01. Survive
"I don't think it can wait," Terra woke up in a cold sweat to the too familiar voice of Gloria.
Her eyes were bandaged from her eye surgery, but she felt the woman standing close to her while she spoke to Carlson. The fear that seeped out through her pores made it difficult to keep her breathing steady but Terra tried her best to look unconscious.
"But, Gloria, she's not ready." Terra could feel a phantom needle pricking her arm, wondering what they were planning to do to her this time as he warned, "If we do this now, there's no telling the outcome."
"We have 16 hours of oxygen left in this bunker, Carlson," she raised her voice with irritation and Terra's heart thundered in her small chest.
Sixteen hours to live. Sixteen more hours of pain. After that, she would be nothing. Terra would no longer feel the pain.
"Whatever happens, it's over for the both of us, but she has a possibility," the woman's words shattered Terra's hope. Her relief vanishing like it was never there, as her heart pounded louder and louder.
A possibility.
She didn't want to hear that word ever again, always shooting suffering through her veins every time it was spoken. No more possibilities, she begged knowing that the doctors would have to make some sick enhancements to her body.
For as long as she could remember, men and women in white coats would probe her body, injecting, cutting, twisting, breaking, removing, and adding new things that made her feel like an alien instead of human.
All Terra wanted was for their examinations and surgeries to end. She didn't need any more torture and pain, but to rest.
Just let me die, Terra prayed for the millionth time.
"Her body isn't strong enough yet. Injecting her can kill her before she even has a chance to see the surface."
The surface. The girl's bandaged hands curled excitedly into fists at her sides as the words echoed in her mind, the red-headed doctor acknowledging her for the first time since they entered the room.
"You're awake," she smiled down at the 15-year-old and ignored how the small girl tensed up as she gently placed her hand on her cold forehead. Taking her hand away and putting it back at her side, Gloria looked up at her partner with a solemn face, "Bring me the serum."
Carlson looked at her incredulously, "We'll kill-"
"She'll die anyway, Carl!" There was something in Gloria's voice that Terra didn't recognize, possibly fear, but the woman was quick to swallow it down and replace it with her usual stern tone, "Patient 0310 has successfully passed all tests and operations, we must proceed with injecting the serum."
As soon as Terra felt the cold leather straps tighten around her wrists and feet, she sucked in a breath and chocked out, "Wh-what are you doing to me?"
"The time has come; you're finally going out to the ground," replied Gloria as she took the syringe from Carlson.
Terra shook her head in terror, "But the radiation-"
"Don't worry," Gloria said even though Terra couldn't see the woman through her bandaged eyes. "Don't be afraid, it won't hurt."
The needle pierced the side of Terra's neck as those three hated words slipped out of the doctor's mouth.
'Don't worry, it won't hurt.'
There's nothing to be scare of, it won't hurt.'
I promise, it won't hurt.'
But it always did and, in a second, the pain took over her body and Terra writhed violently on the medical bed.
"Stop! Stop it- Make it stop!" She shouted at them, the leather straps biting into her bleeding ankles and wrists as she tried to break free. But, like always, it didn't work and Terra felt the blinding pain pulsate through her veins.
Gloria shot Carlson a worried look upon seeing her patient savagely throwing her body around, the restraints barely able to contain her while she cried out in agony.
"There's nothing we can do from here, but it should be over soon," the dark-skinned man placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and led them out the room.
"Please- God, please, stop it! Please, no!" Terra sobbed as she heard the door close behind them, leaving her to wonder if this was going to kill her or make her stronger.
Whichever it was, she prayed Dr. San was right and that it would be over soon.
There's no way I'm alive.
Terra breathed out shakily after the pain was finally gone. Her restraints were set loose and she instantly ripped the cloth from her eyes with her bloody hands.
She didn't know what to expect once she opened her eyes, they had done so many horrors to her in twelve years that she wasn't even sure she was human. Maybe she had x-ray vision now, who knew? That would make a great addition to her anti-acid fog skin, she thought bitterly.
