Chapter Two

"Clarke come down for breakfast!" My mom yells from down stairs.

"Coming." I say as I as I put my homework in my backpack. I go down stairs to find my mom watching the news on the little TV we have in the kitchen. I notice the news is talking about that virus that's apparently going around. There's been a lot of talk about it lately but I honestly don't think any of it's true. Not with how people are, someone yells Ebola and everyone within a ten mile radius is all of a sudden infected.

"Morning mom." I say while I take a seat at the counter.

"Morning sweetie." she hands me my plate of eggs and bacon while My dad comes running in. He Grabs the coffee on the table that my mom put out for him, almost spilling it in the process. He's always running late.

"Got to go ladies. See you after work."

"Bye dad." I give him a kiss on the cheek. He gives my mom a kiss goodbye and is out the door in a flash. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I take it out and smile at the name that appears on the screen.

"I'll be right back mom." she simply nods her head but keeps her attention towards the TV. she's into all that stuff they talk about on the news too much honestly.

I run up the stairs, straight into my room and answer the phone.

"Hey you."

"Hey cutie..." I frown at the sadness that's clearly written in the voice.

"Ash what's wrong? Are you okay?"

"yeah, yeah, I'm fine Clarke. I just have some bad news." My heart suddenly sinks to my stomach. oh god.

I stay quiet for a few moments "what's…what's the bad news?"

"I'm moving away Clarke. Like right now. My parents have gone insane and they're so sure something's gonna happen pretty soon with that virus that's going around. They're paranoid I'm telling you! They wanna be as far away from here as possible" It comes out all in one rush of her breath. You know that feeling when you get hit by a truck? Yeah that's how I feel right now.

"No this can't be happening you can't just move away! what about school? basketball?!...What about-me?" My voice comes out a lot more hurt than I expected it to be.

"I know Clarke, I know. But I don't have a choice. They already decided and I'm literally leaving any minute now."

"Where are you even going to go?"

"I don't know." there's a long silence as I just sit on my bed. She can't just leave… What i am i going do. My whole world seems to be falling around me.

"Clarke?" Her voice is so soft.

"yeah?"

"I love you." My heart aches at the way she says it.

"I love you too."


I wake up to a stinging pain in my back. Ugh. God you would think that I would be used to sleeping on the ground by now. My back says otherwise. I look to my side to notice Raven messing with some radio or something. She's always saving things she finds just to take them apart and put them back together. If we're lucky she'll find something we can use. Bellamy and Lincoln on the other hand are no where to be found.

I sit up slowly and stretch "hey." I say to Raven.

"Morning. Bellamy and Lincoln went to go look for breakfast"

"Oh, okay." I stand up and stretch out my legs. Yup I could really use a travel size pop up bed.

I plop down against a tree and pull out my gun so I can clean it. I like cleaning My gun it's honestly the only relaxing thing to do. I glance at raven to notice she's lost in her own world. I remember when I first meet her. We ran into each other at a warehouse. And by running into each other I literally mean we ran into each other. I was running around a corner while Raven came running around the opposite end. There's something about physically running into someone that blossoms a friendship. We ended up being surrounded in this warehouse and having to jump out of the one of the windows to get away. Ever since then we've been pretty much inseparable. It was just me and her for a couple months. She wasn't all 'bad ass' as she calls herself now. She was like me. Scared. We didn't know what the hell to do or where to go. She had a radio that she constantly used to try to get in touch with someone. But the frequency was never strong enough. We tried some places that were said to be safe but it was already six months into the end of the world that we soon found out there is no safe place anymore. We were on our own. It was a tough realization and a hard time for us both. I told her about my dad and what he did for me. She told me how her parents just got up and left. Never came back. It's sad to think that parents could do that to their kid. Especially to someone like Raven, she's probably the smartest girl in the world. She deserved better than that.

