This story talks about suicide. As a kinda-suiciadal person, I know suiciadal thougts can take many different forms. Sometimes, they aren't so scary anymore. Which is why it can sometimes be very easy to talk about. In this story, this is the case. So it probably doesn't look realistic but I don't care: this is jsut a story because I'm bored.
Cassie slowly opened her eyes.
Blood was pounding in her temples, a headache sawing through her brain.
She fluttered her eyelids, groaned in pain.
She was alive. How unfortunate.
Something had woken her up, a movement, a sound. Confused, she tried to lift her head, but the weight of her helmet on her neck prevented her. Suddenly she understood. The door was open.
She put her hands to her collar, took off her helmet, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat.
Abruptly, two hands grabbed her by her jumpsuit and lifted her up. What the fuck?
The light blinded her. Cassie squeezed her eyelids closed, growled a curse.
She was thrown heavily to the ground, taking her breath away. Groaning in pain, she rolled onto her side hugging her stomach. Two hands on her shoulders kept her from moving.
"Chit laik yu?" A voice asked.
"Whaaat?" She whimpered.
Cassie tried to open her eyes but the light, too strong, blinded her.
"What are you?" The voice asked again, with a strange accent she had never heard.
The young woman sniffed a laugh.
"Hot. And. Dangerous!" She sang.
A kick in the ribs silenced her.
"I won't repeat myself, what are you?" The voice insisted.
The young woman sighed.
"What am I supposed to say? A piece of trash? Nah man, I don't know. I'm human, I guess."
"What is this? Where are you from?"
"Hold up, my dude, too much questions, slow down," Cassie grumbled. "Okay, now, first, I need a shadow."
"Why?"
"Because I can't see, bud! These eyes are shit, they don't help. I'm blinded by the light ..."
"I don't understand a single word of what you are saying."
But the beloved stranger moved slightly and a shadow covered the face of the young woman, who parted her eyelids.
A woman's face was tilted over her. The angle of light prevented her from making out her features, but she could tell that her brown hair was shoulder-length, that her cheekbones were high and her skin dark.
"Jesus?" Cassie said stupidly.
"What?"
"Am I dead?"
The stranger frowned.
"Uhm ... No."
"Oh. Disappointing."
A detail came to her mind and she frowned, puzzled.
"Hold up, bestie, if I'm not dead and in Heaven, because, let's be real, you're obviously an angel, then where am I?"
She twisted to turn her head, looking around. Grass, dirt. In the distance, pines swayed in the wind, the snow-capped mountain peaks melted into the blue of the sky. The air was clean and fresh.
"Hoooooly shit, I landed on Earth. I fucking landed on Earth."
More and more confused, she turned to the woman.
"Wait, but if I'm on Earth, what are you doing here? Nobody's living here! It's a dead planet!"
A pressure on her shoulders reminded her that she was far from being her friend.
"I'm the one asking the questions," the woman growled fiercely, her face inches from hers.
"Okay, do what you want, mate. But do you have a knife? Or a rope? Or something to ... You know?"
She mimed in a not very explicit way. Her interlocutor gave a contemptuous sneer.
"As if I was going to give you a weapon."
"It's not… Nevermind," she sighed.
The Grounder leaned harder on her shoulders, making her moan in pain.
"Where are you from?"
"The Ark."
The stranger frowned again.
"What is this tribe?"
"It's not a tribe, it's a place. A space station, more exactly," she replied.
Faced with the silence of the Grounder, she guessed that she still hadn't understood.
"A big, big space ship. That is in the sky, you know, that goes vrooom."
The Grounder gave her a good jerk, making her understand not to take her for an idiot.
"And what is this?" She vociferated.
The young woman immediately understood what she was talking about.
"It's a pod. A space pod. Like a tiny little space ship. I used it to ... Uh get to the ground."
Yeah sure.
"Why are you here?"
Cassie sighed, letting her head fall to the floor.
"Bestie, you don't wanna know."
"Answer me!"
She bit her lip, trying to hold back, but eventually exploded.
"To die! I went into the pod to die!"
For a short second, the Grounder's face gave a surprised, slightly pained expression, before her fierce mask took over.
"Well, today is not your lucky day, Skaigada. You're my prisoner, now."
