{Disclaimer: I do not own The 100, nor do I take credit for any of characters/plotlines that were created by the show's producers.}
- This story is not a sequel to Coming Home; it's a re-write and is NOT intended to replace the original story, as I hold the original work very near and dear to my heart, and nothing could replace it. I would simply like to further explore and portray the events that unfold around our lovely heroine. The goal of this re-write is to include more detail, more insight into our character's lives, and there will possibly be a few extra chapters/scenes that weren't included in the first draft. You do NOT have to read this story to enjoy the original. Think of this as bonus content 😊 –
[1]
The Ark was many things to many different people, but above all it was a space station.
Composed of twelve smaller stations, each representing a different nationality of what had once been civilizations on a planet called Earth, and home to what remained of the human race, the Ark was man kind's last hope.
There were some who viewed the Ark as their own personal salvation. It was an answer to the prayers of those who lived on after the bombs fell. A way to preserve humanity despite the loss of the mother planet. And although the original 'Arkians' were long gone by now, their hopeful spirit still lived on in the generation of their great-great-great grandchildren who had been raised on stories of clean, running water and lush vegetation and wild animals and hope.
To others, like our heroine, the Ark represented damnation. It was little more than a hollow, metal box floating aimlessly through the sky, a temporary home for those whose spirits were born aloft on the wings of imagination; their imaginings varying, but always coming back to the same principle; justice for the wrongdoings that they'd suffered at the hands of the Ark.
When she woke, the cell was cold.
Well, it was colder than usual. Prison Station, generally referred to as The Sky Box or Lockup by the inmates, was always cold for some reason and Melody never really knew whether she was actually physically cold or if it was some sort of psychological side-effect of the prolonged isolation from the rest of the world that put the chill in her blood.
Regardless, today was one of those days where she found herself wishing for an extra layer.
As much as she could use an extra hour or two, sleep was out of the question. Melody was a self-proclaimed insomniac, and the result was usually a few hours of restless sleep that just barely provided enough fuel to keep her going throughout the day. Even if she had been able to sleep, the icy air wouldn't allow it. It was the kind of cold that seemed to seep into your skin and burrow into your bones, leaving you cold and achy all over. All thoughts of sleep vanishing, Melody sat up in her little cot and glanced expectantly towards the wrought-iron door. Her internal clock told her that it was nearing time for morning rations.
Most days, her food was served to her through a little slot in the door. One of the 'perks' of isolation; she didn't eat in the mess hall. On other days, when rations were running low, the guards conveniently 'forgot' to stop at her cell. Those were the days where she didn't eat at all. Never two days in a row and never more than three times a week, but often enough that she was well-used to the gnawing hunger that had settled permanently into the pit of her stomach.
There was the sounds of footsteps approaching outside of her cell door. Melody expected to hear the sound of the little steel flap snapping shut after her rations were given, but instead there was silence. A few moments passed and then with a soft hiss, the steel door slid open and revealed two guards.
"Prisoner 0712."
The two armed guards stepped into her cell and Melody's surprised doe eyes followed them. Her fingers curled into the fabric of the sheets that pooled around her waist. With slow, nearly undetectable movements she slid her way towards the edge of the bed. One slender, ivory-colored calf emerged from beneath the hem of a threadbare quilt.
She was ready to run.
There was no reason for them to be coming into her room at all, ever, let alone first thing on a Saturday morning. This was solitary confinement. Melody wasn't allowed to socialize with anyone, not even the guards who cast her fleeting glances through the wrought-iron bars that made a pathetic window at the top of her cell door. She wasn't granted visitation, nor access to the recreational facilities, nor leave of any kind.
There was only one explanation for this unannounced visit.
They were here to kill her.
Understanding dawned on Melody and a look of pure terror crossed her face. Her grip on the bedspread tightened, her knuckles turning white. The guards inched their way closer to her, closing the gap. When there was just a few steps remaining between them and her, Melody leapt from the bed and flew across the room with her white cotton sheets billowing after her. Clutching the covers to her chest, Melody turned to face the guards.
