WHO ARE YOU?And The Horror That Followed
His fall did not hurt him, his nerves had gone numb too fast to register any pain. What did hurt was her fall. His friend, his co-leader, now lost.
And in her place stood a woman he did not know. Her eyes had lost that small tinge of sadness that seemed to be her constant companion in all situations. That should've been the tell; she was too carefree, too 'chilled out' to be Clarke. He had taken way too long to understand. Or perhaps, simply to admit.
She leaned over him now, nonchalantly answering his question "Josephine Lightbourne. Nice to meet you". Never had meeting someone shattered his world so. Things still did not add up in his mind, questions flowed like unbridled water. Yet, one thing was clear, beyond doubt.
It wasn't her.
She was gone.
He had lost her, again.
And, if that wasn't enough to wrench his heart like a stress ball in a fat, overworked palm, he had seen what they might have done to her.
Flashes from the video logs hehad seen in the afternoon ran through his mind as that woman in Clarke's body dragged his paralysed form to a corner. He remembered; the "host body" losing its original consciousness, almost dying before ultimately being taken over by this very same apathetic creature who was now inhibiting Clarke.
And she must have gone through the same. Or worse.
"See you soon", said Josephine, starting to walk away from him. He wanted to scream. She couldn't possibly have anything good planned for the rest of his friends. But, even more than stopping her, he wanted to choke the life out of her.
With another painful palpitation of his heart, he was hit with the realization that he couldn't do that without killing Clarke herself, or at least her body. Tears welled up on his cheeks and his vision blurred.
Outside he could hear them whispering; the body-snatcher and her bodyguard. As he heard their voices fade away, he let go of the last shreds of self control. He let the tears flow, not that he could've done much to stop them. For once, he did not think ahead. He did not plan.
He lay there and he wept. The paralytic would fade away and then he'd think of a way to caution his friends. But this, it was the moment to mourn, to grieve for the friend he had lost all over again, the co-leader he'd once again started to lean on, the girl who claimed he was her family. Too important to her. He regretted it now, not having the courage to respond in kind when she had said that. And now he needed her to know it - her worth to him. She couldn't possibly be gone without having known that.
And maybe she wasn't. He had, once before thoughtt her dead and been proven wrong. What were the odds...
This was when he heard the door burst open and two lightly-armed guards walked through it. "Let's get him outta here", one of the guards hastily said.
"Easy, son", the other responded, crouching down at some distance from Bellamy. "The earth-boy said we have so long as an hour before anyone starts noticing his absence". Earth-boy? He wondered if they were threatening yet another of his friends and a wave of panic washed through him.
"He could be bluffing", the younger guard proposed.
The comment drew a sardonic scoff from his senior, "Josephine doesn't pick the weak-willed. She certainly doesn't let them survive. The boy must've looked useful. Unlike this one", he spoke the latter sentences, staring hard at Bellamy, who was frantically struggling to make sense of things.
"Is loyalty such a fickle thing on earth", wondered the young guard as they finally picked up Bellamy's limp body and carried him outside.
"So, it would appear", said the other after some time as they threw him in the back of a covered wheelcart, after having first stuffed him into a body bag. Bellamy wanted to ask questions , to shout them out really. But all he could do was wonder. And now there was the added fear of death. He was fairly confident that these people were instructed to kill him. At best, they were going to stash him in a ditch outside Sanctum. But, apart from the basic, primal fear that all living creatures feel when their survival is threatened, he could not feel much sorrow.
He wondered if losing Clarke was a breaking point of sorts. A steep fall right after the recovery from a bad accident, bomb dropping on a city coping with the remnants of a famine. After everything he'd lost; his mother, numerous friends, his baby sister.
As one despairing thought followed another through his mind, he heard the zipper of his body bag slide down. Too soon, he thought with desperate helplessness, feeling the effect of the paralytic drug still very much upon him. However, the face that came into view did, at least, free him of that terror.
What the hell happened to you", Octavia asked, leaning over him in concern, Diyoza some steps behind her.
Clarke died, he wanted to shout, to cry his heart out. Since he couldn't yet do that, he simply let his tears do the talking.