The narrow hallways I'd always loathed were mocking me with their reminder of how absolutely trapped I was. I was as good as dead; I knew it and they knew it. A cowardly part of me wished I was. I hurried forward; if there was a miniscule chance that I could not totally screw up my life I was damn well going to take it. In five minutes it would be lunch time and everyone would be crowding the hallways. Traffic would be hell and I was thankfully sneaky enough to get lost in it, all I had to do was buy myself some time.
I turned into a corridor I knew was typically busy during this time. It was the main hallway to get to the dining hall and everyone hung around here until the chiming of the lunch bell rang twice. It wasn't nearly as full as I had hoped it would be but I prayed it was enough. As I ran, the blurred faces of my neighbors seemed to engrave themselves into my conscious that I had managed to ignore this far. I knew they would probably never look at me the same way after they discovered my code breach but I also knew some of them would understand the desperation, that some of them had even thought of doing the same thing. Still, most of them would call me off as selfish and reckless. Right now I didn't need that. They didn't know. Their unbeknownst expressions just stared curiously as I sped passed them.
Two more minutes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart wouldn't shut up and neither would their boots.
My body moved faster as my mind lagged in the race of my life, distracted by worries of what they'd do to me. God, I was only 17. Maybe I wouldn't be tried as an adult although that's an unlikely hope. Please.
"Stop!"
Hell no.
I ran faster and I knew that the people watching would be putting the pieces together. I could only imagine the horrified look of my mother when she found out. Shit. I hoped she just knew that I did it for her, for them. I wasn't selfish for myself, I was selfish about the people I loved. I placed them above everyone else in here, but could you blame me?
The hallways were beginning to crowd more and for each body I saw my heart swelled with the hope that maybe I could make it. Please.
DING!
DING!
I almost burst into tears when the lunch bell sounded but my legs were doing the crying for me as I slowed my pace to match everyone else's. Bodies surged forward in hunger, the hunger my family was feeling. The hunger everyone was feeling. They had to understand.
I had seconds. I yanked the rubber band out of my hair so hard I pulled a few strands with it. Knowing my face was flushed from running, I strategically covered most of it with my hair and then wrapped my arm around the person standing beside me, immediately creating a façade of engaged conversation.
They ran right passed me.
I couldn't believe it.
"Hey, Bella, what are you doing?" Great. The person whose arm was currently ensnared in a death grip via my hands was my ex boyfriend, Michael.
"Sorry, thought you were someone else. I'll see you later." Hopefully that was enough to not raise questions.
I didn't have a second to waste as I weaved my way through the crowds, erupting groans of protests from the people I passed. I tried to usher a quick sorry as I moved but I was only half aware of everyone else; my focus was the auburn haired woman about four yards away. I resisted the urge to call out for her and just continued in her direction.
I managed to reach her by the time she entered the dining hall.
"Mom," I choked out as I embraced her in a hug. She was frozen for a second, probably very startled but she didn't take long to ease into my arms. I couldn't afford to relish it for long, though. I was no fool and knew the Wardens would be on my back in minutes. There's surveillance everywhere. To not draw harmful attention to us, I tugged her into the line. Trying not to think about how this would most likely be the last meal I ate here, I sat us at the nearest table once our lunch cards were scanned. "I love you so much, Mom. I'm so sorry." Minutes to drench her in all of my guilt.
"Bella I don't-" God this is going to crush her already grieving heart.
"Mom I broke into the supply wing. I know: I'm a massive idiot. But I couldn't take it anymore, Mom. Their faces, your face. You're starving yourself so you can feed Rachael and Phil and I know you're dehydrated. Mom, I had to do something, anything, and I didn't know what else to do." Her guilty face hurt more than anything. This was not her fault. "It was supposed to work." I continued, "Bri was helping me but they caught her trying to deactivate the alarm and camera systems. I was already inside so I barely got away but they'll know it was me soon, though. I'm just so sorry."
Nothing could have prepared me for the utterly heartbroken look on her face. Dammit.
"No, no, Isabella, please," Her whispers of horror added to the torture of my heart.
"I don't know what they're going to do, Mom, but I'm 17 so-"
"No!" She gripped my shoulders and stared into my eyes with a piercing focus. "You know how strict they've gotten around here, especially with the resource shortage! What were you thinking? If someone's acting up they're gone! Bella, they're going to float you! I'll talk to Carlisle, I can try to fix this."
Shit.