"I'm not eighteen yet." There was a quiver in her voice. She hated the sound of it, depicting her like a frightened child.
But wasn't she?
The rules of The Ark stated that no person under the age of eighteen could be 'floated' before their eighteenth birthday. Floating was the Ark's most popular mode of punishment; it was a death sentence. When Melody turned eighteen in a few more months, her file was supposed to be reviewed and then The Council would determine her fate. Executing her before then would be a breach of their stupid laws, the same laws that got her thrown in here in the first place.
"Prisoner 0712," The first guard repeated himself at the same time the second drew his weapon. "Is that correct?"
"Yes." Melody whispered.
"Melody A. Pond?"
"Yes."
"Come with us, please." Said the guard, outstretching his hand.
As Melody stood there staring at his open, inviting palm, the crackle of electricity from the shock baton filled the air. There was no option in the matter. The 'please' was nothing more than a formality. She was surprised that the guard even uttered it.
Between the shock batons and the pistols that both guards were equipped with, Melody stood no chance of escaping or fighting them off. Even if they were unarmed she wouldn't have lasted more than a second against either one of them separately, let alone together. She was small for her age, short and underweight. Of the little mass she had, none of it was muscle. And even if she did somehow manage to escape them, where would she go? She would be a fugitive and there was nowhere to run on The Ark.
"Please. I'm not eighteen yet." Her words were her only weapons, her only defense. "You can't do this."
This time, they didn't ask nicely. One guard grabbed Melody roughly by the right arm, another by the left. Their grips were tight enough that she winced and in the morning there would surely be bruises dotting her skin. If she made it to the morning.
They marched in sync with Melody suspended in between them, giving her no chance to so much as drag her feet. Her head whipped from side to side, searching for any sort of compassion, but both guards remained impassive.
"You can't do this!" She insisted again, thrashing wildly. "You can't!"
But the scary part was that they could.
Upon realizing this, Melody let her body go limp and what little fight she had drained from her body. What was the point? Why waste the last few minutes of her life fighting a losing battle? There was nothing she could do now. It was too late.
The guards marched her out of the cell and into the hallway where they were greeted by a buzz of activity. All along the rows of cells, doors were being opened and prisoners were being led out. Some were screaming and trying to break away. Others were walking silently, having accepted their fate. They were walked down the halls in lines of two and led from the prison station without looking back.
Melody tried to figure out what was happening. The guards couldn't be floating all of them. No, if dozens of teenagers suddenly went missing that would arise suspicions. After all, some of them still had people that cared. Was it quarantine then? There could be an outbreak of strep throat or the chicken pox. It hadn't happened since before Melody was born, but there was nothing saying it was impossible.
Still, there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that said something wasn't quite right...
"What is this?" Melody asked lowly. "You can't be floating all of us."
There was no answer from either guard. They were acting as if she weren't even there, which was pretty funny considering the fact that they were literally carrying her down the hallway. Their silence was unsettling and it made her question her logic. All of these prisoners disappearing would be suspicious, but this was The Ark..
"You can't." She said again, more to herself than to either of them. "You just can't."
"You've said enough," Snapped one of the guards. The one who had drawn his weapon. He tightened his grip until there was an audible pop. "Shut it."
Melody whimpered.
"Hey, easy Smyth." The first guard, slightly older than the second, gave his partner a look of disapproval. When he looked over at Melody, his gaze softened slightly. "You're not being floated."
"What?" She blinked. "I'm not?"
"No." He spoke quietly. "You and 99 other prisoners have been selected to undergo a mission for the good of the Ark."
A mission for the good of the Ark. The words painted a pretty picture. Noble, even. Warriors riding off into battle to save their homeland. In theory, maybe it was noble. But Melody had a gift for reading between the lines and she heard the truth behind the carefully chosen words, words that had likely come from the mouth of the chancellor himself.
"But then-" A warning growl from the second guard cut Melody off mid-stride.
She forced herself to remain silent as the guards led her and countless others down the seemingly endless hallway. Absently she thought, I don't remember it being this long before. Granted the first time she'd walked down this hallway had been under different circumstances. Then, Melody had been a scared thirteen year old girl. A pitiful freckled-faced kid with big eyes and a life that was over before it had even begun.
