100 Blue Skies
Chapter 1
My hands weakly fumbled for the buckle of her hardness which seemed to be barely attached to the burning seat now. The dropship had taken one hell of a beating from the Earth's changing atmosphere with flames engulfing parts he hadn't taken much notice of before. The burning metal which was not on fire hung dangerously close to our faces, inches away from slaughtering us. emCould be worse, /emI thought, emI could land here alone. /emOf course, I didn't believe my muffled thoughts. Being alone seemed like a better alternative then being stuck with 99 other criminals until I die. Fortunately, if the air was as unbreathable as the Ark suspected, I wouldn't have to deal with them for much longer. I vaguely recognise some of those around me, my eyes pealed out for the first of Earth's victims to venture beyond the dropship, but those whose voices arose made it almost impossible for me to control the anger of their arrogance.
"I hope she dies before me. Do you think she'll die?" One said, her hair shorter than most.
"I think you should shut up." I glared in reply.
"If you want to volunteer to die first with that Clarke girl then be my guest." Hissed the boy beside her, his eyes like snakes watching my every move.
Thanks for your much needed permission." With one last sarcastic comment, I took steps forward. My legs threatened to shake uncontrollably but I assured myself no matter how close to death I might be, nothing could be worse than staying with such people for the rest of my miserable life. Without further hesitation I leaped from the broken metal plate below my feet and onto the Earth. Earth's gravitational pull forced me to the ground quicker than any the Ark was made to produce. I looked around as Clarke and others began to discuss the safety of the 100. With time, they decided to set camp in a strange break in the tree line.
The girl with golden blond hair and impeccable blue eyes helped those in need with injuries bewildering disgusting. I seemed not to have injuries beyond my control, nevertheless, I tore off a sleeve of my jacket to wrap around my bleeding shoulder, trapping metal amongst hoards of broken skin stained with blood. I'd get Clarke to remove the tightly compacted engine part when others weren't in need of her help more than me. For a moment I watched her fingers so cleverly tangle with improvised bandages until I realised I wasn't the only one watching Clarke. However, unlike my watching being a result of pure boredom, he did so with such longing he must be keeping watch over her as to protect. I was confined at the age of fifteen for my 'disturbing of the peace' which closely translated to 'setting two girls into shock for bullying a ten year old' so I hadn't the time to watch relationships expand but I could recognise this. I altered the weapons used by guards to create a magnetic coin of which could carry the current of the electric charge. I was studding to become part of the engineer lab when I was confined. After little consideration I decided it best to speak to him.
"Enjoying the view?" I rose one eyebrow as to be mysterious but as my hands folded, my long brunette hair caught on the button of the one-sleeved jacket. My attempt at undoing it without drawing too much attention to myself proved unsuccessful.
"Uh, I guess. Are you okay?" He asked awkwardly.
"You mean because my hair is stuck in a button. I'm great. Actually bored. I'm Sky." It was all I could do to stop myself from facepalming where I stood. It wasn't like friend making was something I intended to do but I couldn't be the only one out of 100 people to get bored easily.
"Wales-" Wales was otherwise interrupted by the sharp voice of a young blond whose outfit looked as if she has forcefully shrunk them. Automatically I hated her.
"So where the hell are we supposed to sleep?" Their next conversation didn't improve upon my bored state so I decided to follow the outline of the trees.
Being locked up in confinement and concealed upon the Art, I'd never felt the wind on my face or the gentle brush of the tree bark against my fingertips.
But it was truly beautiful.
I watched from afar as winged creatures soared high beyond the tree branches yet not further past the Ark which was beyond my sight. The trees seemed stable enough. In one swift movement I lifted myself onto the first branch, followed shortly by the second. Despite gravity pulling me down to the grasp of the newly discovered system that would soon be enforced, I continued climbing until I was close to the stop. Colours fell into each other in the sky as dawn began to break, enchanting most of those below my feet into a near unconscious state. I, however, simply looked in disgust at the girls perched eagerly on the laps of others who smirked arrogantly at one another. emWhy? What is so amazing about sticking your tongue down someone's throat that it can't wait until you actually know their name? /emI had the courage to recoil what I thought, whether out of bravery or stupidity, but at the time when not one of the cocky idiots knew I was beyond their reach, I didn't feel backtracking would give any one an advantage. Don't misunderstand my motives, I could take any one of them in a fight-the key word being one. I doubted any of the criminals would play fair which deflated me.
