LOTF My Alternate Ending

                                                         Ch.13

                   

Ralph ran through the meadow, Heart pounding, matted hair flinging in front of his face. He trampled the yellow flowers, frail in their beauty. Dashed through the open space where the sow had died, still barren, lifeless, as if Nature were afraid to grow back into it.

Behind him, savage ululations resounded,

nearby, threatening, victorious.

Maybe it was his dangling hair—always in front of his eyes -- maybe it was the fear—paralyzing and choking-- or simply bad luck.

He tripped on the Lord of The Flies hollow skull, sprawling onto the pitted stone floor. His foot caught in a hole, twisted at an unnatural angle.

Ralph howled in pain.

He tried getting up, but could not move, his ankle restrained him so.

A rustle of bushes attracted Ralph´s attention. Out from the darkness stepped Roger, cruelly brandishing a spear,  sharpened at both ends.

Ralph dragged himself away desperately, ending up in the flattened circle, where the sow had met her demise. Roger advanced leisurely towards him, Face devoid of pity, remorse, or regret.

He could not go on any longer, Ralph collapsed, and the last he saw, was Roger standing over him, blotting out the sun, and the six-inch grin of the Lord of The Flies, gazing vacantly at him, mocking, victorious.

“You´re not chief! And we will not be sending extra hunting parties!”

 Jack yelled.

Roger stared coolly back at him, expressionless save for a twitch in his jaw,

close to the scar he had received in a hunting accident three days ago.

It was not openly acknowledged, but in the days since the death of “The Enemy”, Roger had been making many of the tribal decisions, and had become much more socially active.

He led his own hunting parties, made up of unusually cruel and violent hunters;

They used stone-tipped spears, and always brought back boars when they went hunting.

Roger had slowly been gaining the tribe´s trust, and making alliances, while the Chief kept to himself, muttering in his shelter into the late hours of the night.

“I don´t care what you and your hunters think! I´m chief, and my word is law!”

In contrast to Jack, Roger did not shout, or have to raise his voice to make himself heard.

His voice carried enough menace, decisiveness, and authority to reach all ears.

A large group of boys had made a circle around them, listening in to their discussion.

Roger addressed them.

“Who said we he would kill Piggy? Who swore, threatened, and tried to do so every day? Jack did.”

                “But who launched the rock that killed him? Who said that he would eliminate the barrier to our having fun, Ralph “the Great Enemy”.  Jack did. But outside whose shelter does his severed head stand?”

“Enough of this!” Jack shouted “Who thinks I should still be chief?!”

Though Jack´s anger was terrible to behold, Roger´s cold, calculating gaze, and the menacing miasma about him terrified the boys. It hinted at punishments to come, and tortures to suffer if he was angered.

Jack waited. No hands went up. Tears of rage came to his eyes, and he stared accusingly and murderously at the congregation. He made as if to attack Roger, but he was protected by his hunters.

Jack fled, running along the bluffs where Piggy met his demise. Roger chased after him, all the way to the entry of Castle Rock, where he readied himself, and promptly hurled his spear will all his strength at Jack.

It caught him in the legs, and he stumbled to the ground clumsily.

Roger´s hunters ran over to him, and with fingers made nimble from practice, tied him up and brought him back.

Roger smirked as Jack was brought back, and from Jack´s belt he drew out the knife.

He appraised his shelter critically, on one side stood Ralph´s head, frozen in a expression of utter terror, but the left side was bare, missing something.

The chief glanced at Jack, and then, with his newly acquired knife, began to sharpen a stick at both ends.

    Rationale

After the disbanding of the first tribe, and the death of democracy, Jack held power for a while. The savages were getting used to their new lifestyle and their freedom to what they wished. Throughout the novel, Roger had been experimenting with and testing the boundaries of society. Towards the beginning, he threw the rocks at the little children playing in the sand, but threw to miss; towards the middle, he begins to change into a violent person, shoving a spear up the sow´s butt when they were hunting.

When Jack´s tribe was formed, and Roger was free to do whatever he wished, he had an epiphany of a sort, a revelation. There were no adults or any civilization on the island to restrain him. He was free to act how he wished.

After Piggy´s death at Roger´s hands, the power and authority in the tribe began to lean towards him. The boys were no longer afraid of Jack, but Roger. When Jack threatens the twins, they don´t feel frightened. Roger shoulders Jack out of the way, emboldened by his killing of Piggy, and advances upon the twins “wielding a nameless authority” as they sat terrified on the ground.

Though Jack threatened to kill Piggy, it was Roger who actually did so, lending him – in the eyes of the tribe—a combination of respect and fear.

If Ralph had died, no doubt it would´ve been Roger who carried out the deed, as Jack was content to let the others live on the other side of the island, while Roger wants to kill them all.

It is very plausible that there would have been a power struggle if they stayed longer on the island, and since Roger is ruthless and prepared to kill for anything, he would have come out the victor, with no one in the tribe daring to oppose him.

I decided to start the story from when Ralph was being hunted, so as to keep the events that had happened before which would lead up to the hunt.