The opening chapter begins with two boys, Piggy and Ralph, making their way through the jungle. We learn, through their dialogue, that they had been travelling in an airplane with a group of British school children. The plane had presumably been shot down and crashed on a an island in the Pacific. It is hinted that the rest of the world is at war, and that most of it has been destroyed by nuclear attacks--possibly …showed first 75 words of 1674 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1674 total…and beat--!' " Jack does not like rules and the Beast within him his beginning to expose itself little by little. The assembly breaks up and the hunters do their dance once again. The boys are drifting apart into two distinct groups: those who follow Ralph's ideas and those who follow Jack. At the close of the chapter, Ralph, Simon and Piggy are sitting on the assembly platform listening the cries of the littluns' nightmares.