AERROW IS BACK! At the end of 'Closer to the Edge' I said I was wanting to do a sequel, and here it is! If you have not read 'Closer to the Edge' you do not have to, but I recommend you do, as it is the beginning of the story of my OC character, Aerrow Eroxin, and his journey through life on the ground and it lays the foundation for this story. Rest assured, I intend this to be better than 'Closer to the Edge". It will be harder, faster and darker, but hopefully better.
I have tried to learn from the mistakes I made in 'Closer to the Edge' and have tried to make Aerrow more realistic in this story, while still maintaining his abilities. He is very changed from the events in 'Closer' and his emotional journey will be the main focus of this story. The story picks up with the beginning of season 2 and, as with 'Closer' this story will remain as close as possible to the actual storyline.
In addition, there will be much less OC/OC than there was in 'Closer' and the story, while not straight away, will largely focus on Aerrow/Clarke (or Claerrow, if you want to call it that), because Clarke in season 2 is amazing!
One more thing: new chapters will be pretty scattered as I'm taking more time to figure out how to integrate Aerrow into the complex storyline of season 2.
Anyway, hope you guys like it. I'm definetly going to have a blast writing this one
(note: I do not own the 100. Only part of this story I own are the OC characters. Also, verse at the beginning of this chapter is taken from the song 'sudden life' by Rise Against)
THE 49 + 1: INTO OBLIVION
FLOATING IN THE CLOUDS
GIVING UP THE FIGHT
A VOICE IS CALLING OUT
I'M WALKING INTO THE LIGHT
In the low light of sunset, a young girl ran across the horizon.
Trees and branches whipped past her, leaving cuts and scratches on her already bloody face and turning her usually straight blonde hair into a tangled mess as she ran desperately through the forest, fleeing the terrible scenes of the massacre behind her.
Suddenly, she stumbled on a loose rock and fell to the ground.
Pain shot up her right leg, originating at her ankle. She stifled a scream and through gritted teeth, got back on her feet and kept running.
As she ran, images flooded through her terrified mind, reminding her of what she was trying to escape.
The arrows…
The gunshots…
The delinquents…
The grounders…
The battle…
The murder…
She would never forget the horrific brutality she witnessed as her people were slaughtered in cold blood, the images of her friends being stabbed, shot or beheaded permanently engraved into her mind.
She was a member of 100 juvenile prisoners sent down to the ground from a gigantic orbital space station known only as 'The Ark'. The Ark had sustained what was left of the human race ever since a nuclear war 97 years ago had poisoned the earth with radiation and rendered their former home unable to sustain life. She and her comrades had been sent to the ground to die, in order to determine if the ground had recovered and was survivable or not, but what ensued was far worse than she or any of the others had ever imagined
At first, the ground seemed like a paradise, with unlimited resources, endless beauty and, most importantly, no rules.
But things had quickly gone downhill
Soon after landing, it became apparent that the 100 were not the only humans on the ground. There were survivors, grounders, as they came to be called.
Despite the efforts of her leaders - the smart, caring and beautiful Clarke Griffin, and the impetulant but brilliant Bellamy Blake – to establish peaceful co-habitation with the grounders, the relations between the two sides seemed destined to descend into war.
She remembered vividly the night of the final terrible battle between the 100 and the grounders. She remembered crouching, terrified, with an M4 rifle in her hands, taking aim and firing at the grounders, as other members of the 100 did exactly the same thing.
The grounders returned fire with spears and arrows, and the losses sustained to both sides were large and their deaths horrific.
It was only the actions of the heroic but damaged warrior Aerrow Eroxin and his prodigy (and, some said, lover), Sara, that prevented the total annihilation of the 100.
The two warriors had sacrificed their own lives and held off the grounder army long enough for Jasper to set the rockets of their landing craft (the drop ship as they called it) to fire and for Clarke to get the rest of their people inside it, before shutting the door, trapping the grounders outside, and roasting them alive.
The girl had been too slow.
Trapped in the far corner of the battlefield, she had been unable to make it to the drop ship in time.
Faced with certain death by either the grounders or by incineration, she fled into the forest, and had not stopped running in the two long days that had passed since that fateful night.
The sun was now below the horizon and she found herself being enveloped by darkness as she continued her aimless trek.
She was not a born survivor. On the Ark, she had been born into an upperclass family and had never had to work hard to make a living. When she reached her mid-teens however, she started hanging out with the wrong people and was eventually arrested for the possession of illegal drugs. Normally, criminals were executed, or 'floated' due to the stringent population laws on the Ark, but the same law stated that she was to be kept alive because she was only 17, and any criminal under the age of 18 was to be kept in the prison (the delinquents called it the skybox) until they turned 18, when their crimes were to be reviewed.
Her past seemed so far away as she stared wide eyed into the night. She had loved being on the ground, loved the freedom of it, but that had long been forgotten, and the happiness had been replaced by fear. Right here, right now, alone, cold and bleeding, there was nowhere she wanted to be less.
She heard the howl of a wolf in the distance, and she shivered in terror.
Out of the gloom, she spotted a dim orange glow off to her right.
She went over to investigate, and she found a small circular opening in the ground, out of which came the dim orange hue and the crackling sound of a fire.
Her desperation to escape overriding her better judgement, she did not stop to think of what could already be in the cave and she hurriedly slipped through the opening and shimmied her way down a tight tunnel until she found herself standing in what could only be described as the most amazing place she had ever seen.
