'I feel the sun on my face. I see trees all around me, scent of wildflowers on a breeze. It's so beautiful. In this moment, I'm not stranded in space.'
Hiccup Haddock sat kneeling on the floor of his cell. With a small piece of chalk in his hand he drew on the floor around him. He drew what he imagined the tree's looked liked, what the grass, bushes, waterfalls looked liked.
'It's been 97 years since a nuclear apocalypse killed everyone on Earth, leaving the planet simmering in radiation. Fortunately, there were survivors, at the time of the bombs. There is now only The Ark, one station forged from the many. We're told the Earth needs another 100 years to become survivable again, and man can go home, back to the ground. The ground, that's the dream. This is reality.'
As Hiccup finished shading in his imagination of a forest there was a bright light that appeared in his cell. He turned around to see his cell door open and two guards walk into the room.
"Prisoner 319, face the wall." One of the guards instructed.
'Reality sucks.'
Hiccup stood up with no complaining and faced the wall behind him. As he stood in front of the wall he became curious as to why the guards were here.
"What is this?" He asked calmly.
"Quiet." The other guard ordered. Hiccup turned his head slightly to see the first guard walk up to him, holding what looked like a metal bracelet, maybe a tracking devise since it had a small screen and a few buttons.
"Hold out your right arm." The guard ordered. Hiccup imminently held his right arm with his left hand.
"No, no it's not my time. I don't turn 18 for another month." Hiccup told them, though the guard ignored him.
"Hold out your arm." The guard ordered again. "Take of your watch." Hiccup then held his right arm to his chest.
"No, it was my mothers." He told them.
'On The Ark, every crime, no matter how small, is punishable by death - unless you're under 18.'
"Hold out your arm." The guard ordered again, stepping closer to Hiccup. The other guard behind the first one whipped out a long stick that began to make a charging noise. It was a taser.
"No!" Hiccup yelled as he pushed the guard in front of him to the floor. He quickly dodged the second guard as he went to tase him, but was able to grab his hand and force him to tase himself.
'Juvenile offenders get put here lockup. We call it the sky box.'
Hiccup managed to get out of his cell and slam the door shut. As he ran out, he looked over the railing looking down at the other prisoners. All prisoners doors were open and the guards were leading other teenage prisoners out of their cells. Hiccup looked at everything that was happening around him in confusion. Were they all going to be executed today? Was he going to die today?
"Prisoner 319!" Hiccup looked behind him to see that the two guards had made it out of his cell. How? He shut the door.
Hiccup got ready to run again when a voice sudden called out his name. A voice he had not heard for nearly a year.
"Hiccup, stop!" Hiccup looked over to his right to see his father, the chief of the Ark, standing about 30 feet away from him.
"Dad?" Hiccup spoke.
"Wait here." Stoick told the guards behind him and began to walk over to his son. As he approached him, Hiccup began to take a step back. He was the whole reason he was here.
"Dad, what the hell is going on?" Hiccup asked.
"Hiccup, let me explain," Stoick began to say.
"They're killing us, aren't they? You all are doing it to reduce population, just so we won't waste any oxygent. To make more time for all of you!" Hiccup began to shout.
"Hiccup!" Stoick yelled as he stepped towards Hiccup grabbing him by the tops of his arm. "Listen to me. You are not being executed. You are being sent to the ground. All 100 of you."
"But its not safe!" Hiccup yelled, trying to get away from his fathers grip. "We don't get reviewed an till we're 18, that's the rule!"
"No son, the rules have changed. This gives you a chance to live." Stoick explained to him.
"Why did the rules change suddenly? Who's idea was it?" Hiccup asked.
"Mine." Stoick told him. Before Hiccup to say anything he felt pain enter his body from his back and his world met the darkness.
xXx
The first thing Hiccup felt when he woke up was pain. Pain in his body, but mostly in his right arm. He could hear talking in the background. He looked down at his right hand to see the metal wristband attached to his wrist.
"Welcome back." A female voice said from his right. Hiccup looked up to see Astrid Hofferson staring at him. She was strapped into a seat, much like he was. She also had a wristband on her right wrist.
"Astrid, what are you doing here?" Hiccup asked her. Astrid rolled her eyes.
"Same reason as you." Astrid told him. Suddenly there was a loud crash and the lights inside of the pod began to flicker. Everyone began to look around the pod, slightly panicking. Hiccup then looked around the room to see other prisoners also seating down strapped in, some standing up.
"What the hell was that?" Astrid said looking around.
"That was the atmosphere." Hiccup told her. The lights in the pod suddenly began to fade out, and all of the TV's around the pod turned on. Stoick appeared on the screen.
