*A/N: Hey guys! I hope you enjoy this story! This is my first 100 fanfiction, and the first fanfiction I've started besides my Supernatural one (which, if you haven't checked out already, you definitely should!). It's not entirely canon. So, just so nobody gets confused, in my version, people have already been living on the Ark before the end of the world started, and instead of it being 100 years after the nuclear wars, it's only been five. Other than that, the backstory around the 100 kids should stay more or less the same. This is a romance between Bellamy and my OC Anna, but it is heavily plot focused as well. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review! :)
There are no good guys.In a post-apocalyptic world, the terms "good" and "evil" were irrelevant. There were no good guys because everybody thought that they were the good guys; everybody was just trying to stay alive.
I'd known it was coming – the nuclear war – in the weeks and months leading up to it. I don't know how. Call it my intuition, maybe, but I'd known there was something in the air. Technology had come too far, too fast. It was only a matter of time before someone created something that they couldn't control, or someone decided that they had more power and more technology than the rest of us.
I had never agreed with war. I'd always thought it would kill us all in the end.
But, by some cruel twist of fate, some of us had survived. Myself, my brother, and a handful of friends included. Once I assured them I wasn't insane, they'd agreed to help me prepare a bunker. Somewhere the six of us would be safe until everything passed. I neglected to mention the probability of radiation killing us if we ever left the bunker, but... If I was going to die, at least it would be with them.
The day we opened the bunker, I braced myself for a very painful, very sudden wave of radiation that was sure to burn us all from the inside out. I couldn't explain why that radiation didn't affect us. None of us could. But surely, if we could withstand it, others must have, too.
Not once, though, did it cross my mind that there were still people up in space.
Myself and Melissa watched from the bushes as the passengers of the crash-landed ship hesitantly piled out. My brother, Michael, and Nando, Denzel, and Andrew crouched behind us, shifting their weight to peer over our shoulders.
"So, what do we do?" Melissa whispered, glancing in my direction.
"Nothing, yet," I replied, eyes following the passengers. Most of them looked... young. Too young to have been surviving in space alone. "Who's into spacey stuff?" I asked the boys quietly. "Any of you?"
Denzel's brow furrowed. "I know a few things from news articles, maybe..." Trailing off, he flashed me a look of confusion. I leaned to the side, allowing him to get a better look at not only the ship but its patrons, as well. "It looks like it must be a piece of the Ark," he mumbled in a whisper.
Myself and Melissa exchanged glances. The news of the Ark was one of the last stories to get around before the television and internet signals were knocked out by missiles. Twelve ships in space, coming together to form one, in an attempt to continue the human race should things go south with the then ongoing nuclear wars. That was five years ago. By now, we'd forgotten about them; They'd most likely assumed us all dead.
"What is the Ark doing sending down a bunch of kids?" I wondered aloud.
"My guess," Andrew muttered, "is that they probably weren't wanted up there anymore. Which begs the question, do we want them down here?" I rolled my eyes as he peered at them through the scope of his gun. I gently pushed it towards the ground.
"Don't be an idiot. We're not about to shoot down a hundred kids. We don't even know if they're a threat."
"Everyone's a threat," he scowled. "Have we met anyone who hasn't been?"
I grimaced. He had a point. Three years ago, when we'd finally come out of the bunker, we'd been on the other side of what used to be Canada. Now, we were at our final destination, Newfoundland, a small island where my brother and I were originally from. We figured that with it being so small, there was a chance it had missed a lot of the destruction. While it wasn't as in tact as I'd hoped, there were still buildings partially standing, and more people breathing than there'd been on the rest of our journey. These were different times, though, and everyone we'd met, save one or two, had no interest in helping anyone stay alive but themselves. Most people fought and stole to get what they needed, and my group quickly learned to distance ourselves from that. We'd set up camp in a more or less enclosed area near some woods, and learned how to survive. Being a group of six, we had the advantage of survival over the pairs of twos and threes – we didn't bother anyone else, and if anyone bothered us, we dealt with them accordingly.
Strength in numbers, however, is a problem when you're faced with roughly one hundred new arrivals you know nothing about. I wasn't sure how to handle the situation, and so far, Andrew's had been the only idea pitched.
I watched the newcomers intently. They looked excited to be on the ground. The Ark had been in orbit long before the nuclear war; people had been living in space for years. It was possible these kids had never been on the ground. If that was the case, chances were they wouldn't be able to survive down here without a little help, especially considering any resources besides nature had been destroyed five years ago.
"I'm gonna go talk to them," I whispered, standing up. A hand gripped my arm and pulled me back down.
"Are you nuts?" Michael studied me, full of concern. "Anna, we know nothing about these people."
"And they know nothing about us," I said to the group. "But they also don't know anything about being on the ground, meaning we have the advantage."
"What are you gonna say?" Melissa asked, brushing her long blonde locks to the side.
"I'll improvise," I shrugged, not doing much to reassure them. "Stay here."
