DISCLAIMER: All characters and settings are the property of Jason Rothenberg and Morgan Kass.
Prologue
Clarke did not stumble.
Clarke did not falter.
Her footsteps rang true and sound as she marched into the wilderness, with no concept of where she was going or when she would get there.
So she marched.
And she marched.
And Camp Jaha faded from view, enveloped by the canopy of leaves. The noise waned as well, the distant din of joy being replaced with the tranquil trill of birds and the humming of insects.
It was then that Clarke stumbled.
It was then that Clarke faltered.
For she knew, no matter how far she marched, she would always hear them. She would always see them. No distance of space or time could save her; no great self-sacrifice could redeem her; and Bellamy did not have the right to forgive her.
Clarke did not falter. She fell.
She fell and she wept. The sun poured down upon her golden head, and the verdant trees released their balmy scent, and the life thousands crawled between the very dirt where she shook. She wept for the children who would never feel the dirt in her hands as she did then; she wept for the mothers who had never turned their faces to the sun; and she wept for those who she had killed, as if her bootless tears could revive them.
But most of all, she wept for herself, for she remembered Lexa's words.
"They do not know that what you have done will haunt you for the rest of your days."
She now knew them to be true, those words that had referred to just one boy. One boy whom she had loved. She had known then when the words were first spoken that she could barely survive under the guilt of his death; she most certainly knew she could not survive the deaths of over 300 people.
"The rest of your days."
And then Clarke knew. She would cheat the very faces that stood not an inch away from her mind, their features twisted in agony. She would join them, whether in oblivion or hell, she did not care. She only wished that the pain would stop, and the molted faces of the children would leave.
She arose from the ground, face set in adamancy.
She fumbled for her gun.
She brought it to her temple.
She squeezed her eyes shut.
"If you kill yourself now, I will have failed and I am not permitted to fail my Commander."
Clarke whirled around, but before she could glimpse the speaker, she felt a pain in her leg. She grasped it, and winced as her hand felt the feathered dart.
"For the rest… of my…"
Clarke collapsed and the world fell away.
The disfigured faces of the children did not.
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