"Prisoners of the Ark. Hear me. You've been given a second chance, and as your Chancellor, it is my hope that you see this as not just a chance for you, but a chance for all of us, indeed for mankind itself. We have no idea what is waiting for you down there. If the odds of survival were better, we would've sent others. Frankly, we're sending you because your crimes have made you expendable."
"You're father is a dick, Haddock." One of the male prisoners yelled from the pod. Hiccup ignored the comment and carried on watching the TV screen.
"The drop sight has been chosen carefully. Before the last war, Mount Weather was a military base built within a mountain. It was to be stocked with enough non-perishables to sustain 300 people for up to two years."
"Isn't that on Berk?" Hiccup muttered to himself, remembering reading about a mountain called that.
Suddenly one of the male prisoners around Hiccup's age unbuckled himself from his seat and he began to float in the air.
"Spacewalk bandit strikes again." The teen said as he began to so flips in the air.
"Yeah, go Snotlout!" One of the prisoners yelled. Snotlout the laid in the air in front of Hiccup and Astrid with his hands folded behind his head.
"Looks like your dad floated me after all, cuz." Snotlout said to Hiccup. Hiccup rolled his eyes.
"You should strap in before the parachutes deploy." Hiccup told Snotlout. Two of Snotlout's friends also began to unbuckle themselves from their seat.
"I really don't think that is a good idea." A male prisoner said. Hiccup looked over to the owner of the voice to recognised it as his old friend, Fishlegs.
"Mount Weather is life. You must locate those supplies immediately." Stoick said from the screen.
"Hey, you're the one who snuck into the medical bay and stole high-priority medicine." Snotlout said pointing to Astrid.
"You're the idiot who wasted a month of oxygen on an illegal spacewalk." Astrid told him.
"Yeah, and it was fun." Snotlout said with a smirk.
"Your one responsibility is to stay alive." Stoick told them. Hiccup looked away from the screen to see the two prisoners from earlier fully strapped out of their seats and now slightly floating.
"Stay in your seats!" Hiccup yelled over to the two prisoners. Before anything could be said there was a sudden jolted and began to violently shake around. The parachutes have deployed. Snotlout and the other two prisoners were thrown across the room. People began to scream in terror as sparks flew around them.
"Snotlout, are you okay?!" Hiccup yelled over to his cousin. He didn't respond.
xXx
Back on the Ark in the Tech room, Stoick entered the room to see pictures of all of the prisoners. Stoick looked around the room to see one of his good friends, Gobber, walk up to him. "Talk to me, what has happened?"
"Total system failure, that's what we're looking at. All we know for sure is that they were off course when we lost contact with them." Gobber told him
"What about communications?" Stoick asked.
"Other than the telemetry from their wristbands, we got nothing no audio, no video, no computer link. Everything that we programmed in to help them is gone. They're on their own." Gobber told him. Stoick sighed as he looked back over to the big screen and looked at the picture of his son.
xXx
"Retrorockets ought to have fired by now!" Fishlegs screamed over the loud noises the pod was making as it got closer to the ground.
"Everything on this ship is 100 years old, right? Just give it a second!" Hiccup yelled.
"Oh my Thor! This is awesome and scary!" A prisoner yelled out. If Hiccup wasn't scared at the moment he would of rolled his eyes. He then looked over to Astrid, who was holding onto her straps for dear life with her eyes closed.
"Astrid, there's something I have to tell you!" Hiccup yelled over the loud noise. Astrid turned her head to him. "I'm sorry your uncle got arrested."
"Don't you dare speak about him!" Astrid yelled at him.
"Please Astrid, I can't die knowing you hate me!"
"Your father didn't arrest my uncle, Hiccup. He executed him! How could I not hate you?!" Astrid yelled with tears now in her eyes.
"I'm sorry!" Hiccup told her.
"Sorry isn't going to bring him back!" Astrid pointed out. Before anything the pod made a loud crashing noice and the lights all turned off. The sound of the engine slowly faded away and the lights flicked back alive.
"Listen," Fishlegs said, "no machine hum."
"That's a first." Snotlout said as he stood up. Everyone quickly began to unbuckle themselves from their seats and stood up, except for the once that were already standing.
"The outer door is on the lower level, lets go!" Someone shouted.
"No!" Astrid yelled as she and Hiccup finished unstrapping themselves. "We can't just open the doors!" She quickly followed the prisoners down the ladder, Hiccup right behind her. As he ran up to the ladder he saw all the prisoners pushing forward, all trying to get to the door. The only person standing in their way was a man, slightly older that Hiccup, pushing them all back.
"Everyone, quite it! Get back!" He ordered.
"Stop!" Hiccup yelled before sliding down the ladder. He quickly made his way through the crowed and up to the man, he looked familiar to him but he put it to the back of his mind. "The air could be toxic."