The only reason Melody hadn't been floated for her crimes then was because of her age. Some argued that she was too young to be floated. Launching a thirteen year old girl into space unprotected was simply inhumane. Others argued that she should be punished accordingly. The subject of her punishment had gone back and forth among the members of The Council, but eventually it had been decided that Melody would be put in The Sky Box until she was old enough to undergo another trial. And there she had sat for the last four years, secluded from the world.
A small part of her almost missed the predictability of her cell. At least there she'd been safe. Safe. Or at least as safe as one could be while living on borrowed time.
At the end of the hallway, they veered right and entered a room that Melody didn't recognize. It was one of the many rooms that normal citizens of The Ark didn't have clearance for. One glance around the room and she knew why this part of The Ark was off limits.
Sitting in the center of the room was a dropship.
The dropships were over a hundred years old and designed to withstand the descent to Earth when the time came that the radiation levels dropped enough to make the planet survivable again. Since they all knew that Earth wouldn't be inhabitable for a long, long time, Melody could only conclude that they were using the dropship to perform a mass execution. Send it out into space and let it implode, with all of them on it. Disguise it as a 'mission for the good of The Ark' so that when they didn't come back, their families wouldn't cause an uprising.
Ingenious.
Spread throughout the rest of the room were different stations and at each station was an armed guard. They were handing out articles of clothing, shoes, and what looked to be some sort of high-tech bracelets. All throughout the room prisoners were reluctantly dressing and boarding the ship. Melody watched the process that each delinquent went through before being allowed onto the ship. It seemed a little excessive, all things considered.
"In here." A guard ushered Melody into a small cubicle. Three mirrored walls made up the dressing room. There was no fourth wall, no door; a guard stood with his back to Melody, blocking her from view. She spun around the small space, greeted at every turn by her reflection.
It was the first time in four years that she'd had the luxury of looking in a mirror. For the first time, Melody realized that although she'd gone into the skybox as a child, she was emerging as a woman. Gone was the scrawny, freckle faced child she'd known in her youth. The childlike roundness of her youth was gone and replaced by soft features and supple curves. Standing before her was a woman of average height, willowy and fair-skinned with only the faintest scattering of freckles dotting her cheekbones. Her hair was longer than it had ever been before, cascading around her shoulders like an untamable inferno. The only part of herself that she recognized were her eyes; still much too big for her face, and the color of moss.
Otherwise, it was like greeting a stranger.
"Put this on." A jacket hit Melody square in the chest and bounced off.
Grateful for a distraction, Melody bent over hastily and picked up the offending article of clothing, slipping it easily over her grey tank top. It was a lightweight anorak jacket, probably made of cotton, which had been dyed a dark green color. The jacket zipped all the way up to her throat, but was decorated on either side with brass snap-buttons that held the pockets closed. It was a loose fit, but there was an inner draw cord that Melody pulled tight to cinch the waist accordingly.
"And these." A pair of black leather combat boots were dropped carelessly at her feet.
Melody looked down at her sock-clad feet. How long had it been since she'd worn anything over them? The guard gave an impatient huff at her hesitation, prompting Melody to bend down and slide her feet into the boots. She laced them up over her pantlegs and then stood, wiggling her toes against the rubber soles before exiting the dressing room.
Why, she wondered, were they giving her a whole new wardrobe to die in?
It didn't matter now. She looked expectantly at the guard, waiting for further instruction.
"Everything fit properly?" Despite Melody's nod, the man scanned her up and down several times. When he was apparently satisfied with what he saw, he nodded curtly and gave the order. "Cuff her."
Fear struck Melody so hard that her knees buckled. With big eyes she watched another guard approach, in his hand one of those silver bracelets. Whatever that thing was, she did not want it. The urge to run was so strong that she could feel it in her bones. When it came to the fight or flight response, she had a bit of trouble with the 'fight' part.
