Chapter 1
"I cannot believe that we are actually doing this…" Abby's voice trailed off into silence, expression drawn and serene. She had voted against this decision, but the rest of the council had agreed with Thelonious, so she had been overruled and her arguments had fallen on deaf ears.
The chancellor of the Ark stood beside her; gaze focused on the one hundred computer screens which had been installed in the room which would soon be used to monitor the one hundred criminal juveniles who would be sent to earth on the next day. Currently, all the screens were blank as the last tests had just been completed. The systems were running and functional.
Thelonious expression showed some of his inner conflict. He might have voted in favour of sending their youngest criminal ever down to earth, but he was torn about it too.
The sad truth was that Marie Matthews was just one extremely unlucky kid. The girl had not even turned six yet and had lost both of her parents in an explosion on the Hydrofarm just three days ago. It had never happened before that there suddenly was an orphan on the Ark and none of them had known on how to deal with the situation.
The girl had been collected from her living quarters and brought to the medical bay where Abby had checked her out. Physically the child was perfectly healthy, but she had been near catatonic since Thelonious had tried to explain to her that her parents would not return. Marie had willingly followed the guards to the medical bay, a little confused but rather shy and polite.
Abby had immediately offered to look over the child until a permanent solution could be worked out, but Thelonious had been hesitant to agree. So far only the council knew that they were running out of oxygen and earth was the only alternative right now. Sending the kids from the Skybox down to earth would only buy them a few more weeks of breathable air until the systems of the Ark would begin to fail.
The discussions about whether to send the kids down at all or to better send a smaller team of specialists had been long and hard. But the blunt facts were that the kids were expendable, they had been arrested because they had broken the law and by sending them to earth, they might be able to save all of them.
Thelonious had asked Jackson, the second doctor in the medical bay, for his opinion on how valuable Marie's data on earth could be. The young doctor had easily answered that her young body would probably tell them the quickest if earth would be survivable, if she could survive, they all would be able to. He knew how furious Abby had been with her colleague for answering like that, but they could not afford to be swayed by morals and sentimentality right now. They were facing possible extinction. What would it mean if the girl and the other kids died on earth, when they were all just waiting for their assured death?
Marie had been brought into a single room in the Skybox after Thelonious' proposition had been accepted by the rest of the council, which now had been almost two days ago.
When Marie woke up again her mind was dazed and confused. She was unable to recognize just where she was at all. The bed did not feel right, she was not home.
With the thought of "home" her grey eyes watered immediately again. The guard who had brought her into this room before leaving and locking the door on the outside had told her that she would never be able to return to the living quarters of her family.
Marie sniffled under her breath, clutching the thin scratchy blanket tighter around herself. She remembered now how the chancellor had told her that her parents would not be able to return to her either, they had died. She was not truly sure what death actually meant and where her parents now were and when they might be returning for her. Maybe she had done something to make them angry, so they left her?
She still remembered how the old woman who had lived opposite of their quarters had someday disappeared. She had liked her; she had always smiled at her kindly and ruffled her hair when she had been around. Her mother had explained to her that the woman had died and would never return, so Marie understood the basic concept of death meaning that the person had disappeared, but her mother had outright refused to explain more to her.
Marie had no idea why she was alone in this room now, she had never before been in this part of the Ark and she also did not know for how long she had been there already either.
The sound of footsteps somewhere in front of the door alerted Marie a moment later, proclaiming that someone had to be outside of her door. Marie sat up quickly in the bed, shoving the blanket from her legs, before she hurried over to the door and hammered against the door. Marie scowled at the metal door, her weak attempts barely made any sound and her wrists were hurting already.
More tears gathered in her grey eyes; she could not remember ever having been alone for such a long period of time. She had been used to her mother leaving for some time around midday to bring something to eat to the place where her father worked on Farm. She had been alone always for some time during the mornings, but her mother had always made sure that she had a book or some toys to play with. She had also begun attending lessons in schools some time back and when she returned from them her parents had been back from work.
Even the medical bay had been better than this sterile small room. The doctor had been kind to her and smiled at her, although Marie had not understood why the woman had looked so sad when she had examined her.
She trudged back over to the bed, sitting down on it and pulling her knees to her chest, hugging them close to her body. Marie began slightly rocking back and forth as she lost the fight against her tears and they began to spill down her cheeks. She sobbed loudly, feeling her chest constrict painfully. For a moment, she even hoped that the door would open and her mother would step inside, wiping her tears away and hugging her close, humming their lullaby to her, like her mother always had done when she had cried before after falling and scraping a knee.
