Hi Guys, long time no see!
No long A/N here.
Disclaimer: This is based upon The 100 and Twilight. Neither are mine. Just playing with something someone else has created.
Enjoy!
Love, N.
The ship shook heavily as it made its way into the atmosphere. I tightly gripped the belts that strapped me to my chair and closed my eyes, praying we would at least make it to the ground in one piece. I pinched my eyes closed, willing for my sweaty hands to not let go of the straps. I willed my mind to think of something else. Of happy times, when nothing was wrong.
"Bella, open your eyes," my dad cooed at me.
"No! I can't see you so you can't see me!"
"I can actually still see you, babygirl." I could practically hear my dad's smile.
I slowly opened one eye, peaking through the gap between my eyelids. In front of me sat my dad, knelt down on one knee.
"There you are," he said as I opened my other eye too.
I crossed my arms over my chest. "And there's the attitude I love so much again too," daddy said somewhat sad.
My dad always used to say that my attitude would get me in trouble someday. Oh boy, did it.
"I don't want to go in for that test, daddy," I said angrily.
Dad laid one of his large, warm hands on my knee. "I know you don't, but you know what happens to girls who don't follow the law, right?"
"Yes, daddy," I sulked. Bad girls got cuts in their rations for weeks or even some lashes with the electric weapon the guard carry. I once saw one of the guardsmen lash a girl who tried to steal extra rations. Word said she couldn't sleep on her back for three weeks.
"All right, so let's go." Dad picked me up and carried me out of our room, where a guard stood waiting.
He put me down right next to the man dressed in black. I could see his weapon sitting proudly in his belt.
"And remember this, babygirl. You're a Griffin. And what makes us Griffins so amazing?"
"We are strong! We are brave! We will get to the ground!" I chanted, having both heard and said it a million times in my short life.
"That's right," he said brightly as he tapped my nose, "now, be good." He nodded to the guard who gripped my shoulder and steered me away from my daddy.
"Love you!" I shouted back to him. But I didn't hear him say anything back. I heard the door to our room close.
My eyes opened wide in shock. I took in my surroundings, seeing many kids, approximately the same age as me, acting the same as me. Some were curiously looking around the deck, others forcing their eyes closed and holding on to their chairs as if their lives depended on it. I guess they did.
I felt myself rise against the harness, my butt leaving the seat. My hands gripped on tighter.
A click invaded my ears and I saw a boy, I remembered him as Finn, leaving his chair. The gravity was gone and he was floating in the middle of the ship. It was as if he was spacewalking.
"Hey!" I hear myself exclaim. "You're dead once the parachutes open!"
He floated to me, fixating his eyes on my trembling hands, seemingly rusted tight to the chair.
"Would you care?" He asked with a smirk.
Luckily, I didn't even get to answer that. Two other guys left their seats, and began goofing around.
"Get back to your seats!" I screamed.
"Relax," Finn said and floated back to his seat, safely strapping himself back into the chair.
Mere moments after, I dropped back in my seat and I could feel that the velocity of the ship had massively decreased. The parachutes had opened.
The red-haired boy smashed against the ground and started bleeding heavily. He wasn't responding to anything. Everyone called out for him to reply, but he stayed quiet.
The other boy's body was smashed against the wall, which caused for electric sparks to make its way through the deck. Everyone protected their heads with their arms, willing for the sparks to miss them.
The ship was swung to the side, screams escaping everyone.
Soon, it was quiet and the ship hung fairly still.
What the hell's, wow's and sighs of relief entered the ship. Finn's face was as white as a sheet, his eyes fixated on the two bodies strayed across the deck.
A mere minute after the parachutes opened, we impacted. Everything shook again and more electrical sparks filled the room.
Quickly everyone began opening their harnesses, moving down the staircase to the lower level of the ship. We had been located on the second floor. I immediately went to the two guys, still lying motionless on the floor. The red-haired one was, as I had feared, dead. After placing my index and middle finger on the other's pulse point, I also confirmed his fate.
"I – I didn't… I didn't mean for them to follow me," Finn said. He actually looked like he felt guilty.
"Yeah, well, tell them that," I said as I pushed past him on my way to the stairs.
I heard excited people talk to each other about all the things they'd do once the doors opened, I heard angry kids talking about revenge and the scared ones were all huddled together in a corner plotting their demise.
"All right! Let's do this!" I heard someone call. That stood out to me.
"Stop!" I called out as I descended the ladder. By then, pretty much everyone had come down to the lower level, but quit talking when I stepped foot there.
I spotted someone by a handle which must have been to open the door.
"The air could be toxic," I said as I made my way through all the people.
"Then we're all dead anyways," the guy I didn't recognize said as he pulled the lever. After some grunting of machinery, a massive door opened and lowered down onto what seemed to be… grass?