The guard took one step forward and Melody took one step back. She would have taken another and then another, enough to flee this damnable ship altogether, but then someone grabbed her from behind and held her in place. Melody thrashed her frail little body from side to side, desperate to escape as the first guard drew closer. She could remember all too well the feeling of the metal hand cuffs cutting into her wrists. It made her feel helpless and confined, weak and at the mercy of the guards. Which she was, regardless.
"Please…please." She cringed away from the approaching guard.
The guard stopped in front of her and Melody's eyes slipped shut. One of her arms was lifted into the air and then she was "cuffed." She let out a yelp, more out of surprise than pain, when she felt the prickling of tiny needles piercing her skin along the inside of the cuff. In a matter of seconds it was over, and a single silver bracelet adorned her right wrist.
"It's to monitor your vitals on Earth." Explained the guard. He prodded the little device until a green light flickered on. "There. All set."
Earth?
She wanted to kick and scream and demand that they tell her what the hell was going on. She wanted someone to make sense of this craziness. For just once in her life she wanted a straight answer from those in charge, those who carelessly held the fate of her life and countless others' in their hands.
Instead, all she could muster up was, "Did you just say Earth?"
The man grinned at her. "Have fun."
She was led away from the prepping station then and sent into the dropship. Her legs felt like rubber as she slowly made her way across the lower level. Melody didn't so much as glance at her fellow inmates on the way to her designated seat. Her mind was preoccupied and her movements were jerky, almost robotic, as she sat down in the seat and began to strap herself in.
They're sending us down there to die, she thought. All of the years she'd spent wondering about life on Earth suddenly seemed crazy. Why would anyone want to go to that godforsaken, radiation-soaked hellhole? There was no chance at survival; only certain death. And if she had to choose between being floated and being sent to Earth, she would pick the first option. Rather a quick death than a dragged out death.
"Isn't this exciting?"
Melody turned her head to stare at the boy seated beside her. He was strapped into a 'seat' on the wall, which meant that she was looking up at him. From what she could tell, he seemed to be about her age. He was scrawny, like her, but very tall. His eyes were big and brown, the same dark shade as his hair. And unlike Melody, he wore an excited grin on his face.
"We're going to Earth." She was dumfounded by his eagerness. "You know that, right?"
"I know." If possible, his grin grew even wider. He offered his hand to Melody. "I'm Jasper Jordan."
"Uh…Melody." She said quietly, thinking to herself that it didn't matter what their names were. They were all about to die. And for some reason she was the only one who seemed concerned by the fact. Regardless, she shook his hand.
Melody looked around the dropship and was surprised to find more excited faces than anything else. A few of the other prisoners looked nervous, but those who did were few and far between. Most of the others were talking animatedly and voicing their excitement for the upcoming journey.
What was wrong with these people? Didn't they realize what this meant?
"You do realize what this means, right? Us going to Earth." Said Melody. She raised her eyebrows at the boy who was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. She was determined to make him realize the danger of their so-called 'mission.' Even if they did manage to survive the landing -and that was a big if - the radiation would kill them as soon as they set foot on the planet. This was not a win-win situation. It wasn't a time to celebrate and make plans for the future. They had no future.
"Of course." For just a moment, Jasper's smile was genuine. "This is a fresh start."
Before Melody could counteract his words with logic, a large monitor towards the front of the dropship suddenly switched on and caught their attention. A video of the chancellor began to stream and it silenced the rest of the prisoners. Chancellor Jaha was a middle-aged man with dark hair, dark skin and equally dark eyes which had a way of looking right through a person. He always wore a somewhat grave expression, even when he was trying to be uplifting and positive. He had always intimidated Melody.
The man on the screen spoke calmly and seriously as he explained the purpose and the goals of the 'mission' they were about to embark on. Melody, along with 99 other prisoners, were going to be sent down to Earth to see if the planet was inhabitable. Their job was to keep on the bracelets they had been given, which would monitor their vitals and send the data back up to the Ark. If it was safe, the rest of the people on the Ark would come down to join them. If it wasn't, then it really sucked to be the 100.
"This is so epic." Jasper grinned at the boy who was strapped in beside him. He had black hair and kind eyes. Although a bit more reserved, he wore a smile that mirrored Jasper's in spirit.