"If the air is toxic, we're all dead anyway." He stated. He went to pull down the leaver that would open the doors when a female voice stopped him.
"Dagur?" He stopped and turned around to see a girl around Hiccup's age, with night black hair, standing a ladder. She climbed the rest of the way down and made her way through to crowed towards him. She stopped and stared at him.
"Look at you, all grown up." Dagur said to her with a smile. She suddenly threw her arms round his neck and embraced him. She then looked down to see what he was wearing.
"What the hell are you wearing? A guards uniform?" The girl said in confusion.
"I borrowed it, to get on the drop ship." He told her. "Someone has to keep an eye on you." Hiccup watched the scene in front of him and noticed something the was different about Dagur to everyone else.
"Where is your wristband?" Hiccup asked. The girl turned around and gave him a dirty look.
"Do you mind. Haven't seen my brother for years." She told him.
"Only the Twins have a brother!" A male prisoner yelled.
"That's Heather. The girl they found hidden under the floor." A female prisoner told them. Heather looked at them with anger before trying to run over to them, but Dagur stopped her.
"Heather, stop. Let's give them something else to remember you by." Dagur told her. Heather stopped struggling and looker at her older brother.
"Yeah, like what?" She asked.
"Like being the first person on the ground in 100 years." Dagur told her while smiling. Heather smiled back. Dagur turned back round and placed his hand on the lever. He yanked in down and the opened with a thud and smoke. Everyone looked around as they took their first ever breath of the fresh air. The wind blew in against their face and through their hair for the first time. Trees, grass, dirt and so much more surrounded them, a forest. The light of the sun flickered through the trees, hitting their skin for the fist time in their lives.
Heather stepped forward and let her head fall back as she took a deep breath of the fresh air. Dagur smiled as he watched her experience this moment. Heather walked to the edge of the metal platform and stood still. The the first time in her life she would not walk on a metal floor. She bent her knees slightly and jumped of the metal floor onto the dirt ground, making the first footprint on the earth in 100 years. She smiled at the feeling of the floor. She quickly placed her hands in the air.
"We're back, you half-trolls!" She cheered.
Everyone on the drop ship cheered together and one by one each of them ran onto the ground and into the forest. They all began to either just jump in the ground or run around on it, they didn't really care. They were finally free from the darkness of space.
Hiccup placed his feet on the ground for the first time in his life. He looked up from the dirty floor and round the forest, smiling in excitement and joy. He began to make his way through the forest and to a edge of a hillside they were standing on. He opened up a map, which he found on the drop ship, and began to study it. Through the trees he could see a mountain peek. The one they were suppose to be standing on at this moment.
"Why so serious, cuz?" Snotlout asked as he walked next to his cousin. "Its not like we died in a fiery explosion."
"Do you see that peek over there?" Hiccup asked as he pointed to the mountain in front on them, ignoring what Snotlout had said.
"Yeah, so?" Snotlout asked, not understanding were Hiccup was going with this.
"That's where the G.U.N bunker is. Right now, there's a radiation soaked forest between us and out next meal." Hiccup told him. Snotlout gave him a blank look. Hiccup sighed in frustration. "They dropped us on the wrong damn mountain."
xXx
Using the drop ship door Hiccup laid the map and began planing a rout to get to the G.U.N base. While he was busy the rest of the teenage prisoners walked around exploring or relaxing.
"We got problems." Fishlegs said as he walks over to Hiccup. "The communications system is dead. I went to the roof. A dozen panels are missing. Heat fried the wires."
"Well, all that matters right now is getting to Mount Weather." Hiccup told him. He then gestured for Fishlegs to get down to the same level as Hiccup. He pointed to a spot on the mark. "See? Look. This is us." He pointed to a red dot marked on the map. "This is where we need to get to if we want to survive."
"Where did you learn how to do that?" Fishlegs and Hiccup looked behind them to see Astrid standing behind them looking down at the map.
"My mother." Hiccup told her. No one said anything.
"Ah, cool, a map." Snotlout said as he walked over to them. "They got a bar in this town? I'll buy you a beer." Snotlout said giving Astrid a wink. Astrid grabbed hold of his arms and yanked him away from her. Hiccup quickly stood up and grabbed Astrid by the top of her arm. She quickly yanked her arm away from him and looked back over to Snotlout.
"You mind?" Astrid said as she walked closer to Snotlout.
"Relax. We're just trying to figure out where we are." Hiccup told him.
"We're on the ground." Dagur yelled over to Hiccup, with Heather standing next to him. "That not good enough for you?"
"We need to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority." Hiccup told them.
"Screw your father." Snotlout told him. "What, you think you're in charge here?"
