disclaimer: nothing here is mine.

He hasn't spoken for four years.

His parents and his teachers-his friends would, if he had any-are past worrying. They've given up. Simon Drake's mouth might as well be sewn shut.

He prefers it that way. If he were to open it, the noises that would come out wouldn't be something he wanted anyone to hear. His words would be the voices and the pounding of sticks against his bare skin and the screaming, oh, that was the worst part.

Even though Simon never spoke, he still sang. His parents puzzled over it, spent days trying to figure out why he wouldn't speak in the least, but still sang in a soft, low tone. Simon's reasons? He didn't quite know himself. Maybe it was easier to sing the praises of a god he didn't know in a dead language.

Yes, that was it. And it was soothing, in a way, to listen to words not spoken but sang. The difference between singing and speaking was the fact that singing flowed beautifully, while words were empty and drab.

Choir, you'd think would terrify him, if you knew what he saw in the faces of the other boys. But no, Simon, somehow, stays there. He never looks Jack or Roger in the eyes, because those eyes are eyes that he can't unsee the darkness in. When you see someone as a savage, they can't be anybody else.

He's fourteen, now. He should be able to make his own decisions, say his teachers. They can't make fruitless attempts to get words out of him by hitting him with a ruler. He's old enough, they keep saying, old enough to date, old enough to make friends.

He could've done things like that a long time ago. But he could never, and that's what his teachers don't understand. They don't understand that things aren't that different than before, that now he's only forced himself into silence, not silence forcing itself upon him.

Simon wishes he could talk to Ralph. No, he doesn't wish that. He doesn't want to bring back the harsh, cold memories of that time when he was a shivering, crying little boy. Crying on Ralph's shoulder in the middle of the cold, ever so dark night.

That was the night he'd almost died. The night poor, good-hearted Ralph had just had to save his life. He was almost starting to wish he hadn't. Then he wouldn't have seen some of the things he'd seen. After all, it wouldn't be so different than this, to be dead. The dead don't speak, after all.

And the dead don't have to deal with worrying parents and worrying teachers that Simon's heart breaks for. He wishes that somehow he could make them stop, make them just see that there's nothing they can do and they should just leave him alone for now.

Part of him misses the island. Not the savages, no, not at all, but the island itself. Its smells and sights and sounds were natural ones. They just fit together in a way that the dull monotony of the sounds of school didn't. He had loved that island, and the others had burned it to the ground.

He had to wonder where it is now, have the flowers regrown? Are there any pigs left? Does anything live on the island, or have the boys turned it into nothing more than a graveyard?

No, no, not pigs. Pigs are something he never wants to think about again. With their dark, beady eyes and rough, pink flesh. And his family wonders why he flinches every time he sees pork. Once his mother tried to force-feed it to him, and he sputtered and gagged and screamed like a child.

He doesn't ever want to speak again, but he can sing and scream, and that's more than enough for now.

Well. I haven't really written for this fandom in awhile.