She turned and started walking, leaving everything behind. She had no direction or destination in mind; she only knew she had to get away. With every step she took she moved farther and farther from all she knew. From the Drop Ship and the Arc, Ton DC and Camp Jaha. From all the people she thought of as her family and her friends. From those who had looked to her as some kind of leader; as someone who had had to make choices for them all. She wanted to get away from those she cared for who know looked at her with disappointment, hurt, anger, and hatred. But more so, she needed to be away from those who looked at her with gratitude and awe; those that still saw her as their leader, or worse, their savior.
Mostly, she tried to leave behind the memories of those she had lost. The memories of those whose lives she herself had taken. She tried to leave behind the choices she had made and the people she had hurt. She wanted to walk away from the monster she now saw herself as.
And so she started walking and did not stop. She concentrated on placing on foot in front of the other, again and again, thinking of nothing else. Not wanting to think of anything else. She wanted only to forget, so she refused to let anything in: the heat from the sun, the wind in her hair, the smell of the woods, or the sights around her. She refused to hear the rustle of the leaves or even the sound of her own breath. She was aware only of her feet continually moving her forward and taking her away.
But all too soon, their faces starting appearing like ghosts before her eyes. She saw Wells and Charlotte whose lives she did not take but for whom she still felt responsible. She saw Atom: the first life that had ended by her hand, in order for his pain to cease. Then there was Anya's second, just a young girl whom she had been unable to save, and the Grounder whose life she had ended in order to escape to try to save Finn.
Finn: the boy she had leaned on, the one she had taken guidance from. The one who had given her back her best friend before he had been killed. The one who had given her strength and purpose and love. The one who had only wanted peace and to do the right thing. That is until she had been taken and he lost himself trying to find her; to get her back. The boy who sacrificed himself to save them; to save her. And so she had ended his life to save him from the pain and torture he was going to be subjected to.
She then saw the other kids from the 100 whose lives had been taken, some of whom she barely knew. Some of them she couldn't even recall their names, and she knew they deserved so much better than that.
She saw the battle at the Drop Ship and remembered pushing the lever to close the door, knowing that she wasn't just stopping the Grounders from getting inside, but some of the 100 too, including Finn and Bellamy. She remembers the order issued from her lips to kill the Grounders who were trying to kill them. 300 lives lost with one order, one decision.
Then came the Grounders that Finn had killed and the images of bodies falling to the ground to the sounds of endless gunfire and screams. After that came the memories of Ton DC and the aftermath of the missile. 250 people that she let die to save one man and a plan to rescue those who were trapped in Mount Weather. 250 people that she had run from and turned her back on; people she could have saved.
She remembered the bodies of Grounder and Sky Person alike, drained of their usefulness and passed on to the Reapers. And she saw the Reapers themselves: drained of their humanity and left a crazed and empty shell of who they once were.
Then came the images of the lives she had extinguished in Mount Weather. She saw Dante as she shot him in the chest to prove she was serious in her threats. And she saw all of the faces of the men, women and children who had slowly died because she wanted to save her friends and her mother. All those people whom she had slaughtered because she didn't know what else to do. She saw the innocent and their allies, and Maya as she lay dying in Jasper's arms.
Over and over again she watched as the faces and the memories passed before her eyes: a morbid slideshow of what her life had become since being dropped down to the earth. It was a sick realization of what she now was and she could not stop the images from appearing. She couldn't stop the feelings from washing over her anew.
She couldn't get away from any of it but that did not stop her feet from moving. She had started walking at the edge of Camp Jaha and had not even so much as paused since. She would have kept on walking too, if her foot had not caught on a tree root and she had not stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.
It was the moment of impact that the faces started to fade from her vision and she slowly became aware again. She noticed it was now dark and had been for quite some time and when she looked around she could only make out the shapes of trees. Some moonlight filtered through the canopy and here and there were little patches of light. She had no idea how long she had been walking, how far she had travelled of where she might presently be.
Before she was able to try and answer those questions though, she became aware of the pain. She could feel it shooting from her knees through her legs and stinging emanating from her face and the backs of her hands. When she reached up to touch her face she felt what had to be numerous scratches and she assumed it was the same for her hands: most likely caused by tree branches that she had been unaware to avoid.
To find out if she was correct, she moved her hands into one of the patches of moonlight and was able to see the streaks of red that covered them. She was able to see the blood that coated her hands. There was blood on her hands; more blood than she ever thought possible, and as she looked down at her hands it all came crashing in on her.
The weight of all her decisions and the consequences that arose from them, all the lives that would no longer be led because of her, because of what she had done; it all fell on her at once and she couldn't find the strength fight it anymore. As the first tear fell from her eye it broke the walls she had built to hold back her emotions and everything came pouring out at once.
She crumpled to the ground and just cried. She cried for those who had died. She cried for those who lived but had lost so much. She cried for the person she used to be and knew she would never be again. She cried until she could cry no more. And as she slowly faded into sleep, she could feel the tears that stained her cheeks and the blood that stained her hands.