pain. Simon had cried out for him to stop.
But just as the rain kept hammering down, the spears had kept plunging, blind with a fervent, animalistic hunger. Bloodlust.
Jack’s hair was plastered to his face, and his clothes were soaked through. But he pushed on, following Simon through the cruel weather, clinging to his hand as if it were a lifeboat. He wondered if he was being led to his death. Led into heaven, or more likely, hell. The idea was enticing. He prayed silently for this to be it. For the darkness he was walking through now to be eternal.
Eventually they came to a stop. Simon did not let go of Jack’s hand. Instead, he turned to look at him, and with his free hand, pointed in front of them.
The Tree of Destiny. It still stood as tall and as firm as it had the day they’d named it.
“Let there be light!” he’d shouted, exhilarated at the power of it all. The power of their Genesis.
“Let there be light!” Simon had yelled back, his sweet voice carrying in the wind. His face lit up with joy, a pure and simple joy. Jack had recognised it plainly - it was what he had felt himself. It was the happiest he’d been in a long time. Maybe ever.
Jack tried to swallow the lump in his throat. But he didn’t need to hide around Simon. Simon always understood. So he let himself cry, tears streaming from his eyes like blood had poured from Simon’s body. His shoulders shook, his body racked with violent sobs. Pain he’d tried to hold in for years now.
Simon let go of his hand, coming to stand directly in front of him. Tenderly, he reached out and touched Jack’s face, wiping the tears away. His touch held so much love, so much care. His eyes were round and admiring, despite how wrecked Jack must look.
Simon’s gentle touch, rubbing mud over Jack’s face. His fingers had moved gingerly, uncertainly, his eyes asking silently if it was okay. Jack’s eyes had told him it was.
“Worried warrior,” Simon had said, and although Jack should have been upset at those words, he had felt a flutter and a twist in his stomach, a warm glow in his heart. Simon’s hands had kept moving across his face. He had hoped, secretly, that he would never stop.
“I’m sorry,” he said now, his voice cracking with despair. Simon simply looked at him, and somehow, even amongst the dark and the rain, he was still glowing. He looked like an angel. He was an angel.
“I’m sorry, Si,” he said again, fresh tears pooling in his eyes. The nickname slipped out, sending a crack through his heart. Had he ever called Simon that before? He couldn’t remember. He hoped desperately that he had.
Simon let go of his face. Jack felt cold at the loss. He wanted, pathetically, to take hold of his hand again. But to his horror, Simon took a step back.
And another.
And another.
“Wait,” Jack said, slowly, sleepily. Simon retreated further. “Wait!” he said again, more urgently. “Simon!”
But Simon had turned away now, and was walking away, away from the Tree of Destiny, away from Jack, and into the darkness.
“Simon!” he called, desperation flooding every crevice of him, blinding him, deafening him. “Come back! Simon!”
Simon’s eyes, wide and brown and beautiful, stared deep into his own. That knowing, understanding, loving gaze. He blinked. And Simon, his Simon, was gone. He was alone, completely alone.
“No!” he shouted, whirling around, eyes wide and frantic. Surely this was some kind of trick. But Simon’s pale angelic glow was nowhere to be seen.
His eyes fell on the Tree of Destiny. A final, desperate idea took hold of him, and he flew towards it, scaling it in scrabbling, frenzied movements. He hauled himself to the top, not caring about the hammering rain or the wailing wind. In daylight, one could see for miles from up here. But now, in the darkness, he saw nothing. No glow.
He screamed. He screamed, and screamed, and screamed, the sound animalistic, inhuman. He screamed until his throat was raw and no more sound came out, after which he began to cry instead.
He did not return to his dorm until the early hours of the morning, when the sun had begun to rise.
The next morning, he returned to the chapel. It was empty. No one was there except him. There was no sound but the echo of his footsteps.
He knelt at the altar, staring up at the crucifix nailed to the wall. Tears fell from his eyes in a silent stream.
He tried to hum a song, but found he didn’t know any.