I couldn't think of any way to get around this because there wasn't one; only a way through it. Unfortunately, the way through it was most likely going to be getting floated. I wasn't ready for death yet.
BOOM!
The doors of the dining hall slammed shut, making everyone in the room jump. I saw a girl from my math class drop her lunch portion which was about the size of her palm. She looked at it, debating on picking it up but I knew the hunger would win. It won me.
"No one leaves!" General Sheerer snarled as he surveyed the bodies in the room. I knew he was searching for me but I had spent all my meager bravery on trying to get in the supply wing.
He stalked throughout the room, his boots thundering with every step. My heart synchronized with the sound as if it already knew my fate would be intertwined with the law. Mom glanced sideways at me and I knew what she was thinking because the same thoughts of suspense coursed through my head and seeped their way into my blood, spiking my adrenaline and igniting my skin aflame. I reached over and gripped her hand.
The General was incredibly intimidating; he had a tall muscular frame like an athlete that didn't get enough food, a salt and pepper whiskered mustache, and beady black eyes that would've matched his soul if he had one. He was a dick of a guy and the only reason he was chosen as General was because the Chancellor believed he could enforce the rules. That he did, too bad he lost a sense of justice along the way.
"Isabella Swan," He called, causing my heart to skip a very much needed beat. "Stand up." For a moment I debated on not moving but as soon as his hawk eyes landed on me I knew this was all for show. He knew where I was, he was just making an example of me. I had no other choice.
I squeezed my mom's hand one last time.
I pushed my chair away from the table, rising to my full height and meeting his stone face across the room. People gasped and among the crowd I made eye contact with Rachael. Her teary eyes were pinpricks of stabbing pain all aimed at my heart. I did it for you. They all whispered and I could only imagine what my mom was feeling. Dammit I'm so stupid.
General Sheerer strolled his way over to me, allotting me proper time to bask in humiliation. Asshole.
"Isabella Swan you are being restrained for the crime of trespassing and theft." Instead of taking out hand cuffs he surprised me by patting me down. Just as he suspected, he found two week's worth of food rations in the inside pocket of my jacket and slammed them all on the table as people bared witness. Tears were tumbling down my mom's face and I regretting looking, I regretted being selfish and stupid. "Turn around." He commanded. I was hot and misery was prominent on my face, body, and energy. I didn't dare look up again. Cool metal met my wrists and the knowing click of the cuffs signified the end of my fight. The end of me.
Eight hours later I was still in the cell. They had been gracious enough to give me dinner which I greedily devoured but those nine minutes passed quickly and the same worries that had been haunting me before returned.
Another hour went by.
Finally, when I had paced the room for the hundredth time the door of my cell opened.
"Turn around." A warden barked. As soon as I did she wasted no time in cuffing me and leading me out of the room.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked.
No answer.
We arrived in the dining hall; the only room big enough to hold everyone on the ark. An announcement was going to be made and it was important enough that they had the prisoners lined up in the back of the room. Seeing all their faces was depressing; all of them were younger than 18 who probably hadn't committed a crime bigger than fighting. I stood next to them.
The chancellor stood up at the podium in front of the room. Sitting behind him were the most important people on the arc; head scientist, head engineer, head mechanic, the general, and my mom: head doctor. She looked at the ground.
"Good evening, everyone." Chancellor Aro was a beloved man, he's the beautiful kind of leader that puts the best interest of his people as a prerequisite to any decision he makes. He's been re elected five years running and we still love him. Of course with the recent resource shortages and his election of Mr. Sheerer as head general, his popularity had waned a bit but I knew too many people loved him too much for it to be remotely harmful for him. "I'm aware that there's been recent unrest concerning food and water supply on the arc." Wow, he's finally publicly addressing it. "Tonight this is going to be settled. The council and I," He gestured in to the leaders of each department whom sat behind him, "have come to a decision. We are coming clean. There are currently 1,273 people on this arc and we have enough food and water to sustain everyone for another six months." Holy shit. Gasps were heard from everyone, including me. No one had any idea that life support had reached an all time low of practically nothing. "There is enough oxygen to last us five months." Fuck. This time cries of worry erupted and the wardens did their best to calm the currents of distress among the people. I couldn't help but wonder why my mom hadn't said anything to me. We were getting closer to our death as the days passed and she hadn't said a word to me. She was still staring at the ground. "We do not know whether life on Earth is habitable for us yet. Only 80 years have passed since the Nuclear War, the levels of radiation could kill us all before we even land. We are not risking the lives of 1,273 people with the hopes that our planned landing could be successful 20 years ahead of schedule. However, we have come up with a solution that is what's best for everyone. Tomorrow morning 100 people are going to be sent back to Earth with as many supplies as we can spare. We're going to put wristbands on them that will allow us to look at their vitals, showing us whether life on Earth is possible." Murmurs spread through the room but the Chancellor continued. "If everything goes well, the rest of us will follow, if not then we have extra time to come up with something else now that there's 100 fewer people on the arc using life support."