"Jasper, we could die." Melody said finally. "Don't you realize that?"
As if spurred on by the challenge, the ship roared to life. The whirring of the engine filled the air as the dropship began to rock slowly back and forth. On the screen, the chancellor wished all of them luck before the broadcast cut out and the screen went black. The only thing louder than the sound of the engines were the cheers of her fellow delinquents. As they all celebrated their impending doom, the ship was unceremoniously released into space.
Then they were falling.
Melody's stomach dropped. Her fingers tightened around the chest harness and she prayed that the century-old seatbelts would hold. The next few moments seemed to be the longest of her life, but eventually the engine died down bit by bit until it was little more than a dull roar. The feeling of falling disappeared and was replaced by the sensation of floating. They were following a predetermined route that had been programmed into the mainframe.
When the sound of the engine became background noise, Melody registered the sound of laughter and the clicking of several seatbelts. She turned her head to the side and her worst fears were confirmed; some of the delinquents were undoing their harnesses. One was floating in the air on his back, chatting casually with the rest, the picture of relaxation. Spacewalker, they called him. Wanting their own five minutes of fame, others began to follow suit.
Melody watched them with a frown. They would be the first to go.
The initial shock of the take-off was over, but Melody still felt queasy. She uncurled her stiff fingers from around the harness and began to rub them together. When she looked up, Jasper was watching her with a strange expression on his face.
"What?" She asked, defensive.
"Don't you get it, Melody?" Jasper spoke in the same almost patronizing tone that Melody had used earlier. "This is the best thing that could have happened to us. No more days and nights spent rotting away in our cells. No more ridiculous rules, no more confinement, no more Ark. We're not coming down here to die; we're coming down to finally live. "
His way of thinking was certainly more appealing and his points were technically valid, but Melody just couldn't accept it. All of Jasper's optimistic ideas revolved around a big if. If they made it to Earth. If they survived the landing. If the radiation didn't kill them. If they managed to find the supplies they needed. All of his big plans were centered around blind faith.
Jasper saw the unconvinced look on her face and his smile faltered. ""Relax, Mels. We're gonna make it. Okay?" Even with the odds stacked completely against them, he didn't allow himself to lose hope. There was something almost inspiring in that.
Maybe, Melody thought wearily, she shouldn't have given up hope so soon. Regardless, there was no point in arguing with someone who was so set in their ways.
"Okay." She released a shaky breath and willed herself to be optimistic, but the smile that she offered Jasper was shaky at best. "We're going to make it."
Even as she said the words, she didn't believe them.
Jasper took the smile in stride. In return, he reached out and offered his balled up fist to her. For a few moments Melody was confused, but then she vaguely recognized the gesture. The action of 'fist bumping' was so purely teenage that it unsettled her. Still, she shyly extended her own hand to bump hesitant knuckles with the boy.
Let yourself be a teenager, Melody.
Just as their fists would have connected, the ship lurched. Melody bit back a scream when she was jerked against the harness that held her to the seat. Tears smarted in the corners of her eyes and she blinked them back rapidly. The peaceful floating sensation was gone, and now they were plummeting through space an alarming rate, the dropship being flung this way and that with no apparent rhythm.
They had entered the Earth's atmosphere.
A hand wrapped around her wrist. Melody looked up at Jasper and saw that his smile had vanished. His brown eyes were wide and fearful, his face drained of all color. He looked to his friend on his other side and the boy flashed a thumbs up. Jasper then focused all of his attention on Melody, grip tightening as if he thought that by holding onto her he could somehow ensure her safety.
"Mels?" His voice was anxious. Melody realized that he was waiting for her to give him the okay, too.
"I'm good," She managed to gasp.
She wasn't. Her heart was hammering against her ribcage and the place where she'd been jerked against the straps ached. Melody closed her eyes and willed herself to be calm, but it was impossible when all around her it sounded like things were falling apart. There was crashing and grinding, metal on metal, and the undeniable sound of pieces off the ship breaking off. She wouldn't have been surprised to know that the whole ship was beginning to crumble. It was old, unreliable, and the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere were unpredictable.
