Ark, 10 years prior
The room was dimly lit, the cots in it hard to make out when the woman entered, a small girl holding her hand. Her size and scrawny built were evidence enough to tell that she was from one of the poor stations of the Ark, where the right nutrition was a luxury children just didn't grow up with. Blue eyes were wide, scanning her surrounding as they walked further into the former storage room, which had been abandoned for years after a fire. The walls were still black, the metal scorched in some places, but it was enough for the purpose it served. There were eight beds lined up at the walls, four on each side and they were all occupied by children, except one.
"Where are we? Where is my mommy?"
The girl looked up and the woman had to fake a smile, letting go of her hand. She didn't care about these little bastards at all. Her job was merely to keep them quiet and hidden until the next phase of the operation. "Your mommy, little darling, is at the medical bay. And since you have no other living relative, you are going to stay here with the other kids, alright? Now be a good girl and go to your bed over there." The woman's voice was sweet, but her eyes remained cold. The child looked at her, confused and upset, but followed the request slowly, passing by the curious faces of the other children. Before she had even reached her bed, the door fell shut again and they were locked inside. As soon as they were alone again, the other children came to life and got up from their beds to all gather on the one next to the new comer's.
"What's your name?"
"What station are you from?"
"Do you know why we are here?"
"What day is it?"
"I don't believe a word they say, is my mom looking for me?"
The girl couldn't even keep up with all the questions that rained down on her at once, so she just sat on the bed, shell-shocked, until the oldest boy held up a hand and silenced the other children. He was taller than them, maybe ten or eleven, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, one of which was beaten black.
"Shut up, everyone. Can't you see she's scared? Just give her a moment."
The younger girl appreciated his effort and smiled a little at him, before trying to remember all the questions she had been asked.
"My name is Ellyn. I'm from Factory Station. It's Tuesday, I think? Why are we here? My mommy wasn't sick when she went to work..." Her voice hitched a little and her lip quivered dangerously, because she was scared. Her mom was the most important person in her life, because her father was rather absent. He came to visit every once in a while, bringing her presents and playing with her, but he was always afraid to be seen with her. So the idea of her mother being sick was frightening.
"Well, I'm Ronan and we've all been told the same story: our mother or father is sick and we have to stay here until they are healthy again, because there is no one to take care of us. We all just have one parent left. But we don't believe them. Something is very odd about it, I mean, look at this room. No one has been in here for years, as it seems. And the people who brought us here are so extremely fake friendly it hurts. No matter what's going on, however, we'll stick together. You're one of us now, Ellyn. Welcome to Neverland."
He smiled crookedly at her and held out his hand to shake hers. She placed her own in it hesitantly and took a deep breath, swallowing down the lump in her throat, before she remembered something she had heard her mother talk about with their neighbor. The reason why she had been forced to go to school with Nolan every day.
"You are the missing children! My mommy talked about you a few weeks ago", she burst out in realization, looking at the faces before her. "She asked our neighbor to let her son walk me to school in the morning, because she was scared something could happen to me. The children at school talked about it as well...how kids in their classes didn't come to school anymore...that was you guys. And now...I'm missing, too."
The last words were settling in slowly and she knew that Ronan was right: something was more than odd here. These children had parents who were looking for them. Why had she even opened the door for the guard and the strange, friendly woman?
"It's all my fault...mommy told me not to open the door for anyone but Nolan", she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes, but Ronan got up and sat next to her, draping an arm over her shoulder.
"It's not your fault. We all made the same mistake. We were taught to obey the guards and trust them and so none of us suspected anything foul. But I am very sure they will find us. It's a space station, right? No one can get anywhere in here. Around us is just space. They will find us."
The determination in his voice was admirable and calmed Ellyn down a little. He was right, the Ark was a limited space. Sooner or later the guards would find them in here. And in the meantime they just had to wait. Maybe it wouldn't be all too bad.
Before they could say another word, the lights went out entirely and it was pitch black. The other children groaned and shuffled over to their beds, while Ronan stayed with Ellyn.
"It's bedtime now. We're not allowed to be outside our cots, but if you want me to, I'll stay with you until you're asleep. The first night is always the hardest." His voice was kind and soothing and he was just like Ellyn had always imagined a big brother would be.
"I would like that", she whispered back, curling up on the sheets. She had never slept anywhere else but home and could not imagine falling asleep in this darkness. But the stress of the day quickly took over, hurling her into a restless slumber with horrible dreams of her mother dying and the strange woman killing her.