The "if not" really meant if they died. Well thanks, beloved Chancellor.
"Who are you sending?"
"I'm not going!"
"They're going to die!"
The line of prisoners stood still, the wardens in front of us were enough of a deterrence to keep us from bursting at the seams. Unfortunately, the others weren't coping too well with the news. I couldn't blame them; I was just as stunned. The idea of going back to Earth was a dream that many are looking forward to fulfilling… 20 years from now. No matter how tempting it is to be able to see the ocean and actually feel the sun on our face, it wasn't worth dying.
"I understand this idea can sound a little unsettling but we have gone through multiple options and this sounds promising. Dr. Swan has already completed aptitude testing assuring that the 100 are capable of withstanding the impact of landing and Dr. Cauis estimates that the living conditions on Earth are better than what we had originally expected at this time. That being said, we've decided that the 100 will be the prisoners."
No.
No.
My lungs. Breathe. Breathe.
I swayed a bit on my legs. Shit. I tried to steady myself while simultaneously trying to cope with the massive hammering in my head. Oh shit I had to breathe, too.
"Fuck no!" A voice boomed a few bodies down. I looked over but couldn't get a good look at him as wardens soon moved toward that direction.
"Hey don't touch him!" A feminine voice sounded from that direction as well and in seconds they all went ballistic.
A warden went down and the zapping of taser sticks soon followed. The prisoners surged and a few tried to run out of the room but were soon tackled by wardens. I remained stoic in shock, fear, despair, and fatigue.
"Bella!" My mom grabbed my shoulders and crushed me to her warm body. I'll miss this, that is if I didn't die. "I am so sorry, if I'd have known that you would've been restrained this morning I would've voted against it, I promise, but we voted last week. It's an ugly coincidence, I'm so sorry!"
"Stop! No, Mom please don't be sorry this isn't your fault. I'm sorry, Mom."
"I love you, Bella. Listen, I know you feel sympathy with some of these kids but a few of them are dangerous, please be careful who you befriend. Remember everything I taught you. There's a son of a botanist among you for a petty crime but he's smart, I know you'll eventually have food. It's an interesting group. You have everything you need. I'm sorry I didn't let you observe the surgery last month but I have so much faith in your passion for health and medicine. I know you'll be okay. I love you just please try for us,-"
"Doctor," A warden cleared their throat behind us. I hugged my mom one last time. "I will, Mom." I whispered finally.
"Sorry, Ms. Swan," The warden said as a pinch in my neck paralyzed me and a deep sleepiness soon followed.
"Wake up!" My eyes snapped open as my cheek experienced some heavy stinging.
Jessica, a brunette girl with massive boobs and zero common sense, stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. I recognized her from sophomore year before she got arrested for identity theft, she was trying to use the ID card of a her dead relative to get extra energy hours. Like I said, zero common sense.
I blinked around me as the realization that I was on a space shuttle that was supposed to take us back to Earth registered in my brain. Dozens of kids were seated throughout the space craft while the other half were walking around and socializing with the other inmates.
Jessica cleared her throat, looking at me expectantly. "Well aren't you going to tell us what's going to happen?" A few people looked over as she asked this question as though she were giving another assembly. "You are the head doctors' daughter, right? You had to know this was going to happen." Accusation was thick in her tone. I recalled why I never liked her.
I shook my head but realized it was a mistake as dizziness erupted in my head but I still managed to reply. "I know about as much as you. I didn't even know about it until the assembly."
She pursed her lips. "Sure, as if your mom wouldn't tell you any of this. Right?"
What the fuck?
"That's exactly what I mean." I replied. No fucking duh.
"Right, Bella." She shook her head as she sauntered off in an attempt to establish dominance. Unfortunately for me, it looked like her plan had somewhat worked in her favor because a few people gave me wary glances.
My head was still floating.