She was in a giant cave, roughly 50 metres across, and at least two thirds of it was a large shallow pool of the brightest and bluest water she had ever seen. Glow worms lined the roof of the cave, spreading their faint light across its entirety.
But then she looked at the remaining dry section of the cave, and her fear returned.
She saw a small but hot fire burning, with the leg of a wild pig being roasted over it. she licked her lips hungrily. She hadn't eaten in nearly 3 days.
She also saw a series of animal skins and weapons, and, drawn in ochre on the wall behind them, a painting of 3 women. One looked a lot like Clarke. The other two she couldn't recognise, but the detail was incredible. Staring at the artwork, it was then that she realised it. This was someone's home.
She was engulfed by the desire to turn on her heel and leave immediately, but her hunger kept her where she was. She decided that she would be able to just take the pig leg and leave before whichever grounder who called the cave their home came back.
She quickly strode forward when she heard a low reptilian hiss at her feet, and she froze.
She looked down and saw a large black and white striped lizard, about one and a half metres in length, its tail coiled around itself protectively.
At the sight of the lizard, she allowed herself to relax a little. After all, how could a lizard harm a human?
She reached out to grab the pig leg when she saw the lizard move, its head shooting up into the air, now looking directly at her, suddenly ultra alert.
She wondered why, but then she realised that it wasn't looking at her, it was looking behind her. She then heard a dull thud that sounded like a single footstep and her fear became extreme.
She screamed and whirled around to face whoever it was, expecting to see the horrifying facemask of the grounder that would ultimately bring about her gruesome death, but instead she saw something else, someone else. Someone familiar.
Standing in front of her was a teenager, about 18 years old. He wasn't overly tall, but he was lean and muscular. He was about 180 centimetres high but only weighed 55 kilograms. He was bare chested, wearing only a pair of boots and some dirty and slightly frayed lightweight brown cargo pants. She instantly saw that his body was adorned with ragged scars and angular black tattoos – identical to those worn by the grounders she had been running from. She had seen his scars before, but they still made her wince. His muscles were illuminated by the flickering fire light. They were not overly massive, but they were toned. Seriously toned. He was pure muscle, no body fat. Despite her terror, she found herself supressing a gasp as she stared at the speed-bumps of his abs.
He had messy long-ish light brown hair with streaks of blond in it, which he wore parted in the middle with the strands hugging the side of his head, reaching just past his ears at the sides and down to the base of his neck at the back. At the front on his right hand side, he had a few strands tightly braided with a yellow feather attached to the end, something he didn't have the last time she had seen him.
His eyes were a mesmerising shade of dark purple and he had an ugly semi-circle of scarred skin running in a ring around the outside his left eye.
In each of his hands he held a shiny silver thin bladed sword, each about 90 centimetres long. The blades looked ultra sharp, even from where she was standing, and were coated in a fresh and grisly slick of red blood.
She recognised who the person was instantly
"Aerrow… is that you?" she said in disbelief and not a small amount of relief.
Standing in front of her was indeed the warrior himself: Aerrow Eroxin
The last time she saw him had been during the battle with the grounders. He had just seen his partner, Sara, killed courtesy of a sword jammed though her chest by Tristan, the grounder's leader and was locked in combat with him. She had assumed he had been killed by the rockets but evidently he hadn't. He had been able to escape and found his way to this cave, which he had obviously made his own. Staring at the painting again, she now recognised a second girl in it. It was Sara.
At the mention of his name, he startled slightly, as if the sound of another humans voice was completely alien to him. He said nothing. He just looked down at the ground briefly before staring directly into her eyes
"yes" he said, his voice rough and barely audible
In that one word, that one instant, all her fears were settled. She immediately rushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, purely for her own security. She had seen how deadly he was, how he had fought off the grounders, and anyone who didn't know him would deserve to fear him and his lethal abilities. But this girl did know him, not well (very few people did), but she had seen how he had stood by and protected the people he loved and defended them with his life. Just being in his presence made her feel safe again.
But he did not hug her back.
In fact. He made no movement at all.
Slowly, the girl released her grip on him and backed away slightly, staring at his face.
It was his expression that completely captured her attention. It was not like she remembered at all. It was dark, rigid, and utterly emotionless. Suddenly, the tone of the atmosphere changed and she began to feel a little less secure.
"Aerrow are you ok?" she asked him, her voice wavering slightly
"who are you?" he asked quietly, but even then, the way he said it made it sound more like a demand than a question
"My name is Emily" she answered quickly, her fear that had built up over the past 3 days very much present in her voice as tears started rolling down her cheeks "I was one of the 100, but I got locked out of the drop ship in the battle with the grounders and fled into the forest. I've been on the run ever since. Oh god, Aerrow, I was so scared, I thought I was going to die"
Aerrow said nothing. He just kept staring at her, almost in confusion.
"but… I'm safe now… right?" she asked him tentatively
Aerrow remained silent. Instead of answering, he closed his eyes and turned away, and stood dead still
He stayed where he was with his back turned to her for several seconds, but to her they felt like hours.
"no" he eventually said, still not facing her "you're not safe"
She saw the swords in his hands waver slightly, ever so slightly.
Because he was still facing away from her, she could not see his eyes. If she could, they would have chilled her to her very core.
They were dark, and twisted with pain, and blazing with utter, utter fury as memories of his time on the ground and his life with the 100, memories he had tried to forget, came rushing back. In fact, his eyes were more than dark, they were simply sinister.
"you're never safe" he whispered to himself, before suddenly whipping around to face the innocent young girl once more.
And then he drove the swords into her chest