"Do you think I care who's in charge?" Hiccup asked him. "We need to get to Mount Weather, not because my father said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get and the harder this'll be. How long do you think we'll last without those supplies? We're looking at a 20-mile trek, okay? So if we want to get there before dark, we need to leave now."
"I got a better idea." Dagur told them as he pointed to Astrid and Hiccup. "You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change." Everyone began to agree with what Dagur was saying.
"You're not listening. We all need to go." Astrid told him.
"Look at this, everybody the Chief of Earth has a princess." Snotlout said as he looked around at everyone. "And she's even to cute for him."
"You think that's funny?" Astrid asked as she took a step forward to Snotlout. Snotlout didn't say anything, but instead just smirked at her. Astrid goes to punch him but Hiccup grabs hold of her arm.
"Astrid, don't." Hiccup told her. Astrid listened to him and began to walk away.
"Yeah Astrid, let you prince do all the fighting for you." Snotlout said as he used his leg to trip Hiccup over. Hiccup fell onto the floor with a thud. Everyone around them began to laugh.
"Hiccup." Fishlegs called as he went to help his friend, but was stopped by the other prisoners. Hiccup slowly tried do get back up but fell over again. Snotlout laughed as he walked over to Hiccup and kicked his left leg hard, Hiccup however didn't even flinch in pain.
"Oh, did I hit the wrong leg?" Snotlout asked, knowing what was wrong with his cousins leg. Hiccup looked up at Snotlout with a death-glare. Snotlout laughed and began to walk away. Hiccup began to stand up again using his right foot for support. Snotlout turned around. "Come on then, cuz. Just like old times." Hiccup and Snotlout glared at each other.
Suddenly a person jumped in front of both of them. It was Heather. Heather looked at Hiccup before looking over to Snotlout. "He's got one leg. Why not wait till its a fair fight?" Snotlout gave her a flirty look.
"Only cause you asked so nicely." Snotlout told her before walking of with some of his prison mates. Heather let out a frustrated sigh before walking over to Astrid.
"Does he always flirt?" Heather asked Astrid. Astrid looked over to Snotlout, who was talking to the prisoners.
"You should of seen him when he wasn't in prison. Tried to pick up every girl on the Ark." Astrid told her.
"He is so not my type." Heather commented. Astrid looked at her.
"Yeah, so who is your type?" Astrid asked. Heather didn't say anything, instead looked over to Hiccup and Fishlegs, but more to the right where Fishlegs was standing. Astrid's eye's widened.
"Fishlegs?" Astrid asked in shock while pointing behind herself. Heather shrugged.
"What? He's cute." Heather told her.
"Who's cute?" Heather looked behind her to see Dagur approaching the pair.
"Fishlegs." Heather told her brother. Dagur rolled his eyes before taking his sister by the arm and dragging her away from Astrid.
"He's a criminal." Dagur told her.
"They're all criminals." Heather pointed out.
"Look, Heath, I came down here to protect you." Dagur told her as they came to a stop.
"I don't need protecting." Heather said to her older brother. "I have been locked up one way or another all my life. I am done following orders. I need to have fun, Bell. I need to just do something crazy just because I can, and no one, including you, is gonna stop me."
"I can't stay with them, sis." Dagur told her.
"Now what are you talking about?" Heather asked. Dagur looked around to see if anyone was near them enough to hear what he was about to say.
"I did something, okay, to get on the drop ship. Something that they will kill me for when they come down. I can't say what it is just yet, but you have to trust me. You do still trust me, don't you?"
"Yeah." Heather answered.
xXx
Back with Hiccup and Fishlegs, who were now sitting on the dirty floor with the map in front of them. Astrid walks over to them.
"So Mount Weather." Hiccup and Fishlegs look up at her. "When do we leave?" Hiccup gave her a confusing look.
"You're coming?" Hiccup asked. Astrid shrugged her shoulder.
"Haven't got anything better to do." Astrid told him. "So? When?"
"Right now." Hiccup told her.
"How are the three of us gonna carry enough food for 100 people?" Fishlegs asked Hiccup. Hiccup quickly began to think of a plan, but was stopped when Astrid turned around and grabbed hold of two people who were standing behind her. It was a boy and a girl prisoner, both looking like twins.
"Make it 5." Astrid told him. The two prisoners looked suddenly excited.
"Wait, are we going on a suicide mission?" The male prisoner asked.
"Well, kind of." Hiccup told him.
"Aw yeah!" The two prisoner yelled before high-fiving each other.
"Sounds like a party to me." The 5 prisoners looked over to see Heather walking over to them. "Make it 6."
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?" Dagur asked as he walked over to his sister.
"Going for a walk." She told him.
"Hey," Hiccup said as he walked over to the male twin. He took hold of his right arm and looked at the wristband. It was dented and cracked, "were you trying to take this off?"
"Yeah. So?" The male twin asked.