We once stayed in a neighborhood for a month. Moving from house to house after a couple of nights. Till a herd came through and almost killed us. Bellamy saved our lives. I'll always be grateful for that. Bellamy can handle himself when it matters most. He's not stupid. Raven would say otherwise because of the things he tends to say. When it counts the most, I can count on him to be there. I trust him as I trust all three of them with my life. Lincoln wasn't all that easy to trust. We found him while were out looting for food. He pretty much just stayed with us. He proved to be very helpful though. He showed us how to hunt and track. The proper way according to him.

We all didn't have anybody when we meet. Either we were alone or looking for someone. Like Bellamy had his mind set on finding his sister, Octavia.

He constantly talked about her when we first meet him. How he needed to find her. He loves his sister so much to say the least. It was obvious he would do anything for her. He hasn't talked much about her anymore. I think maybe he's lost hope that she's alive somewhere. It's hard to have faith and hope when you're out here. When you're on your own especially. You get stripped of everything. It's like your almost naked. What do you have when you're naked? Do you have faith? Do you have hope? Or do you just suck it up and keep going? Its a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to realize. Who you are and who you need to be are two different things and along the way we lose a little bit of one to help gain the other.


I hear branches crack coming from behind me. I look around trying to see through the trees but Don't see anyone.

Hmm. Weird.

"I did it!" Raven jumps up and comes running towards me.

"Did what exactly?" She hands me this old battery powered radio that she used to carry around. I thought she lost this.

"I've been working on this one for the longest time. Trying to look for the right parts that would help give it a stronger signal. It's taken me forever to find the part I needed. But when we were at the grocery store I found one exactly like it. So hopefully this one works. Wanna try it?" Couldn't hurt I suppose.

I nod my head "Sure lets give it a try" I tell her. She sets it down and turns it on. It sounds a lot stronger than it did before. There's nothing but static. I look at Raven who frowns at it. She moves the little dial trying to find anything. Nothing comes up but more static.

"Well it works better than before. There has to be something. Someone."

"Once we keep moving. We'll try it again. We are in the middle of the woods after all."

"True True."

Just then Bellamy and Lincoln come walking from in front of us. Bellamy looks as if he's won the lottery. He throws the four rabbits over his shoulder and smiles wide.

"Breakfast is here!" My stomach growls pretty loudly. I'm a lot more hungry then I thought.

Bellamy and Lincoln sit down by the fire and start to cleaning the rabbits. I put my gun back together and put it in the holster that's on my hips.

I start packing some things so we can be ready to leave after we eat.


"So with the few cans of food we got at the grocery store and the extra berries and such we have...we'd probably be good for the next three days" Bellamy says while he eats the meat of his rabbit

"Oh!" Raven jumps up like she just saw the world's largest spider. She's been really jumpy today.

"We got this!" She pulls out a can of spray cheese. She has what looks to be the biggest smile I've ever seen her have. Wait…when the hell did she get that?

"Yes we can just eat canned cheese for the remainder of the week" Lincoln says as I shake my head to Raven. She simply shrugs her shoulders and puts it back in her bag.

"You act like we gotta eat everyday or something ." Bellamy says with a smile on his face

"Oh yes let's just die one by one from starvation. No big deal or nothing." I say in the least sarcastic way as possible.

"Hey, that's a good way to save food." Oh my god. I roll my eyes at him and take another bite of my breakfast.

A nice silence falls around us as we continue eating.

Lincoln's head shoots up as he looks around us. We all stop eating and turn to look at him. He frowns as he looks back at his rabbit. I look at Bellamy and he shrugs his shoulders. Maybe he heard something like how I did earlier.

"Mind if I join you?" I have my gun out quicker than you can blink. A brown haired boy quickly throws his hands up in defense. I notice he doesn't have any visible weapons on him.

"whoa whoa I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you guys. I was in the area and smelled the meat. I haven't eaten in a couple days." He tries walking closer but Bellamy and I stand in front of our little fire. The boy takes a slight step back.

"What's your name?" Bellamy says from beside me.

"My name is Finn. Finn Collins."