When trouble arose my ears pricked up. I hadn't realised there was one who stood among us yet didn't belong. A tall dark haired boy wearing a tattered guardsman's uniform began to toy with Wales who must have brought Clarke into the conversation. Clarke herself looked less then impressed with the stupidity of the argument and folded her arms impolitely. No matter how little I could hear from my height, when the he who portrayed himself a guardsman declared he had ventured down to them to secure his sister's well-being, I almost fell from the branch on which my legs laid upon. No one had a sibling. It wasn't permitted. Yet here they were. When they'd realised the sky's transformation all stopped in their tracks and gazed up. To say my name was the true meaning of beauty was an understatement. It was a name I did not deserve when my beauty was only seen in my drawings and not though my colourful attractiveness. This thought made me laugh aloud. I wasn't one to dwell on looks nor did I care about them. To me, if you act like an ass, I'll treat you like an ass no matter how good looking or ugly you may be. What a philosophy to live of off.
Soon all but few were deeply asleep. I watched as one of the siblings took his sisters hand and for the first time wished I had someone so close to look out for me the way he did for her. For minutes I watched him, until his feet carried him over to the forest edge. I froze, unable to move in fear he'd notice me. However, when I slid my legs to secure myself fully, the left of my shoes fell to the floor, hitting his shoulder with a sound even I could hear. Suppressing my laughter, I slid around to conceal myself by the tree's trunk.
"Hello? Did someone loose a shoe? Perhaps a . . . bird." He slid his hand around his shoulder as he reached for my shoe.
"Did it hurt?" I ask boldly.
As much as a shoe can hurt being thrown at you from a tree. Why are you up in a tree?" His voice was almost comical. I studied each detail of his expressionless face before I spoke in reply.
I'm Sky. To ask why I'm in a tree is to ask why humans are programmed to breath oxygen." He almost laughed at the sight of my wide grin. Almost.
"I'm Bellamy. Do you want your shoe back?" Arrogance littered his question yet instead of proceeding with my look of annoyance, I simply replied in another form of overconfidence even I found annoyingly stupid.
"Unless you want to keep it." I concluded. "Just throw it up here."
"Are you going to sleep up there?" He asked as the shoe was thrown repeatedly until it was secured in my hands.
"Guess so. Make sure to wake me will you? I don't exactly want to talk to my fellow numbers that make up the 100. I'm not even sure I can cope with talking to myself right now. Goodbye, Bellamy, have fun . . . sleeping."
I can't say I disagree with you there. If it wasn't for O I wouldn't even be talking to another human being right now." As he began to walk away, I found the eyes of another glaring at us. I couldn't sleep knowing the eyes of a murderer were poised on me so, in order to solve these misunderstandings I proceeded to cause wherever I went, I shifted down the tree and into the clutches of another more well concealed one. It wasn't long before I fell for the sleep I so much desired.
When morning broke I felt a pain erupting from the back of my head. Below the tree stood four unfamiliar faces who threw the ugliest of the three girls' shoe as to hit me. It was too early in the morning to fight the annoying bleach-blond girls and grim faced boy away so I simply shifted into an upright position and began to climb down. When I reached a lower branch, I jumped. The pain of my feet meeting the hard ground impaled my vision slightly but it wasn't enough to delete the images of the smirking blond bimbos twirling their hair around one finger whilst flirting viciously with the one oddly looking criminal. I wondered what he did to end himself here. Possibly he was a killer, murdering poor innocence-which in this case would mean I would love to throw a rock at his head-or something less violent. Perhaps he took an apple without permission. Either way I hated him. I hated all humans that weren't fictional.