After the first three years in this place, Terra became used to the doctors sticking needles in her skin to extract whatever it was that they needed from her, but their surgical experiments were the worst. At her twelve years of age, Gloria and Carlson had mutated five other kids along with her to grow back their missing body parts. She survived the experiment and gained back her hands, though she couldn't say the same for the rest. There used to be fifteen patients in the medical room, now there was only her.
Alone with the possibility of seeing the surface.
Terra grimaced at the word: possibility. But this time there was no sign of the cutting blade or the syringe that usually came with it, only hope and the excitement of having a chance to live on the ground.
Oh, how much Terra had dreamed of seeing the surface!
After the nuclear war devastated the Earth's ground and caused it to be inhabitable, the few survivors were forced to leave the radiation-covered ground if they wanted to survive.
A small community had been built underground, where doctors and scientists worked on finding a way for the human race to survive the Earth's radiation. Nine decades of torturing and mutating innocents, and she was the one with a chance on the surface.
Her legs remained surprisingly still under her weight as she placed them on the cold floor and stood up for the first time in two weeks. Terra looked down at her feet for a moment, her eyes dilating and constricting on their own, but she blinked what she was sure were the effects of the surgery away and clearly saw her pale, frail feet again.
Looking up to the gray door ahead, she moved her weak legs and walked forward. Opening the heavy door with a push, she stepped outside the medical room. The sound of her bare footsteps echoed softly onto the hallway as she reached the bunker's Exit Room.
She shut her eyes at the sudden light that burst in when she opened the room's door to the outside, critters scattering everywhere to hide in the dark corners of the solitary room. Her head throbbed loudly as blood cursed through her entire being at the warm feeling of sunlight on her skin.
There was a second when she feared the radiation would start to disintegrate her skin, or worse, but she quickly vanished the thought as she deeply inhaled her first ever breath of sweet, fresh air.
Then, she opened her eyes and the forest's colors exploded in front of her. Blue, green, brown, yellow, orange, red, and so many others that Terra didn't know, each varied in shades but all equally breathtaking.
She eagerly stepped up the ladder, her hands touching the soft dirt as she brought herself up from below. Her face broke into a wide grin and, with a delighted sigh, she laid on the grass-and-dirt-covered ground to gaze up at the magnificent blue sky.
The surface was a beautiful, beautiful thing, where trees towered over her like giants and the whirling wind swept away all the heavy dust of her past. The fresh air was exhilarating and so was her new-found freedom.
Experiencing the earth and its wild heart made Terra take back all those times she wished to die. It made her realize that she'd go through all the pain and suffering again, because how could anyone deny a chance to experience such glorious beauty?
Hours later, Terra finished burying Dr. Reynolds and Dr. San in their graves after she'd found them in the forest, not far from the bunker.
Their flesh had been burned off, exposure to radiation she supposed, and she gave them a proper burial- or what she learned to be a proper burial-, wrapping what was left of them in separate blankets from the bunker and laying them down in the six-feet deep graves she dug up.
At night she went inside the bunker but let its door open to look at the stars. The moon illuminated the woods with an eerie light and Terra was beginning to be lulled to sleep by the sounds of the nocturnal creatures.
Before she doze off entirely, she stepped up the small ladder, reached her arm out, and sealed shut the bunker's door.
Silence consumed the place, the adrenaline in her system finally fading after the day's events, and, bringing her hands up to the side of her arms, she shivered at the solitude.
The thought of being the only person on the ground began to terrify her as she rested her tired limbs on the couch she'd brought to the Exit Room from the Recreation Room, and slid under the old linen sheets. The storage cabinets held enough food and water for at least two more months, so she would have to learn how to hunt and cook her own food soon.
Tomorrow, Terra would have to trek the forest for a source of water, open up the old books from the Teaching Center and learn what berries would be good to eat, which plants were poisonous, what herbs were medicinal. She'd have to know how to make a bow and arrows, how to use the bow and arrows, how to fend off predators... These thoughts perturbed the fifteen-year-old until her eyelids grew tired and she fell asleep.
From now on, Terra would not only have to live on the ground, but survive it as well.
Author's Note: Hello! After watching The 100 and becoming in love with the show, I decided to give this a try and have started writing my very first fanfiction story. I may not be as much as a good writer as some very talented people on here, but I will really appreciate it if you left a review!
Thank you so much for reading!