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Heart of Darkness
Disclaimer: I do not own King Kong.
Summery: A blurred mess took place of the once enchanting story, and he wiped the tears angrily from his eyes, “Why’d you have to die?”
A/N: I haven’t read Heart of Darkness, although, I have mentioned it several times in here. Please correct me if I get anything wrong. If you were expecting what you got in 'Death' from me, I suppose you might be surprised, but give it a shot, please. Thanks. :)
Kong’s form lay still, eerily death-like in the darkness permeating the underbelly of the ship. No creatures moved, and not a sound was made among the lot of them. Their wide eyes shone in fear at the monster lay to bunk with them, though some would have pounced for a chance to satiate their feral hunger with a bite of his massive jugular.
These happenings were lost upon the crew, but Jimmy knew- he knew- that if he was actually there, he would be trying to smash the ape’s head in with a plank and thus would rob quite a few predators of their prey. It would have given him a sense of fulfillment, he supposed, to do so, but he knew that if he were given the chance in real life, he would have felt nothing but empty satisfaction at the slaughter. The damage had already been done.
So, instead, he crossed his legs upon his bunk, laying back and rocking in equilibrium with the waves that had become a second stance for him the past four years, and tried to concentrate of the words smattered across the pages before him. He was almost to the end of Marlow’s narrative, the main part of his once coveted library book, but no matter how he tried, no words spoke to him.
A blurred mess took up instead of the once enchanting story, and he wiped the tears angrily from his eyes.
“Why’d you have to die,” he murmured, taking one last look at his book before hurling it lethargically to the corner of their once-shared cabin. He puffed a sigh and lay back on his bunk, his broken arm slung onto his chest. He lay quiet there a moment, simply staring up at the bottom of his best friend’s empty bunk.
Was it his fault? He’d been dragging them down a bit, he thought, and Hayes hadn’t wanted him there in the first place. Though the prospect of his saving Jack’s life seemed a bright consolation for a moment, it seemed to pale in the grim comparison of Hayes’ dead visage.
Who was Hayes trying to protect anyway on that log? Him. Jimmy knew the answer without even asking the question. Hayes wouldn’t have risked his neck for anyone else, let alone some ragtag film crew and a bunch of motley sailors- no matter how he knew them- by profession or by chance.
Jimmy knew he’d been more than that to the second officer. Though to risk his life? That was love, and the young sailor felt guilty about that. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to tough love, but this was tough love in reverse.
He had practically killed the man.
In a part of Jimmy’s mind he knew that that claim was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help but feel that it was true. He never gave count to the other thousands of possibilities that there were, all of the other chances Hayes could have had to die, and he never stopped to think that Hayes hadn’t even had a choice in the matter of his heroic self-destruct.
Hayes had been the one who had wanted a life for Jimmy and he had made darn sure that Jimmy had that chance.
‘What a waste on me,’ the young man thought. Sighing, he closed his eyes slowly and opened them back into the dimness of his room.
As he gazed across his shadowy lodge, he glanced at the book carefully. How many more pages were left? Ten? Twenty? As he looked at the width of pages stuck to the back cover of the book, no larger than his smallest fingernail, it seemed he was swimming in the end, with nothing but more cynical darkness to come.
Quietly, he stood from his bunk.
“This isn’t an adventure story, is it?”
His free hand clasped the spine of the book, and he traced the rough gouges in the front cover with the tips of his calloused fingers.
“No,” he whispered. “It’s not.”
Cracking the cover open, he peered at the first page:
Heart of Darkness
His hand shook suddenly, blurring the words this time without tears. Sucking in a hissing breath, he dropped to his threadbare knees to the damp smelling planks with a harsh thud of boneless flesh. His fingers pulsed along the book’s edge like the thrum of the sea that was upon his walls.
What more was there for him than this small reminder of his only friend? What more than a borrowed book and a few trinkets hidden beneath an ice-cold pillow, which would never again see its owner’s head? What good were words now that Hayes was dead and all of his dreams were gone, smashed into oblivion along with a single fallen log?
What could he measure his life against?
Don’t make me regret this.
A cool feeling slid down his slowly burning face, and his chest rose and fell in swoops not quite large enough to breathe with. With a clicking gasp, hitched terribly by aching lungs and a weary heart, he set his head gently to the brine-smelling floor and closed his eyes. For all of his measured steps toward pride, he’d miscalculated the final step and fallen through the cracks toward despair.
What had he been trying to prove? To whom?
Hayes…
The man’s name echoed in his mind like the church bells he’d so desperately listened to in his childhood, and the boy clasped one hand across his ear as if to block out his thoughts.
What good had it done him?
All of his boasting to the man of bravery and bettering, all of the gall he’d possessed in flouncing his book like a gold chalice to a poor man, every ounce of foolishness he’d possessed; What good had it done him?
“I got you killed, Hayes,” he croaked. “That’s what I did. I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He repeated the phrase again and again with his suddenly too dry tongue until the words meant no more to him than the ones printed in the dictionary. A metallic taste rose in the back of his throat and he realized with alarm that he’d returned his grip to the book and that the corners were sharper than he’d ever thought possible.
What good…
In a half-crazed fit of horror, no thoughts passed through his mind, save for an echo like a bell, as he suddenly tore the cover back and pulled the pages with shaking fingers like scissors to cut the threads of his life away.
Hayes…
With every page he pulled loose and every word he smeared beneath his slime coated digits,the name came calling out of the darkness. With every tear and rip, every crinkle and crack, a fist crashed into his heart, like the last dying wishes of a man that had yet to be granted and never would be.
Hayes, Hayes, Hayes…
He tore them and shredded them into what his heart felt like.
Hayes…
He crumpled and tossed them to the side.
Hayes…Hayes…
He hated them.
Hayes…
He loved them.
Hayes…
He sat, sobbing with them as he cradled them to his chest and repeated the name on lips too quavering to speak.
“Hayes, I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
Silently, he held the shell of the book to his shell of a heart, breath too short and sobs too long, wanting nothing more than for his friend to answer back, “I know.”