Blog 8- The Fear Realized-Simon's Journal

The thing in front of me spoke. Covered in flies and blood that trickled down from it's gaping mouth it was a horrible thing. Transfixed on a stick rammed into the hard ground it hung before me. "Foolish child." It said mockingly. "Run along and play with the others. I'm the beast." It leered at me. "Imagining the beast was something you could hunt or kill." It laughed, a ringing, terrible laugh. The leaves shuddered and trembled. I responded tremulously that I didn't understand. "Go on. Leave." It responded. "You're afraid, aren't you, boy?" I tremble. "You should go back. You don't want them to think that you're batty. They do, you know. I'll do you if you don't go. See, the beast is me. Be afraid, but you already are. Cowardly little boy."
I twitch in fear again. He goes on. "Go play with the others. Or I'll do you in. Go, run. And I'll forget this happened. If you don't run now, you don't want to know what will happen to you." He opens his mouth. I see the others within it. Ralph, Jack, Roger, all of them are in his mouth. I step back but his mouth keeps growing and growing. Either it is growing or I am growing smaller. The blackness is causing corruption all around me. It distorts the trees into sinister shadows. I feel fear consuming me. That must be what the beast is. Fear itself. The blackness makes me apart of it. Suddenly the blackness is in my head. I can feel one of my fits coming on. My condition makes me different and prefer being alone. The way that I tend to hallucinate has always made people look at me strangely.
As I lay, unconscious, I feel blood pour from my nose. It drags me painfully back into consciousness. I wake up again. Carefully, I wipe my nose with my hand. There is blood now all over my arm as well. I turn toward the head. It is still there, unspeaking. The realization I had while I was conversing with the monster is still with me. The beast is fear, the embodiment or our fear for the unknown. If this is true then the thing that they saw on the mountain is not the beast. The real beast is inside each of our hearts in the darkest place. I decide to stumble up the mountain to see what they must have seen.
I adopt a philosophical attitude. If there really is a beast up there, no, there can't be a beast. But if there was then I would die in the pursuit of knowledge. I stagger up the mountain moving blindly through the forest. My sense of direction is bad. I almost blunder into trees along the way but manage to avoid a collision. The mountain looms before me. The sky shines brassily overhead in a forbidding way. The clouds are gathering in grim battle formation. There will be a storm tonight. As I maneuver up I comfort myself with the realization that there is no beast. I stumble over a log. There are the marks of a stick on it. I tell myself that the marks look nothing like claw marks. The top of the mountain is before me all too soon. Something sits up on the top. Something with a human form. A speck of blue against the cloud is behind the figure. I move closer to investigate. As I do I am almost sick there and then. It is the form of a man. There is a parachute strapped to his back and it is tangled around the rocks. As the wind blows the parachute inflates and pulls the figure upright. A cloud of flies adorn this body like they do the Lord of the Flies. I am actually taken sick at this point. The beast and monster that we had envisioned was only the poor corpse of a man that couldn't rest. I grab the lines with my hands and master my revulsion. I tug and pull them free. The figure slumps again. Now he can rest and rot in peace without being blown up and down. I realize the reason that Ralph believed in this monster. He went up during the night when it was dark. He saw this fearful shape squatting by the fire like a symbol of extinguished hope when it was dark with his own ignorance and fear. I am looking at it in the light of knowledge. I was ready to die and wasn't afraid. Since I was able to look at it this way I could see what it truly is. I must tell the other boys. They must know the truth so they aren't afraid anymore. I look down the mountain. The fire near the platform is gone or out and now there is a fire near Castle Rock. They must have moved camp away from the beast. I heard a call to meeting a while ago but something wasn't right about it. The conch sounded badly blown. Ralph must be nervous. That must be why he is biting his nails. But he will be saved. If any of us get off here alive Ralph will be one of them. I am not as sure about myself. I am completely sure of this even though I don't know why. I try to walk down the mountain but to my surprise my legs aren't working so well. They quake and twitch. My legs buckle. Instead of a run to sooner end the fear I can only manage a crawl. My own nervous fears must have made me tired.
Navigating through the trees I feel strangely calm. I can tell that once the boys know about this then they will cease to be afraid. It will help Ralph deal with Jack. Piggy will make it clear to the littluns. I don't think that Piggy ever really believed in the beast. I think he steadfastly held top his beliefs in the falseness of the monster. He is wise, Piggy is. I put thoughts out of my mind and look up at the darkened sky. The air is as tense as the skin of a drum. It is filled with tension. The clouds let loose the thunder and lightening. A blue bolt crashes from the sky, a jagged, frightening scar across the inky blackness. A little rain begins. I hear a scream and a rhythmic chanting. Jack and his hunters are here as well.
"Kill the beast, Cut his throat, Spill his blood." It goes on and on. This madness must stop. I hurry even more. When I stop it then no one will think of abandoning the conch. That is what allows the beast to get them. It doesn't lurk in the forest it lurks in their hearts. Jack is standing right on the edge. Tonight will decide it. He will have to see and take a few steps back. I hope. Someone screams even louder as I stumble from the forest. They yell.
"It's the beast!" The nonsense must stop now. I cry out also.
"The beast isn't real. It was a dead man on the hill, a dead parachutist!" The circle surges. Moves. Wraps around me. I can see war paint. I realize with horror that it is too late. I keep trying though. Another strip of lightening comes down. I see Jack illuminated ghoulishly in the glare. He yells.
"It's the beast! Kill it." I keep screaming for my life as the boys close tighter. The pack. I have seen dog fights, wild , savage. The pack jumps whoever loses. Except these boys make them seem civilized. They jump on me now, still chanting. The abominable rhythm goes on and on. The boys attack fiercely, with teeth and claws and spears. I see Piggy and Ralph at the back of the circle. I break free, bleeding from 10 different places and stagger down the beach. I topple like a child's toy over a small cliff. As one the pack surges down. The last thing I know I see Jack's painted, savage figure over me with a flashing knife in which the lightening is reflected and I feel the ocean waves at my back and the sand beneath me. The world zooms back like a tunnel as the water laps at me.