Prologue 2
It was roughly two hours following the ignition of the thrusters beneath the drop-ship that Clarke let out a heavy sigh as she finished checking Raven's vitals in the hopes that she would find a pulse after her two previous failed attempts. With a sad look downward, she ran her hand over the mechanic's now-empty gaze and closed her eyes.
"Is she?" Clarke turned to face Jasper where he sat hunched against the wall with the head of the slumbering Harper resting on his leg. She gave a slow nod and then turned back to Raven's body to grab the white sheet, and pulled it up and over yet another dead friend. They'd have to bury her later.
"Fuck." She heard Jasper mutter and turned back again to look at the younger boy for a moment, but then looked around the room, as she counted the number of heads within the safety of the drop-ship, ending with fifty-three.
Fifty-three. They'd lost almost thirty people in the battle, Clarke realized as she bit back a sob of despair at the thought that nearly half their original number was gone now.
Wells, murdered by the young Charlotte who later committed suicide by throwing herself from a cliff face.
Roma, John and Higgs, who'd gone out to help rescue Octavia and had never returned.
Myles and Connor, murdered by Murphy in his twisted game of revenge.
Atom, caught in the acidic rain and then stabbed in the neck by Clarke herself as a mercy.
She looked again about the room, trying to figure out in her head who else besides Finn and Bellamy had been locked out of the ship before they'd utilized the thrusters to burn away the attacking grounders. To her growing horror she realizes that Octavia, along with Monroe, Jones and Fox were not with them either.
"I failed." She whispered to herself, her words not really intended for anyone's ears but her own.
"No, you didn't." The voice of Miller sounded off behind her and she turned to look as he pushed off the wall he'd been leaning on and moved closer. "You made the right call. If the door hadn't been closed, we'd have all died. Bellamy and the rest would tell you the same. Besides, they all knew what was going to happen, maybe they had time to get clear."
Clarke turned to face Bellamy's friend and gave him a nod as his unexpected comments filled her with a new hope, and she held his gaze for a few long moments before speaking again.
"Only one way to know for sure then." She spoke up, her voice now resolute. "It's been two hours, We're opening the door and find out if anyone else made it."
A small cheer filled the interior of the drop-ship at her announcement, and she fell into a quick stride over to the control to open the hatchway. She pulled it up and then held her hand before her face as with the first time upon their arrival on the ground, she gets blinded by the light that shines through.
She took the lead down the ramp, with Miller, Jasper, Harper and the rest following by her example and spreading out around the burned out camp that they'd worked so hard to build. Clarke didn't pay them much heed, her gaze quickly locked on a blackened skeleton near where she'd last seen Finn and she moved up to stand above it. A single tear rolled down the side of her face as she stared at the corpse she was fairly certain was the space-walking pacifist.
Clarke had little time for contemplation over the subject however, as a canister is thrown over the half-ruined walls, and she heard Jasper's confused yell as more followed, and the remains of the camp is quickly filled with a pink smoke. Her eyes watered as she's hit in the face with the expelled gas and she began to cough for a couple short moments before collapsing to the ground. Around her, Clarke's reaction to the unknown contents of the gas is mirrored by the other survivors.
She felt consciousness quickly abandoning her despite her struggles to not pass out, and just before she succumbs to the pink gas, Clarke sees several figures in bio-hazard suits emerge from the fog, carrying guns even more advanced than the ones found by herself and Bellamy.
'No, it can't be likeā¦" She cried out in her head as blackness claimed her.
-End Prologue 2-