"So this wristband transmits your vital signs to The Ark. Take it off, and they'll think you're dead." Hiccup told him.
"Should we care?" Astrid asked him. Hiccup turned around and looked at her.
"Well, I don't know. Do you want the people you love to think you're dead? Do you want them to follow you down here in two months? Because they won't if they think we're dying." Hiccup told her. Astrid didn't say anything and looked away from him. "Okay. Now let's go."
Everyone, minus Heather and Dagur began to walk of into the forest. Heather looked back at her brother with pleading eyes. Dagur sighed. "Go on." Heather grind before quickly hugging her brother and running of with the group.
xXx
Back on the Ark Stoick was watching the vital signs of the 100 prisoners. Gobber walked up to Stoick also watching the vital signs.
"How's he doing?" Gobber asked, knowing Stoick will know what he meant.
"His vital signs are strong. He seems to be doing okay." Stoick told him. "His heart was racing a couple of minutes ago, but it soon slowed down."
"What do you think that was all about?" Gobber asked. Stoick shook his head.
"I'm not sure. Know what he was like, he properly got himself into some trouble." Stoick told him.
"Most likely with my son." Gobber and Stoick turned around to look at Spitelout, who was standing behind them. "His heart was racing a little as well, but not as fast as your sons."
"If I had to guess Snotlout was using him as a punch bag." Gobber said, quickly regretting what he said as Stoick gave him a mad glare.
"My son is a fighter, he will make a great leader down there." Spitelout told him.
"Your son doesn't have the brains to be a good leader. Because of him and his foolish actions we lost months worth of oxygent." Stoick pointed out.
"Because of your son we could of had a major panic on the Arc." Spitelout told him getting up into Stoick's face. "Which one of our sons actions would of affected the people most?"
xXx
Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs, Heather and now known as Ruffnut and Tuffnut, walked through the forest, past broken trees and bushes of purple flowers. Heather stopped walking and picked one of the purple flowers and placed it in her raven hair just above her left ear.
"That, my friend, is game." Tuffnut said to Fishlegs.
"That, my friend, is poison sumac." Fishlegs told him. Heather, who heard them quickly pulled the flower from her hair.
"What? It is?" Heather asked.
"The flowers aren't poisonous. They're medicinal, calming, actually." Fishlegs told her.
"Where did you find that out?" Astrid asked.
"I did a lot of reading on the Ark." Fishlegs told her.
Hiccup stopped and turned around to see the group was further away from him than he expected them to be. "Hey, guys, would you try to keep up?"
"Come on, Hiccup. How do you block all this out?" Heather asked as she gestured everything around her.
"Well, it's simple." Hiccup told her. "I wonder, 'why haven't we seen any animals?' Maybe it's because there are none. Maybe we've already been exposed to enough radiation to kill us."
"Someone should slip him some poison sumac." Astrid commented before following him. Heather laughed while Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut looked at each other before following them.
"So what did you both get arrested for?" Fishlegs asked the twins.
"Well, we were having a pretty boring day on the Ark," Tuffnut began to tell them.
"And we wanted to give the head of the guard a nice birthday gift." Ruffnut told them.
"So, we snuck into the chemical laboratory and did our own little experiment, if you know what I mean." Tuffnut said.
"Oh, I don't like where this is going." Fishlegs commented.
"Lets just say the head of the guard didn't like the smell of the bomb we mad him." Ruffnut told him.
"You ended up giving the whole corridor a sickness virus that lasted 2 weeks." Astrid told them without turned around to face them.
"How about you, Heather? What'd they get you for?" Ruffnut asked. Heather didn't answer for a second and didn't stop walking to turn around.
"Being born." She told them before running ahead.
"That is so not game." Tuffnut commented.
"Hey, you know what I'd like to know?" Tuffnut said. "Why send us down today after 97 years? What changed?"
"Who cares? I'm just glad they did." Heather told him. "I woke up rotting in a cell, and now I'm spinning in a forest." Heather sang as she began to spin around a tree.
"Maybe they found something on a satellite, you know, like an old weather satellite or-" Fishlegs began to say but was cut of by Hiccup.
"It wasn't a satellite, Fishlegs you know it. The Ark is dying." Hiccup told them. Everyone stopped and turned around to face Hiccup who continued to walk. "At the current population level, there's roughly 3 months left of life support, maybe 4 now that we are gone."
"So that was the secret they locked you up to keep?" Astrid asked him. "Why they kept you in solitary, floated your mother?"
"My mother was the engineer who discovered the flaw. She thought the people had a right to know. The council disagreed. My father disagreed. They were afraid it would cause a panic. We were gonna go public anyway. That when the guards came to take her. She wasn't floated. She escaped using one of the old drop pods. It was too old to use and blew up." Hiccup told them
"So your dad? He turned her in?" Ruffnut asked.