Everyone pretty much held their breaths as slowly, one girl stepped onto the door, to the outside. She tentatively took another step, and seemed to take everything in.
And then, "We're back bitches!"
Everyone poured out onto the grass, sniffing the air and touching trees.
Touching trees, never thought I would ever get to say that.
"It's so quiet," someone said from next to me. It was an Asian guy. Monty?
"Hmm?" I looked at him questionably, because all the kids were screaming. I wouldn't exactly describe it as quiet.
"No machine-hum," he clarified.
That was true. For the first time in my life I didn't hear the continues hum of our savior drumming through my ears.
The scared kids were still huddled in their corner, protecting their faces with their hands for whatever they thought that would help against.
"Come on, Bella. You're a Griffin. You're strong. You're brave. You'll get to the ground. You.. just got to the ground… You actually did just get to the ground."
Realization had hit. I jumped from the side of the door into the grass, and my feet sunk into it. I kneeled down and touched it. Soft, cold but also hard and warm?
Looking up, I saw treetops and a blue sky. Deeply inhaling the air, it didn't smell toxic. It smelt.. fresh. Clean.
"Yeah, really toxic out here. I feel like I could die at any moment," the guy who pulled the lever said.
He burst my bubble. And then he created a new one.
I'd never seen him before. At home, there were only a mere 400 people my age. Everyone knew everyone. How could I have never seen him before?
His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a guards uniform? What?
I walked up to him. "Who are you?"
The top of my head didn't even reach his chin, but I looked him in the eye.
"None of your concern. But I do know who you are," he said angrily. "You're the daughter of a council member. You're lucky. You're privileged," he spat that last word.
"Yeah, well, if I'm so privileged than why was I sent to the ground just like everyone else?"
"That's what I want to know," the guy said.
"Sucks to be you, I guess,' I said sassily as I walked away. I began to explore the ground. Earthskills on the Ark had thought me the basics such as grass, trees, flowers and the dirt. But seeing it on pictures and feeling it between your fingers are entirely different things.
"What are we going to do for food?" someone said.
The message. We'd had a message.
"Dear prisoners. As you might have noticed, you're on a dropship heading to earth. Your job is to investigate whether we, people from the Ark, can survive on earth. Your wristbands broadcast your info such as energy levels, hunger and thirst back to the Ark. We will see exactly how your bodies are adapting to life on earth.
There's a bunker in Mount Weather. We make sure to drop you around there. It's supplied with food, medical articles and other supplies that will help you survive. Find that mountain.
If earth proves to suffice, all the Ark residents will follow you back to the ground.
Our fate is in your hands. Don't underestimate that.
Good luck.
Chancellor Jaha out."
That's the message we had received on the ship upon launch, brought to us by our dear Chancellor Jaha.
Mount Weather.
"We have to go to Mount Weather. For the food and supplies!" I shouted.
No one paid the littlest amount of attention to me, so I went inside, grabbed a map and went to a higher point, so I could overlook the area. My feet touched the rocks and it felt magnificent. No more thumping of the metal floors on the Ark. These were real materials.
The map showed us multiple peaks in the area, forest and a lake.
But.. wait. We're currently on a different peak. Mount Weather is miles upon miles away!
"So, where are we supposed to find this entrance to the bunker?" Finn suddenly stood next to me.
"Not anywhere around here. They dropped us on the wrong damn mountain."
"See, honey? We're right here, and the cafeteria is all the way over there. Then this right here, is section 13 that we have to cross every day to get there. You get it?"
"That means that this," I pointed to a section of the ship that I thought I went to every single day, "is the medical facility?"
"That's very true, babygirl. That's where Mommy works and helps all the sick people to get better," my dad said very lovingly.
My dad taught me so many things over the years. How to read a map, how to start a fire and even how to read a compass. That last one had been a difficult one. On earth, the compass is led by the magnetic field the earth possesses. It's programmed so that it can always identify the magnetic field of the North Pole as North. So whenever you walk somewhere and want to know which way you're going, the compass uses the North Pole's magnetic field as measuring point. In space, earth's magnetic fields are too far away, so the pointer is hanging still. But he still managed to explain it to me. Dad taught me survival 101, so I could teach my child, and he or she could teach theirs; the generation that was supposed to go back to earth. So, why did I?
97 years ago, a nuclear war destroyed earth and everything and everyone on it. At the time, there were 13 space stations in space, who decided, after the bombs destroyed earth, to go up into one; the Ark. We are the only thing left of the human race. According to research and investigations, it would take 200 years for the radiation to pass and for earth to be survivable for humans again.
I was probably the only one there who knew why we were sent to the ground, a 103 years early. A secret that was supposed to get me killed, but instead sent me down here. I didn't know yet what would be worse.