Marie blinked again, once her vision adjusted against the tears clouding her gaze, someone truly had entered her room. For the blink of a second, Marie felt hope bloom within her chest that her parents had returned to her, but her hope was crushed when she recognized the doctor from the medical bay.
Marie wiped at her tears with her hands, wondering what the doctor wanted now.
"Hello, Marie" Abby addressed the girl in a soft tone, feeling her heart bleed for the little girl's sorrow. She sat down next to the girl on the bed and she sighed under her breath, when Marie scooted slightly away from her. She had been careful during her examination yesterday, but it had been obvious just how shy the little girl was around strangers. "Can you look at me, please, Marie?" she asked the girl gently, keeping her distance while the child was hiding her face by looking down at her knees.
Marie took a moment to follow the order and her large grey eyes still swam in tears when her gaze connected with the doctor's. She bit at her lips slightly, wondering what was going on. Would she be moved somewhere else now?
Abby looked at the girl sadly, feeling the weight of the syringe hidden within her pocket as if it was a huge brick of stone. She still did not agree to this, but she had insisted on being the one to personally make Marie ready for the kids departing.
She removed the small metal cuff from her pocket and a small smile flitted over her features at seeing the unmistakable curiosity winning out over Marie's shyness.
"What that?" Marie asked curiously, looking at the shiny thing in the doctor's hands with interest.
"That is…" Abby faltered for a moment when the child next to her sort of crawled over to her to be closer to her hands and she held the metal cuff out towards Marie so that the girl could take it and inspect what the foreign object was. She wished that the council would have agreed to her proposal, she would have gladly taken over guardianship over Marie.
Marie cautiously took the thing and turned it over in her hands, it nearly looked like a bracelet of sorts. But she had not seen one this thick yet and she did not understand why it had pins on the inside.
"This is a special type of bracelet for you" Abby finally answered the child's question after a moment of silence. Marie seemed to have forgotten her tears for the moment and was still fascinated by the metal cuff, grey eyes showing her slight wonder at being presented with something for her. Abby felt remorse when she took the cuff from the girl's fingers and fastened it around her small wrist. A pair of engineers had spent the whole last day to come up with this smaller version of the metal cuffs the other delinquents would be wearing.
The girl let out a small wail at the pain of the pins being forcefully pushed into the skin around her wrist and her grey eyes almost looked accusing as she ripped her arm back and cradled it to her chest with a bout of fresh tears rolling down her round cheeks.
Abby sighed under her breath, wanting nothing more than to pull the small girl into her lap and shield her from what was about to happen; she was all too aware of the pair of guards waiting just outside of the door to bring the girl into the dropship to the other criminal juveniles. She breathed out heavily, tightening her fingers around the syringe, before she quickly brought it up.
The little girl had sat back down and buried her face in her knees, which easily had exposed her neck to Abby.
Internally Abby apologised to Marie and she soothingly rubbed over the girl's back, when her grey teary eyes had snapped up at the slight sting of the injection. "Everything will be fine, Marie" she tried to reassure the girl, but the narcotic took effect fast and she quickly scooped up the unconscious little body.
"This is not right" Abby darkly commented to the guard who had remained by the door to take over the young child.
The man barely grunted under his breath before he just took the girl from the doctor's arms. "Your presence is needed, the chancellor was shot" he addressed the doctor, turning on his heels and carrying the small girl towards the dropship and an unknown fate.
Marie woke up again an undefined time later and it took her much longer now to try and understand where she was or what had happened. Her wrist was still hurting and she tugged at the bracelet, trying to get it off, but that unfortunately only increased the pain.
When she heard voices speaking around her, her grey eyes snapped up and she just noticed now that she was sitting in some seat, wearing some straps to keep her in place. Marie saw a small group of what appeared to be older kids standing in a large round room. She tugged at the straps keeping her in place, but she could not figure out how they were fastened. She could also not recognize just where in the Ark they all were or who these kids actually were.
Her movements had caught someone's attention and Marie shied away slightly in her seat – as much as the straps allowed her to – when a lanky boy wearing large goggles kneeled down in front of her, much too close to her liking.
"She is awake" Jasper called over his shoulder "Hi there, little one" he addressed the small girl in front of him with a goofy smile.