"It was either that, or cause the panic. That's why today. That's why it was worth the risk. Even if we all die, at least they bought themselves more time." Hiccup told him.
"And Fishlegs, you knew about this?" Astrid asked him. Fishlegs nodded.
"I tried to help them go public. I was able to hack into their system but before we could broadcast we got caught." Fishlegs told her.
"They're gonna kill more people, aren't they?" Tuffnut asked. Hiccup didn't answer.
"Good." Heather commented as she walked past the group. "After what they did to me, I say, float them all."
"You don't mean that." Fishlegs told her as he followed her. Astrid walked over to Hiccup and stood in front of him.
"We have to warn them." Astrid told him.
"That's what my mother said." Hiccup told her. Astrid and Hiccup stared at each other for a couple of more seconds before Astrid made a move to turn around, only to bump into Fishlegs.
"Fishlegs?" Astrid said as she walked around him, seeing he was staring ahead of him. Astrid and everyone else looked over to see what Fishlegs was staring at. It was Heather, who was standing next to a river, undressing herself into her underwear and t-shirt.
"Oh damn!" Tuffnut commented. All the guys, including Ruffnut, were staring at Heather, while Astrid's mouth was dropped open. Heather walked onto a rook and stood on the edge.
"Heather, what the hell are you doing?" Astrid asked her. Heather looked over her left shoulder, ignoring Astrid's question. She then jumped into the air and fell into the water with a splash. The group quickly ran over to her, making sure she was okay. Heather had head eyes popping out of the water while the rest of her body was hidden under it.
"Heather, we can't swim." Ruffnut pointed.
"I know," Heather told them as the rest of her body popped out of the water, "but we can stand." She pointed out. Hiccup looked at the river with confusion.
"Wait, there's not meant to be a river here." Hiccup said.
"Well there is, so take off your damn clothes." Tuffnut told him. Everyone began to do just that. Heather stood up in the river, running her hands over her hair. What the group failed to notice was the bubbles and moment at the far end of the river. Just as Fishlegs was taking of his shoes he saw the snake-like creature makings it was towards Heather.
"Heather, get out of the water!" Fishlegs ordered her, with panic filling his voice. Everyone stopped what they were doing and saw what Fishlegs was talking about. Heather turned around and saw the creature swimming towards her. "Get out of the water now!"
Before Heather had a chance to move the creature pulled her down under the water with a scream. The group called her name. She thrashed about in the water before it suddenly became silence. The group stood in shock as to what had just happened, their eyes not leaving the spot in which Heather had just been brought to her death in. Or so they thought. Suddenly she resurfaced screaming and thrashing again. The group looked over to their left to where Heather now was. This broke them out of their shock and rushed over to help their prison mate.
"What the hell is that?" Astrid yelled.
"We have to help her!" Fishlegs shouted. Tuffnut quickly threw his jacket to the ground. Ruffnut saw this.
"What are you gonna do?" She asked.
"Try not to get eaten." He told her. He quickly went to run into the water but Hiccup stopped him.
"No. Wait." Hiccup said as he quickly knelt down onto the ground floor. "If we distract it, it might let her go." He then placed his hands on a large rock and tried to push it into the water, but was having no luck. "Help me!" Hiccup yelled. Astrid, Ruffnut and Tuffnut quickly began to help him while Fishlegs stood at the edge watching Heather dragged in the water still.
Finally what had seemed like an eternity the group finally pushed the large rock into the river. It let out a loud splash as it his the surface. The snake-like creature suddenly let go of her and quickly began to swim in the direction of the boulder.
"It worked! It let her go." Ruffnut told the group. Only now Heather hand no floor to place her feet on, and she couldn't swim.
"Can you get to the shore now?" Fishlegs yelled as he ran down the little hill they were on and jumped into the water to help Heather. He began to push Heather forward towards to rock, while trying to stay above the water himself. "I got you."
What they had failed to notice was that the creature was swimming back towards them and a fast pace.
"It's coming back." Hiccup warned them.
"It's headed right for you!" Astrid yelled. Fishlegs continued to push Heather up the rock the best he could.
"Come on. Come on. Keep going." He encouraged her. Finally they where able to up the rock and away from the water creature. Heather began to take some deep breaths as the group ran over to the pair. Astrid knelt down next to Heather and saw she had a bloody graze at the top of her left leg. She ripped some of Fishlegs' shirt at the bottom and tied it around the top of her leg, above the wound. Heather threw her right arm over Fishlegs, he did the same.
"Thank you. Thank you." She repeated to him.
"You're gonna be okay." Astrid told her.