I felt bad when the small girl with a horsey face and stringy hair told me Wales had ordered those who weren't hurt to collect wood and I told her to trot off. Most of my precious time was spent converting my eyes when the majority of the boys would come to the conclusion shirts were to be used as conversation starters with the more beautiful girls as a posed to be warn upon their torso. Wood was collected by the more obedient of the 100 and lit in flames so keep warms. There wasn't much to do around the camp so without argument I wondered into the forest. The leaves formed strange silhouette as she blocked the sun's warm rays and heated the patches of grass where they landed. None had realised is was I who had developed the technology used for the unauthorised space-walk. Luke, who was eighteen at the time, had come in search of my help for his unexpected idea. The D-chip I developed was enhanced to decipher incepted codes to access the hard-drives stored on each panel as to open without detection. He told the counsel it was he who had created my D-chip-or decipher chip- so I wasn't sent to imprisonment. I remember when he was floated. I remember when the crippled body of my ally was torn from the Ark and into the wide space we call empty. It was then when the memories of the dead flooded my mind I began to think of the possibility of creating an electric net in order to catch food or confine those in need of confining. If the Earth is inhabitable and we don't all die in the next weeks to come from the radiation break, we'll need a more officiant way of communicating with the Ark. The remainder of the dropship glittered when it captured the light all so beautifully. If any humans had survived the radiation blow they'd surely have seen its glimmer from miles away. As I reached camp I found myself falling onto something with a crack, the noise shooting right though me and awakening my mind from the possibility trance I had accumulated. With a groan I realised I had fell into one of my bastard companions. His hair fell across his face strangely as if he had been ran though the bushes by a pack of wild animals, and his eyes slammed shut whilst his moans escaped his tightly compressed lips. My first instinct was to apologise but when you haven't touched another person in a year, it's hard to concentrate on that of the most importance. For a moment I froze in place, locked in a situation I hadn't the ability to control. Before I could resolve the situation, two of the three dumb blonds strutted over, their shoulders back and lips openly extended as they walked.
"How lovely!" The first squeaked, "Tree girl has gotten herself a boyfriend!" I rolled away, realising how ridiculous this must look.
"It isn't like that, Pansy, she fell." The boy on the ground concluded after dusting himself off.
"Sure, she fell accidently . Wait, I know you." The second of the two began, my shoulders rising in fear. "You're the girl who invented the hack-"
"D-Chip! It was called a D-Chip. And I'm pretty sure that wasn't me." My eyes converted from left to right, suspiciously yet entirely confused.
"Wow, if it wasn't for you I would've never been on a space-walk. I'm Finn." He outstretched his hand. "Come on, you just fell on me, I think we're close enough to shake hands." He laughed. In the end I did shake his hand, reluctantly.
"So you got confined because you went on an unauthorized space-walk?" He nodded with a goofy grin I couldn't help smile at.
"How sweet. You're also the girl who invented the coins and the original prints for the Bleepers." Pansy gasped while smiling as if the thought had only just occurred.
"If I would've used electromagnets it would have worked faster, the simply design was only meant to withhold the pressure of the human bone structure, not the density of ten." The others stared blankly at me.
"Well I'm Pansy and this is Othello." Othello twisted her fingers in a strange wave as I gave an unconvincing smile.
"Othello as in the Shakespearian book? Even when humans lived on Earth that name was unheard of considering the age gap between at least 2-" I broke off. Their distraction had masked her ideas. "Sorry, I've got to go. Have fun with . . . whatever." I trailed off as my feet carried me the the remainder of the dropship.
"I'm coming with you," Finn concluded.
"No you're not, go away, I don't need you."
"You may not but I want to know what your up to."
"Hooking up with one of the idiots your friends seem so intrigued in making out with." I rolled my eyes.
"Sky, right? Sky, your arm is bleeding." Sure enough when I looked down at my shoulder it had bled though my sleeve arm. "I'm surprised you didn't feel how much it must've hurt you." He shrugged, continuing to follow me into the blood covered mass of limbs and metal. "Ew."
"When I was small one of the doctors examined my nerve system further and concluded the-well said my pain intake could be different from others. It just means I can't feel it as you would. Ah, there." I pulled apart the engine of the dropship. "Damn it. I won't be able to recalibrate the system's connection to the Ark with these fried wires. For rocket science this isn't exactly rocked science. Whoever built this engine part didn't take care in the positions they placed the-if this was a 24 C.A.T-2 pair then maybe I could-maybe. I wonder if the centre of the gravity was even a little calculated to match the thrust of angle 0. Ah but look, 14/3 G Type NM (Ul) and the under ground cable is still intact. Finn, find the SE armored."
"Sky? Talk English." I looked up confused with such words. "I understood the part about . . . when you said damn it. That is about it. What are you trying to do?"
"Not much, as I said, recalibrating the system's connection to their contact of the Ark by-" His eyes were glazed over almost in boredom. "Wires, rockets, contact, Ark, live." With one last obvious comment, I dug further into the contraption so my stomach disappeared into the engine.
"What about our bracelets? Couldn't they do the same . . . stuff?" His voice startled me-his correct voice startled me, causing my head to snack into the wall of the box.
"That could work. Assuming we can keep them active after the absence of its person. Finn, you're a genius!" Without thinking, I swung my arms around his neck and he didn't hesitate to wrap his arm around my waste.
"Sure, I'm the genius."