Marie frowned slightly at him, wanting the boy to back off from her. She felt even more cornered when a blonde girl who distinctly appeared familiar and another boy suddenly appeared directly next to the first one.
"Give her some room" a louder voice resonated suddenly from behind the other three.
"And who makes you the expert on little children?" Monty turned around to Bellamy with a raised brow and he crossed his arms over his chest.
Bellamy met Monty's gaze with an unexpressed expression; he knew after all that he was the only one on the Ark who had a younger sibling and by thus the most experience in how to treat a younger child as he still could remember Octavia being this small.
None of them could understand what the council had actually thought when they had decided to include Marie Matthews, a mere five-year-old girl, in this mission. They still had not done much more than open the door to the outside world and taken a few steps around the dropship since landing some time ago.
"You are all clearly scaring her" Bellamy commented and he waited for the other three to back off, before he slowly got closer to Marie. The girl's grey eyes were wide and she had pressed herself as deeply against the seat as she could, small body drawn with tension.
"Let me open that for you, Marie" Bellamy offered in a kind tone, trying not to crowd the small girl, while he quickly undid the buckles which held the straps in place around the girl's body.
Marie waited frozen in her place for the older boy to move away again and she inspected the hand he offered to her for a long silent moment before she cautiously grabbed onto it, letting herself be pulled from the seat and to her feet, although her legs felt slightly unsteady.
"You can take a look at earth now, Marie" Bellamy told the young child in a gentle tone, contrasting starkly to how he had acted before with the other delinquents.
"Earth?" Marie echoed the word as a question, head tilted sideways and grey eyes slightly widened.
Bellamy nodded with a smile softening his features "Yes, we are on earth now" he explained slowly.
Marie's eyes widened even further and the opened door of the room behind Bellamy just now fully registered within her mind and how light filtered inside. Earth. She had liked to stand at the windows of the Ark and look down on the planet. Her mother had liked to say that they "lived among the stars" now but that their true home would forever remain earth. Marie did only have a vague idea on how earth was supposed to look like. Her parents had told her some things about earth, about how many animals had been living there. Marie had been curious about those and her parents had begun to bring her a few books they had traded with others. For most of the time Marie had not been able to do anything else than just look at the pictures within them, but she now could read them as well. She had not understood all of the words though and her parents had mostly been too tired to have to explain them to her, telling her that she would learn them with time in school lessons.
"Birdies?" she questioned in a soft tone, only looking at the boy who was holding one of her hands. Marie remembered having a book in hand which had only been filled with all different types of birds, one type prettier than the other.
Bellamy nodded his head leading the small child slowly towards the entrance of the dropship; they had already seen a few birds fly above them.
Clarke followed behind Bellamy quickly, leaving only a slight distance between herself and the older boy. Her mother had asked her personally to keep an eye on Marie, ordering her to protect the small girl before she had been knocked unconscious by the narcotic dart from one of the guards and had woken up in the dropship.
Marie remained rooted to the spot, standing still on the metal of the dropship, grey eyes wide and filled with wonder as they looked around. Everything around them was so immensely green and the trees reached high up into the sky, much higher than Marie ever had imagined them to grow. She had only once seen the small tree which had been kept on the Ark as a symbol of their origin.
"Come on" Bellamy said, letting go of Marie's hand for now and instead picking the small girl up for a moment to hoist her from the dropship and place her on the grass in front of it.
Marie didn't make a sound during the whole scene and once the boy had let go of her, she bent down, carefully touching the grass with her fingers. She giggled when she felt how ticklish it was to let it move through her hands.
"We still need to go to Mount Weather" Clarke spoke up in a slightly annoyed tone, although her eyes were rather soft as she watched Marie explore their surroundings from the corners of her eyes.
Wells had appeared behind his friend and immediately backed the blonde girl up, agreeing that they desperately needed the rations which were supposedly to be found there as the Ark had not stocked them with anything really.
Marie did not really listen to the older kids discuss among each other, she did not know about what it was they were discussing either, neither was she really interested in it. If she blocked out the others arguing, she could distinctly hear what must be birds screeching somewhere.
She tilted her head back so that she could look high above her head and to her it appeared as if the trees were growing into the sky as she was unable to make out their tops. It seemed as if even the air somehow smelled different from what she was used to and Marie actually felt a little overwhelmed with all the new sensations all of a sudden, wishing herself back into their room in the Ark, where she would probably be waiting for her parents now.