"Note to self next time, save the girl." Tuffnut joked as he patted Fishlegs' shoulder. Everyone laughed, forgetting about what had just happened.
xXx
Back on the Arc Gobber was watching the screen as one by one the pictures went red, meaning no heart beat. Gobber sighed as he watched another one turn red, Snotlout. The door opened, causing Gobber to turned around and see Stoick walk into the room.
"What's happening?" Stoick asked as he looked at the screen.
"They're dying, one after the next." Gobber explained.
"How many?" Stoick asked.
"13 so far." Gobber told him.
"What's killing them?" Stoick asked. "The radiation?"
"Radiation doesn't work like that." Stoick and Gobber turned around to see and woman in her 30's walk into the room. She had long blond hair tied up in a pony tail, and a pair of bright blue eyes.
"Ingrid, glad you could come." Gobber said with a smile. Ingrid smiled back at him.
"I can't stay for long, I need to get to surgery, so tell me everything you know." Ingrid told him.
"Surgery? What happened?" Gobber asked.
"A commander got shot." Ingrid explained. "Don't have time to explain, so what do we know?"
"One second, they were fine, and the next, bang." Gobber told her.
"Then it isn't radiation." Ingrid told him. "One second, fine, the next, bang isn't how exposure to radiation presents."
"Well, it could be if there was enough of it." Gobber pointed out.
"If there was enough of it, they would all be dead." Ingrid told him.
"They what could it be?" Stoick asked. Ingrid glared at him.
"I don't know. The only way to find out would be to communicate with them some how." She told him with an attitude.
"Look, Ingrid, I know you don't like me very much-" Stoick began to say to her.
"You got that right." She told him.
"But we need to know if it is safe for us to travel down there." Stoick told her.
"The only reason I am helping you, or even speaking to you, is because my daughter is down there. And if she dies down there I swear to Thor-" Ingrid began to threaten but was cut of by someone approaching them.
"Stoick, look at plasma osmolarity." A woman said to him. Stoick, Gobber and Ingrid turned their attention to the screen. "It's going up across the board."
"They found water." Ingrid whispered.
"How many?" Stoick asked.
"6 of them." The woman replied. The three adults look around the board to see who had found the water.
"Hiccup." Stoick whispered.
"Astrid." Ingrid whispered also.
xXx
It was the middle of the night on the ground. The groups of 6 were lying calmly on the dirty ground. Astrid stirred slightly in her sleep before opening her eyes. She woke up to the sound of the birds singing and the vibrating sounds of the bugs. She sat up and looked around the environment, seeing the plants on the trees glow in the dark. She looked behind her at the sleeping faces of her companions. She turned back round and stood up before taking a walk into the forest.
She walking through the forest taking everything in around her, feeling like the first time. She smiled. Looking over to her right she saw a rock-like figure with small flowers and plants covering it, all glowing a light blue colour in the darkness. She walks over to it and begins to observe it.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Astrid turns around to her left to see Hiccup standing a foot away from her staring at her. She looks at him, seeing her was holding a large leaf with water sitting inside it.
"Did you go to the river?" She asked.
"Figured it was worth losing a finger or two." He joked. "Here." He said as he held it towards her. Astrid takes the leaf and takes a small mouthful of the water into her mouth.
"You call that a sip?" He asked. She gave him a look before taking a bigger mouthful of water into her mouth. "You think this means we're all gonna grow two heads?" Astrid laughed at his joke. "What do you know? She can laugh." Astrid looked at him.
"Careful, the laughing will be coming not from your jokes but from your pain if you carry on." Astrid warned him. Hiccup laughed.
"Come on. You have to see this." Hiccup told her before walking around her at into the forest. Astrid quickly began to follow him. They didn't even go 10 feet before stopping. Hiccup knelt down to the ground. Astrid followed his actions. He then pointed to the ground, to a dent in the ground.
"That's a toe." He told her. Astrid looked at him in shock. "Plus, near as I can tell, whatever it is, it's walking on two feet. My Guess: monkeys." Astrid let out a burst of laughter for a second. Hiccup gave her a confusing look.
"I'm sorry. It's just, according to everything I've heard, there were no bipedal animals anywhere near here, certainly not monkeys." She told him.
"Right." He said. "You heard anything about glow-in-the-dark forests or man-eating snakes?" Hiccup asked her. Astrid nodded slightly.
"Okay, I'll give you that." Astrid told him. Hiccup then let out a sigh.
"Astrid, now that its just the two of us, I want to talk to you." He told her. Astrid looked at him, from where she was looking at the sky. "I'm sorry." Astrid sighed.
"Hiccup-" Astrid began to say.
"I know you hate me-"
"I don't hate you." Astrid told him. Hiccup gave him a confusing look. "Its just when ever I remember that moment my uncle got floated and I see you there doing nothing, it make you think things you shouldn't."