I went inside the dropship. I had seen some compartments there that I hoped would be full of supplies.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Why did that kid keep following me? Everyone outside was running around like a headless chicken, why didn't he go join them?
"I was thinking about going for a very relaxing hot bath and maybe a massage? What? You want to join?" Sarcasm was like my second language. Another one of the traits my dad loved but hated at the same time because it would get me in all sorts of trouble.
"Seriously, Bella. What are you up to?" Alrighty, then.
"I'm going to Mount Weather. We need food and it's already getting dark."
I took the steps of the ladder two at once, stepped over the bodies and went over to the wall, opening one of the compartments I had spotted earlier.
Yes! Blankets, ropes, sheets, tools. I could only hope the other compartments were as full as this one.
My hands went for a bundle of ropes, a crowbar and a large, folded sheet. Beside me, Finns hands were also grabbing for items.
"What do you think you're doing?" I questioned him.
"You were seriously thinking about going by yourself? Even if you were to reach the mountain, you wouldn't even be able to bring anything back." His eyebrows were raised so high and his facial expression was so stunned, his eyebrows nearly flew off his head.
"Hence the sheet," I explained.
"Yeah, well, I'm not letting you go by yourself. I – " He didn't get to finish that sentence.
"Robbing the ship, Bonnie and Clyde?" There he was again, leaning against the opposite wall and a huge smirk on his face.
"Not precisely," I said as I began making a pack by putting the stuff in the sheet and knotting the sheet around my shoulder.
"Well, it sure looks like you are."
"We're going to Mt. Weather. Want to make yourself useful and come with us?"
Yeah. Wasn't me. Gotta blame that asshole, Finn.
"What are you doing?" I whispered to him.
"Can't blame me. He's tall and strong. We don't know what it is we're going to encounter on our way there," Finn responded.
"We're not going to encounter anything! Everything and everyone got scorched by the radiation. We're the only thing here," I wheezed out.
"Unfortunately I'm still here as well. I'm staying here. Someone needs to make sure everything else goes accordingly," the unknown guy said. With that, he left the upper level of the ship to do whatever.
"Alright. I'm ready. Let's go."
Finn followed me down the ladders to the ground. The air immediately infiltrated my nostrils again, which made me a bit gibberish. I'd never sniffed air that wasn't filtrated by CO2 scrubbers before. This was heaven to me.
We slowly made our way through the people to the trees.
"Hey! We want to come as well," I heard behind me. I sighed. But when I turned around I was actually quite pleasantly surprised.
These kids I knew, at least.
Mike, a short kid with blonde hair I'd met during cafeteria time when I was a prisoner. It was the only time I'd been able to eat with other people. A mistake had been made, but it was the only human contact other than with a guard I'd had in over a year so I was thankful.
"Mike!" I jumped into his arms.
"Long time no see, Bella. Thought they'd floated you or something," he said.
"Never. Just solitary imprisonment."
"Damn, what did you do to deserve that?"
I looked at the ground and shuffled my feet. It wasn't my story to tell.
"It's really good to see you again, Bella," said Angela, sensing my reluctance to tell my story. She was in one of my classes before I got arrested. Sweet girl.
"You too," I said as I gave her a hug. Angela wouldn't hurt a fly. So how did she get here?
There was Monty again with his best friend, Jasper. For some reason the latter always wore goggles on his head. Not sure why.
"Alright, let's go, people!"
"Why did you let them off the hook that easily! I practically had to get on my knees for you or something," Finn said.
"Don't be a dick, Finn." That was that.
The six of us made our way through the woods, pointing out different types of flowers and plants. There were no tracks, many fallen trees and everything was covered in moss. Everything looked the same. How would we even find our way back?
"Is this what I think it is?" Jasper asked when we got to the edge of the forest. There was a huge rock, more like a boulder, right in the middle, that reached over the stream that was there.
"Hell yeah!" I immediately took off my jeans and top and jumped off the boulder, into the water.
It was cold. So cold. But so good. Freeing.
Water on the Ark was for consumption and an occasional wash up. No showers, no baths, nothing. Being entirely surrounded by water felt like heaven.
Luckily, it wasn't deep. Neither of us could swim, and I hadn't even thought about that when I had jumped into the water.
"Bella!" Everyone cried out.
"We can't swim!" Jasper said.
"No, but we can stand. Come on, guys," I said to everyone. Slowly they began to undress, but suddenly Jasper froze.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Look out!" he yelled.
"Bella, get out!"
"What, why?" I said as I turned around in the water.
There was something swimming right at me. Perhaps not everything was dead like we were told.
Hope you liked it. I'll try to update very soon. Leave me a lil something nice to encourage me X