Rethinking my original plan to walk to the newcomers casually, I decided to stay crouched and crawled closer, using the trees as a shield until I was ready to be seen. Pausing, my eyes focused on one newcomer in particular. An older male, with chocolate curls tousled carelessly falling in front of his face. He was tall, a stern look on his face. Perhaps it was just my lack of human contact outside of my group, but he struck me as cute. Through observation, it seemed as though he was taking it upon himself to be the leader of his people.
My attention was diverted when the sound of a struggle arose. Shuffling and yelling came from behind.
Shit.
I watched as a group of boys brought forward my group, Twisting and struggling to break free. The brown haired boy walked slowly towards them, saying something I couldn't quite make out. I laid my hands on the ground, preparing to stand, when something cool and sharp pressed against my throat. My heart skipped a beat as I rose slowly, attempting to crane my neck and view my captor. His free hand gripped tightly to my arm, pushing for me to walk forward. "Bellamy, I've got another over here!" the boy called out."
The brown haired boy – Bellamy, presumably – waved us over. The man behind me gave me a shove in the leg with his knee, almost knocking me over. I walked as instructed, too aware of the cool metal just barely digging into my skin.
"Anna!" my brother called worriedly as we got closer. I winced as the guy holding him gave him a shove and told him to be quiet.
Bellamy's attention moved from the rest of my group towards me. "Murphy," he mumbled, nodding toward the knife at my throat. The man behind me let it drop but kept his hand planted firmly around my arm. Bellamy studied me carefully, eyes boring into me in an attempt to establish dominance. "You speak English?" he asked finally.
I scoffed, attempting to pull my arm from Murphy's hand to no avail. "Why the hell wouldn't we?" I hissed.
The corner of his mouth curled upward into a smirk. His eyes were dark, nearly black. I stared back, challenging him. "We didn't think there was anyone left down here," he said slowly.
"Yeah, well, there are!" Andrew said loudly. "We were here first, minding our own business. You don't have a right to hold us like this!"
"Shut up, Andrew," I spat. "I don't know if you noticed, but it's not like there's anyone to enforce rights anymore," I muttered.
Bellamy's face softened slightly, and he let out a soft chuckle. "At least we know one of you has sense," he said to me. By now, the other teens he'd come down with had made a circle around us, watching expectantly. I glanced over to my friends, who were exchanging worried glances. We were far too outnumbered already to be showing fear. Despite my racing heart, I kept a brave face, not about to let this Bellamy guy and his group feel they had the upper hand.
"The radiation should've killed you all," he said flatly.
"No kidding," I responded, prompting another smirk.
"Are there more of you?"
"Not with us," I answered truthfully, staring him down. "There's others here and there, scattered around. We're the biggest group we've seen, so far," I said, adding as an afterthought, "until you guys, at least."
He paced slowly, arms crossed. His brow furrowed; he was contemplating something. "You'll need our help," I blurted. My friends' heads snapped in my direction.
Bellamy looked up. "That so, gorgeous?" he answered cockily, planting his feet firmly in a stance in front of me.
"How much do you know about living on the ground?" I asked coyly, raising my chin defiantly.
I held back a smirk as I watched his Adam's apple rise and fall. "Let them go," he said hesitantly in a husky voice. My friends and brother were released, along with Murphy cautiously releasing me. I rubbed my arm where I was sure there'd be finger-shaped bruises.
"Why do I feel like we're going to regret that," Murphy said, a low growl in his voice.
Bellamy glanced in his direction but ignored the comment. His eyes flickered around his group, still circled around us. "I need volunteers," he addressed them. I cocked a brow. A few put up their hands. "Finn, Clarke, Murphy. You'll be coming with me. Everyone else... we need to establish camp before dark. Pitch tents, survey the area – no one goes off alone. Get to work." A pretty blonde haired girl and a young man with shaggy brown hair stepped forward next to Murphy, while the rest of the group disbanded.
"The volunteers are for what, exactly?" I asked.
"You must have a camp set up near here, right?" Bellamy asked. I nodded. "Well, say hello to your new one. We'll go get your supplies and bring them here, but until we know your angle, we need to keep you within our sights."
Was this guy serious? He crash landed into our home, and then had the nerve to ask what our angle was?
Still, for all we knew, they could've killed us. We marched with them, leading the way. I fell into step with Denzel and my brother on either side, walking just far enough ahead that we were out of earshot from the rest.
"Do we really think this is a good idea?" Denzel asked, pushing aside some tree branches in his way.
My tongue grazed over my teeth. "No," I replied finally, "but I think it's the only idea that keeps us alive."
"Yeah," Michael said, slipping his hand in mine and gripping it tightly, "but for how long, sis?"
Sis. The nickname was a small comfort to me. Though my brother was only four years younger, making him almost twenty-one now, he'd never stopped calling me Sis, and because of that, I had never stopped feeling like I had to protect him. No matter how old he was, he was always my little brother. And no matter how much we fought, the rest of our group was our family now. And I wasn't about to let my family die.
Finally, I answered Michael. "Until the next idea comes along that will keep us alive."