People were screaming. Something warm and heavy fell against her side, weighing her down. When Melody opened her eyes she couldn't hold back her shriek at the sight of a limp body leaning against her. It belonged to one of the 'spacewalkers.' He hadn't been strapped into his seat when they entered the atmosphere and thus he'd suffered an injury to the head which had apparently killed him. With her free hand Melody shoved the body away from her before shivering and drawing further within herself.
Sparks flew everywhere. Bright flashes of gold and orange and yellow bounced off of the pieces of metal that were rubbing against each other. Within moments the electricity failed. More screams echoed throughout the dropship as its inhabitants were enveloped in darkness. Melody drew in a sharp breath and clenched her jaw, willing herself not to cry out like the rest of them.
The lights came back on momentarily before they began to flicker again. Melody glanced over at Jasper. He was leaning back against his own seat, eyes squeezed tightly shut. His grip on her wrist was still just as tight as it had been before. Melody's reached out and gave his arm a tight, reassuring squeeze. She was rewarded with a smile that she really needed to get through this. The only constant at the moment was Jasper and the feel of his hand on hers. Jasper was steady. He was stable. He was the only thing that she was 100% sure of.
The lights flickered on and off, on and off, on and off. Shouldn't we be slowing down? Melody wondered to herself. There should be some sort of mechanism in place that would slow them down before they hit the ground at a hundred miles per hour, but nothing changed. They were still heading towards the surface at full speed and everyone was finally panicking, as Melody had wanted all along.
It left a bitter taste in her mouth.
"It could take a few moments for the parachutes to deploy!" Said an unfamiliar voice from across the ship. "Don't worry."
Melody sighed. She repeated the words over and over again in her mind. Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't-
She was jarred from her thoughts when the dropship suddenly began to slow. The voice was right; the parachutes had just needed a few moments in order to deploy. Melody let out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding and silently thanked whatever God there might be that they had managed to slow down. They still hadn't escaped danger. They were simply falling at a slower pace than they had been before. But right now, that was good enough for her.
The screaming came to an abrupt stop, but the tension in the air remained. No one could guess at what waited for them down on Earth, but at least they weren't going to crash into its surface and go up in flames. Hopefully.
The landing was sudden and the impact seemed to reverberate throughout Melody's bones as she was jerked against the straps once more. Then the ship was still, its occupants silent. No one spoke for a few moments. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing.
What next?
"We made it." Melody murmured. "We made it."
Everything was happening all at once. There was a flurry of activity as seatbelts were thrown off and friends were reunited. A hundred different voices filled the air, melding together into an indecipherable buzz. Whatever they'd felt in the beginning was now tenfold. Their excitement crackled in the air like electricity, contagious.
Against all odds, they'd made it. They were on the ground. They were alive.
Melody leaned forward to unbuckle herself with shaky fingers. She fumbled with the buckles at first, unsure if the unsteadiness was a result of the pent-up fear or a newfound eagerness. Either way, she couldn't shed the straps fast enough.
Jasper, already out of his seat, knelt in front of her. "Let me help." He didn't wait for an answer before reaching for the buckles and making short work of them. When Melody was freed from the confines of the harness, he offered her his hand.
"Thanks." She gripped his hand and used it to pull herself to her feet. Her knees buckled and the whole world swayed. All that kept her upright was Jasper's steady hand in hers.
"Sea legs." Laughed the black-haired boy. Jasper's friend. "I'm Monty, by the way."
"Melody."
The world steadied and she withdrew her hand. Jasper lingered by her side and for a long moment the three of them stood there looking at once another. Melody was the first to drop her gaze, the scrutiny making her uncomfortable. Monty and Jasper seemed perfectly at ease, so impossibly in sync, wearing identical grins.
"So, what do you think Mon?" Jasper draped one arm over Melody's shoulders and pulled her into his side. She stumbled and leaned against him. The pressure on her shoulders was unfamiliar but not necessarily unwelcome.
