"Please see me reaching out for someone I can't see."

..

With all his strength, Jack Merridew snatched his knife out of the belt and started destroying the creepers blocking the space, making his way inside.

Roger was startled. He dropped the flower crown on his hands, but then picked it up and held it to his chest. He watched as the red-headed hunter made his way to the body. His light blue eyes were foggy, almost opaque. He kicked the body sideways, the flies buzzing around it and the white larva digging holes in the body fled for a moment, then were back on the body again. The knife was raised above the hunter's head. The rotting scent was irritating his nose, and he stuck the knife in the body, then snatched it out, then stuck it in, then snatched, stuck, snatched, stuck, snatched. His breath was heavy as he continuously stabbed an already dead body.

Roger's eyes widened. The corners of his mouth trembled slightly as the scene of that night came back to haunt him. Thunder echoed in his ears and the bloodthirsty chants were surrounding him. He saw the figure lying limply in the sand, its blood soaking in everything. He saw the fire dancing around and the boy-like silhouettes raising and stabbing their sharpened sticks at the one curled up in the middle of the circle. Roger dropped the flower crown and covered his ears with his hands. He shut his eyes, his lips shook violently.

When he reopened his eyes, Roger caught sight of an indigo flower.

He felt his heart clenching tight for an unknown reason, as if something was choking him. He opened his mouth so that the words could escape. Nothing came out but the air from his lungs. He reached his hand down to touch the flowers, but there was something stopping him. He felt another hand gently touching his. He heard a soft voice instructing him on how to make a flower crown. He saw someone smiling, such a faint and soft, yet warm smile. Roger turned to his right. Someone was stabbing Simon's body. He blindly stood up and ran there, his hand slid in between the knife and the corpse, the blade went through the porcelain white skin, penetrating the tissues within that layer of skin, and came out on the other side of the small hand. Tears escaped his eyes as he did what he should have done that night.

Should have.

He felt the Chief pausing. The grip on the knife was loosened and the bony hands dropped. Roger turned to the body that barely looked like one. His other hand caressed the area he assumed was a face. His gaze was soft, gentle, and caring. The images flashed in front of him again. He saw something like a smile, or a flower crown, or a small, tanned hand reaching out to his. They kept replaying in front of him like a broken video tape. A voice reverberated in his mind, it said something about a flower, or a lizard, or a dead man on the hill.

"Why does Simon matter?" He heard the redhead ask, the name was a baseball bat. It beat and beat his heart until the poor thing could barely stand up.

Why does Simon matter?

Because he taught Roger to make a flower crown.

Because he stopped Roger from killing the lizard.

Because he was kind.

Because he cared when no one did.

Because he promised to always be there.

"Why don't I matter, then. I am your Chief and your superior." The Chief asked again, his voice low and hoarse. "You're mine, but all you can think about is Simon, Simon, Simon. Can't you see that I also matter? Why Simon? Why not me?"

Roger stared at Jack and the anger glinting from his light blue eyes. What he saw was not the redhead, but a circle of boys, all painted, chanting, dancing, thrusting their spears in a frail body. He did not want to see this. He wanted it to stop. He covered his head the best be could with his hands and curled into a ball, shaking. The blade poked at a side of his head, but he was at the point where he did not care anymore. He just wanted the vague recall of that night to stop before they became so vivid that he had to remember them forever. The memories of the faint smile on a certain someone's lips were mixed in between the chanting crowd. It was unbearable. His left chest suddenly throbbed with pain. Something was grabbing it and squeezing with so much force it made him gasp. The small pale hands gripped on his black hair, pulling at them hard, trying to ease the pain.

"Roger!"

He heard someone calling his name in the middle of the frenzy. He looked up. The sight of the worried Chief blended in with a smiling tanned boy. Roger's breath was short, and every time he tried to take in air, his chest hurt so bad he thought it might explode. He collapsed on the ground, and blacked out.

The redhead felt his heart stopping, too. What was that? Why had he never seen Roger like that before? Gently, he pulled his knife out of the boy's small hand, biting his lips as he did so. After having put the knife in his belt, he scooped the unconscious boy up in his arms and headed back to Castle Rock, emotions all blended up into a kind of screwed-up juice.

..

"Why did you do that?" Jack heard the broad-shouldered boy as he spoke, in the middle of the night's dead silence.

"What else was I supposed to do? It was your fault, showing me why I liked Roger, and what did you expect? That I wouldn't do something stupid?" He turned around, facing Maurice.

"I thought you wouldn't, because I thought you knew what Roger felt for Simon, and because you liked him, and you don't destroy people you feel those kinds of connection to."

"I didn't destroy Ro–"

"You did!" Maurice breathed out heavily. His face going red from anger. He did not know what he was angry of, or why he got furious much quicker than usual. "There's something wrong with his heart, I once heard his parents talk about that. His heart hurts whenever he's under stress or something like that, and then he passes out. And one time, when I read about it in the encyclopedia, it said that people could die from that disease. And I.. just don't want anyone dying anymore." His voice was shaky in a mixture of anger, fear, and a new, strange emotion that he had yet to figure out the name to.

Jack was silent. The cicadas started crying around them, and the sea started its chant as the waves crashed into the shore.

"Loving someone means doing everything to keep them happy, even if you have to bite your lips and accept the fact that the person is out of reach." Maurice backed away and walked back to where he slept. "I hope you understand that it doesn't always work the way you want it to."

Jack did not focus on what the other had to say anymore. All he knew was that Roger, the fragile boy he had destroyed, could leave him forever anytime.

..

The redhead sat with his knees pressed to his chest in front of the lying raven-haired boy. He watched as the black eyes slowly opened and the long eyelashes moved just a little. The boy turned his head to Jack, tired eyes opening a little more.

"Look." Jack spoke up, trying to look as calm as possible. "I'm sorry, about what happened." He gazed at the ground, not wanting to look at Roger in the face.

"What happened?" The other questioned him, confusion was clear in his voice.

"What happened to Simon."

"Simon? Who is Simon?"

Jack paused, looking at Roger, completely bewildered. Then, it struck him.

Dissociative amnesia. What happens when someone had experienced such a trauma that they have decided to just forget about it rather than deal with it. Jack had read about it in the library.

It was what the moment all memories just vanished called.

His eyes were fixated on Roger again.

"Maybe you should go to sleep."

"I'm about to die, aren't I?" Something akin to a small smile tugged at Roger's lips, and it just broke Jack into a million pieces.

"No, who told you that?"

"I heard it, when you and Maurice were talking. Something about my heart, he said."

"No. It's.. not like that."

Jack wanted to believe what he said, too.

Roger smiled again, faintly, the kind of smile that made Jack want to punch himself in the face a million times for the guilt he felt.

"Go to sleep."

"I can't. I just keep thinking." Roger turned his head again to face the sky. On the island, at night, there was always a lot of stars, faraway, glimmering objects that they could wish upon, but those wishes would never come true no matter how sincere the wisher was.

"You have to, or you'll be tired."

"Can you sing for me? Just a little. It's been a while since I last heard you singing."

Jack nodded, then cleared his throat. From his mouth came a soft and beautiful melody. Roger closed his eyes. The voice only lasted for a short while before it disappeared just as quickly.

The nights on the island since then passed just like that. Appearing for a short while, then vanished like the vague recalls of an unfamiliar boy in Roger's mind every time he heard a lizard making its sound.

Just vague recalls, and then they were gone.

Evanesced.