It would be the children's last night so close to their parents, their homes. For some it was their last night entirely, for others it was the beginning of a journey.
Unity Day was less than 7 hours away.
Arkadia, present day
"Marcus, can I come in?"
Clarke lingered in the doorway to Kane's quarters, waiting for him to invite her in, since the door was already open. He was stepping outside his bedroom, hair disheveled, a mug of steaming tea in his hand. Judging from how he looked, he hadn't slept in days, but it wasn't on Clarke to judge that, because she wasn't any different.
"Good morning, Clarke. Of course, come in, come in. Is everything alright? You look like the bearer of bad news. If it is bad news, please wait until I finished my tea." It was supposed to be a joke, but his voice was a bit too much on edge to bring it across. They were all worried for the next catastrophe to strike, or for their time to run up prematurely.
"It's...not exactly bad news? Raven found something interesting while hacking her way through...whatever. I thought you might be able to understand it a bit better, because you were on the council and had access to mission data even before you got your position", Clarke explained, entering the room and placing a folder on his table.
"What did she find? Maybe Thelonius or your mother would be the better people to ask", Marcus replied, brows knitting into a frown as he went over to her, opening the file.
"Maybe, but your name is in it."
He looked up at Clarke again, the frown deepening.
"I have never heard about a mission called Orion. What is it? And where is my name in it?"
Clarke took a breath and pulled out a paper from the middle.
"These are only fragments of a file Raven found on one of the servers on the Ark, as far as I understood her. Most of the file has been destroyed by someone and these fragments don't really make sense. Your name is in it as the lead investigator of 8 missing cases files. Children who vanished on the Ark and were never found again."
She had expected some sort of reaction from him, but the way his face instantly lost its color and his hand started shaking so badly he had to put the mug down was frightening.
"I...yes, I investigated these cases. None of the...none of the children was ever found again. What does it have to do with this?" His voice was not bare of a tremor and Clarke understood that she had just woken up a ghost from his past. Why this subject was so sensitive for him was lost to her, but she tried to not upset him further.
"I'm not entirely sure. What Raven found, however, was a record of signals received by a certain person on the Ark, coming from earth more than ten years before we were sent down there to test if earth was inhabitable. So the conclusion that is logical would be that someone knew there was life down on earth. The signal sent to the Ark came from Mount Rushmore. And since the file had been carefully encrypted and partially destroyed, it is also logical to assume that someone on the council was either involved, or had access and knowledge of it in some way. Since the missing children were mentioned in those records, it is also possible they had something to do with it as well. There is also this-", she told him, searching for another document and handing it over. It was just a collection of numbers that made little sense to Clarke, and Marcus, who narrowed his eyes and scanned them. "Raven says this is the date, which marks Unity Day ten years ago and this here is a launch code for what Raven believes to be the pod that was accidentally shot down to earth back then. It wasn't that much of an accident it seems, after all..."
Marcus stared blankly at the paper, trying to keep as calm as possible. "This means...that maybe the pod was not empty..." His words were barely more than a whisper, but Clarke nodded. "Yes, maybe. There is not much to go with in the files. As I said, it is only fragments of what used to be there, but I thought since you were involved in it years ago, you'd like to know."
He nodded slowly, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat. "Yes, thank you, Clarke. I will take a deeper look at it later. If you'd excuse me now, I need to do some...things."
Clarke nodded and took a few steps back from the table.
"Of course. I'll see you tonight at the council meeting."
She left the room and was kind enough to close the door behind her, sensing that Marcus needed a moment of privacy.
He remained standing in the middle of the room for a while, heart racing, hands still trembling, before he searched through the folder and found a list with the children that had gone missing. He stared at it, at every name, every life he had been unable to safe back then. For over ten years now he had wondered how children could have vanished without a trace on a space station and maybe now, so long after the incidents, there would be an answer, one he was not yet able to fully comprehend.
He put the list down on the table again and went over to the drawer in his bedroom. For a moment his hand rested on the handle, hesitant to open it, before he pulled and took something out from under his shirts.
It was the drawing of a child, of a house, a little girl in a pink dress and a taller man with fluffy hair, both standing on grass under light blue clouds and a bright yellow sun. His thumb stroked gently over a name written in a corner of the picture, tears filling his eyes.
Ellyn.
Hey guys, hope you like chapter 2! Comments and likes would be very much appreciated, so let me hear what you think 3