"I wouldn't worry about her if I were you." A chirpy voice commented beside me. I looked at the seat to find a pixie chick sitting next to me. Her hair was sharp and her body was tiny but her face was absolutely beautiful, all feminine wide eyes and no blemishes. Although she was certainly tiny, her face displayed the maturity of her years so if I had to guess I knew she'd be somewhere around my age.
As I was about to reply a voice from the upper levels of the chamber erupted, "Who wants to open it first?"
My head hurt like hell and even my stomach was a bit queasy but even I could process the potential dangers involved with opening a shuttle before we even landed. "Hey, how much time has passed?" I asked the girl next to me as I unbuckled my seat belt.
"A few hours, we've been sitting here for a bit after the land. People are kind of scared of opening the door, you know, because of the possible death factor. Jessica tried to wake you up before but you were lights out. Do you know why she hates you?"
"Wait we landed? Are we on Earth?" How deep could I have been out?
She nodded slowly, looking up at me.
"Holy, shit. No way! Why are you just sitting here?" I jumped up from my seat, ready to head to the door. My head ache had subsided slightly but I was too curious to not go.
"It's like a mosh pit up there!" She groaned.
"What's your name?" I asked as I unbuckled her seatbelt and tugged on her arm.
"Alice."
"Well, Alice, we're going to go up there and make sure we don't die once we get out of here." In reality she wasn't as small as I thought but she was still a good four inches shorter than my 5"5 frame.
Leading her down the steps was for the most part pretty easy since our floor was practically deserted; the real problem was on the first floor where everyone had decided to shove themselves as close to the doors as possible. Still, Alice and I weaved our way through the sea of bodies to get close to the front. There was definitely a spectacle people were enjoying as they stood on their tip-toes to get a better view of the front of the room and whispered in anticipation to each other.
"Fuck, you too!" A familiar voice boomed.
As the crowd thickened I knew we were approaching our goal.
"Well someone has to do it! We can't live in here! So are you going to stop me?"
We finally broke through the crowd, arriving at the point where two guys were having a heated argument. The much larger one was easily the biggest guy on the ark with brown curls and dimples easing his intimidating frame. He stood challengingly in front of a tall but significantly smaller blonde.
"Emmett!" To my surprise Alice's small frame darted to the bulldozer of a guy. He was just as surprised to see her if the look of shock was anything to show for it. He immediately wrapped his arm around Alice and protectively pushed her behind him a bit.
"So if you don't mind," The blonde glanced at Alice and then at Emmett as he approached the door of the ark.
Emmett moved quickly, grabbing the blondes arm and yanking it back, "Like hell!"
Then things went very bad very quick.
The blonde boy spun around and with the agility of a predator, escaped Emmett's grasp while shoving his enormous body away. Unfortunately, Emmett plummeted into Alice and a loud yelp echoed throughout the enclosed space. Meanwhile, another bronze haired guy jumped in front of the blonde like he was ready to murder the boy but a red head shoved her way to where they stood and effectively blocked them from each other. By this time Alice had recovered from being nearly crushed to death and was livid, already marching to the heat of where the action was. She shoved the bronze male away and was confronting the gorgeous ginger who looked about ready to rip Alice's head off. Apparently Alice had no hesitations despite being nearly a foot shorter than her counterpart. Emmett then returned and was roaring mad shit at the blond male but was being held back by the bronze guy.
Shit really hit the fan when little Alice took a swing at the girl she had been arguing with, clipping her jaw with a loud smack. Of course, she retaliated and all of a sudden all three boys forgot everything and occupied themselves with the seemingly impossible task of making sure the girls didn't murder each other while they tried to pry them apart. This left the door to the outside completely unguarded and I took it as an opportunity to resolve this once and for all. While the crowd of inmates egged on the fight, I edged my way to the door and before anyone could stop me, I rotated the handle to open it and was rewarded with a loud squeal and click.
The shrieks of combat ceased behind me and I turned to see everyone had stopped everything they were doing even the anxious crowd and both of the girls. The room consisted of a mixture of various facial expressions ranging from shock, eagerness, and fear. In fact, everyone had forgotten the fight all together and were waiting on me to open the door completely.
Turning, I grasped the metal bars of the door and with all my strength pushed outward.
Pop.
The door burst open as a gust of wind entered the shuttle. It felt exactly like how all the books explained it would feel, a caress of cooling air. It smelled even better than the botanic garden on the arc. My hair blew behind me as I was the first person on the ark to step on Earth.