"Hmm." Monty stepped back and looked between the two of them. He rubbed his chin in a comically thoughtful way that Melody had only ever seen people do on tv. After a few seconds of observation, Monty nodded.
"That settles it." Jasper clapped Melody on the back. "You're with us now."
You're with us now. She'd never been 'with' anyone before. She hadn't seen or interacted with another person her age since grade school. Even then, she had never been big on making friends. Was that what this was? Friendship? The thought was like a weight being lifted off of her chest. She wasn't alone anymore.
"Okay." Said Melody.
Not that it had been an offer so much as a declaration.
The crowd began to move and the three of them got swept up in it. Everyone was eager to get to the door. It was all that separated them from freedom. Melody was bumped and jostled, her small stature making it easy to be overlooked. They were all fighting for the spots closest to the door and so somehow in the midst of the mass of bodies she got separated from Monty and Jasper. It was impossible to see over the heads of those around her, and so Melody continued to march forward in stride with the rest.
"We can't just open the doors!" Shouted someone. A girl.
Melody caught an elbow to the ribs as she was pushed aside. All she saw was the back of a blonde head as the girl shoved her way towards the front of the crowd. Others that were in her path cried out and shouted threats, but Melody simply rubbed at the tender spot and continued on, not wanting to get lost within the crowd any more than she already was.
All of a sudden they came to a halt.
"Hey, back it up guys!" A voice rang out, deep and authoritative.
They shuffled backwards obediently. At the front of the crowd, the two voices were arguing back and forth. Melody was too far away to make out what they were saying and too small to have any hopes of peering out over the crowd. The thick wall of delinquents blocked her path and she was either too shy or too polite to try and change that.
Suddenly, Melody got an idea. She stepped forward and wedged herself between two of her fellow delinquents, just barely fitting through the gap between their tightly-pressed bodies. No one even seemed to notice as she slid her way slowly towards the front of the dropship. She got a few curious glances, but otherwise the crowd remained oblivious. They were too focused on what was going on ahead of them.
It was through a fleeting gap in the crowd that Melody saw him.
He was older than the rest of them; taller, broader, and adorned in a guard's uniform. His olive-toned skin shone under a thin sheen of sweat and his dark hair was gelled back away from his face. Black eyes shone fiercely at the blonde in front of him, liquid onyx. He was equal parts beautiful and intimidating, but only the latter registered with Melody, whose steps faltered.
"The air could be toxic." Said the blonde.
Her side profile revealed high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. Melody recognized her now, even though it had been years since she'd last seen the girl, and even then it had always been at a distance. Clarke Griffin. She was the daughter of Abigail Griffin, one of The Ark's top doctors. No...Dr. Griffin was The Ark's topdoctor now.
Melody had seen to that.
"If the air is toxic, we're all dead anyways." Retorted the guard as he headed for the door.
Melody drew in a sharp breath. The moment of truth. Once the door was open there was no going back. Either they would finally breathe in clean, fresh air, or they would die from radiation exposure. Regardless, they were finally free of The Ark.
The guard reached for the lever, but a new voice rang out.
"Bellamy?"
A raven-haired girl stepped off of the ladder that led to the second floor. Her steps were slow and deliberate as she made her way across the lower level. The crowd parted for her without being asked, watching silently as she approached the guard.
"Octavia." There was a welcoming smile on the guard's face now.
They embraced and the crowd went wild.
"It's Octavia Blake!" Someone shouted.
"The girl they found living under the floors!" Said another.
Siblings, thought Melody in awe. No one on The Ark had siblings; it was forbidden. You had to be granted permission from the council in order to have a child, and even then you were only allowed one. The human race had to survive, but The Ark didn't want more mouths to feed than necessary. They had a hard enough time rationing as it was.
Octavia lunged for those who had spoken, only to be pulled back by her brother. Bellamy spun her around and placed both hands on her face. He said something that was too quiet for the rest of them to hear, but Melody could detect the soothing note in his voice.
"Come on." He raised his voice, making sure they could all hear. "Let's give them something else to remember you by."
Octavia scowled. "Like what?"
"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years."
He pulled the lever that opened the dropship door,
and they were home.