"Astrid, I was against having your uncle floated." Hiccup told her. "Yes, he may have stolen medicine, but he was doing to save you mothers life. That what I told my father, but he wouldn't listen."
"Is that why you hate him?" She asked. Hiccup sighed.
"I don't want to hate him, but he has made to many bad decisions. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't be on death row, along with you and so many other teenagers here, and my mother would still be alive." He told her. "A lot of people hate me because of my father, if we are going to survive down here we are not going to live with his rule, we're going to live through mine."
xXx
"How many now?" Stoick asked.
"18." Gobber answered. Stoick sighed and placed his head in his hands. He was sitting in his bedroom at a chair, Gobber had just walked in.
"Hiccup?" Stoick asked.
"He's fine. Vital signs are normal." Gobber told him.
"If the radiation isn't killing them then what is?" Stoick asked Gobber as he stood up. Gobber shook his head.
"We don't know." Gobber told him. "All we know is that its the exact same thing for each of them. They are fine one minute, the next they are dead."
"Then how do we get in contact with them?" Stoick asked him.
xXx
It was the next morning. Everyone was now at a river and had on way of getting across, and there was no way they were going to swim across. Thankfully there was a swing, or large vine, they could use to swing across to the other side. Right now Fishlegs and Tuffnut were standing onto of a rock while Hiccup, Astrid, Ruffnut and Heather were standing below them. Tuffnut was holding onto the vine getting ready to swing.
"You wanted to go first." Ruffnut pointed out. "Now quit stalling."
"I'm not stalling sis, I'm waiting." Tuffnut told her.
"That's the same as stalling." Astrid told him.
"Not quite, stalling is when-" Tuffnut began to say but was cut of by Heather.
"Oh, come on already. Mount weather awaits." Heather told him.
"Just hang on till the apogee, and you'll be fine." Fishlegs whispered to him.
"The apogee like the Berserkers, right?" Tuffnut said.
"Apogee, not apache." Fishlegs corrected.
"He knows." Ruffnut told him.
"Today, Tuff." Hiccup told him.
"Aye, aye, captain." Tuffnut told him as he gave him a little salute. He then turned to Fishlegs. "See you on the other side." Tuffnut then leaned back getting ready to jump. Fishlegs looked away from him and at Heather who was staring at Tuffnut with a flirt-like look. Fishlegs then came up with an idea.
"Wait." Fishlegs quickly said, stopping Tuffnut from swinging.
"What?" Tuffnut asked him.
"Let me." Fishlegs told him. He and Tuffnut then looked down at Heather who was staring at the both of them. "I can do it." Tuffnut handed the vines over to Fishlegs who took them with a slight shaky hand. Tuffnut gave Fishlegs a pat on the back.
"Knew there was a bad-ass in there somewhere." Tuffnut told him. Fishlegs held onto the vines and looked ahead of himself, not sure as to if he wanted to do this now. Hiccup quickly ran up the small his and stood next to Fishlegs.
"Hey, it's okay to be afraid." Hiccup told his friend. "The trick is not fighting it." Fishlegs smiled and let out a big sigh.
"See you on the other side." Fishlegs told everyone as he looked down at the three girls. Hiccup and Tuffnut let out a little laugh. Fishlegs then lent back and let his feet of the ground.
"Ha! Whoo! Whoo!" Fishlegs cheered. Everyone looked at him with a nervous look. He then let go of the vines while he was still high in the air. He hit the ground and let out a grunt. Everyone quickly ran over to the edge and watched Fishlegs as he stood up. Tuffnut grabbed the vines. Fishlegs smiled as he looked around.
"We are apogee!" Fishlegs cheered.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yes! Whoo!" Everyone cheered to Fishlegs. Some jumped on the spot, others threw their hands in the air, and some clanged their heads with one another. Tuffnut then passed the vines over to Hiccup.
"Let's go, boyo." Tuffnut told him. "You're up." Hiccup let out a shaky breath before taking hold of the vines.
"Come on, Hiccup! You got this! Whoo! Apogee!" Fishlegs cheered. Everyone laughed looking around at each other. Fishlegs turned around and began to look around at where he was. It was then he saw something. A metal board, a poster. Not just any poster. "We did it! Mount weather!" They began to cheer again, some sighed in relief.
Suddenly that moment ended. Fishlegs was thrown of the ground and into a tree trunk, with a spear in his chest.
Everyone was silent, shock as to what had just happened. "Fishlegs. Fishlegs!" Hiccup began to yelled to his now dead best friend. Everyone began to grab hold of each other and pull each other down onto the ground, behind the large rook. They could hear movement in the trees and on the ground. The sound of old leafs been crushed and twigs being snapped. It was then Hiccup realised something.
"We're not alone."