"Wait what?"
The Grounder pulled her to her feet, forcing her to close her eyes when the sun hit her.
"Get up. Take off this weird clothing."
"Like, all of it? Do I get some sexy time?" Cassie asked, raising her eyebrows.
The Grounder punched her on the head.
"No. Take off the big orange suit. It will make it difficult for you to walk."
Cassie was confused, but she obeyed anyway. She opened her suit, withdrew it painfully. She was in pain all over. Beside her, the woman remained motionless, a dagger pointed in her direction.
When Cassie finally came out of her suite, the Grounder stood up to her.
"Give me your wrists."
Cassie stretched out her arms. The Grounder wrapped a rope around her wrists, knotting them together. The young woman let her do it without protesting.
Then she tugged hard on the rest of the rope. Cassie almost fell forward.
"Ouch! Ow, come on man! That's not cool."
Ignoring her, the Grounder pulled her with her, Cassie was forced to follow. They climbed the hill, the young woman narrowing her eyes painfully in the sunlight.
A huge animal with four legs and long dark hairs on the neck was waiting a few steps away. It jerked itd head up in their direction.
Cassie gave a howl in dread and dropped back, forcing the Grounder to turn around.
"What?"
"What the fuck is this?" She bawled, her eyes wide open to the animal watching her peacefully.
"My horse?" The woman proposed.
"Uh uh, buddy, that's not a horse, I read the fucking books!" Cassie bellowed, shaking her head frantically. "This ... This is a freaking monster, a big-ass dragon!"
Rolling her eyes, the Grounder pulled her to her feet and forced her to come forward in the direction of the monster.
"What ... What are you doing? It's gonna kill us!"
"Stop whining and move on," the woman ordered, pulling her with her.
Reluctantly, Cassie walked over to the monster who gave her a bleak look. A piece of leather was strapped to its back, strapped around its stomach. The woman hooked the rope to it, then placed her foot in a metal semicircle and hoisted herself onto the animal's back, sitting down on the piece of leather. Cassie gaped behind her.
Then she gave the horse a light sheel kick in the stomach and it started to tread on all fours, forcing Cassie to step forward.
"Wait, hold up, for how long am I gonna walk?"
The Grounder ignored her again, firmly holding the leather straps hooked to the horse's head.
"Oh okay, you're giving me the silent treatment now? Well alright, then, I'mma give you the talking treatment. Get ready bestie, cause I haven't spoken for at least three hours, if we don't count the ones I was passed out. So I got soooo many things to say. And I'm on the fucking Ground! Ow man, it's like a goddamn dream!"
"Shut up," hissed the Grounder
"Alright, alright, you don't want me to talk? Okay then, I'mma sing!
We're soarin ', flyin'
There's not a star in heaven
That we can't reach
If we're trying
So we're breaking free ... "
"Shut up!"
"YOU KNOW THE WORLD CAN SEE US
IN A WAY THAT'S DIFFERENT ... "
"So, you see, Mathew was kinda a douche back there, and I hated him, I mean I still do, but Alex told me not to mind, which I did, except for the part where I decided to put all his sheets upside down and folded his bed in a way he couldn't get inside but that was childish and- "
"Will you ever shut up ?!" Shouted the Grounder.
"Nope, I already told you that like twenty minutes ago, duh! So anyways, as I was saying before getting rudely interrupted, it wasn't really glorious but it was just the beginning because I-"
"Okay, here is the deal," the Grounder interrupted. "I'll answer three of your questions, and you'll definitely shut up. Deal?"
Cassie bit her lip, weighing her decision. On the one hand, she would have liked to know where she was, where she was going and many other things. On the other hand, keeping the silence would have annoyed her, especially since she had been walking for hours, following the Grounder's horse across the prairies.
"Nah, man, I'm good, thanks."
"It's either that, or I'll gag you," she growled.
Kinky!
Cassie hesitated a few more seconds before making up her mind.
"Okay, deal."
The Grounder let out a sigh that sounded like relief.
"Okay, so, I was wondering: what's your name?"
"Anya."
"Anya what?"
"What?"
"Your full name."
"Anya kom Trikru," the Grounder muttered.
"Okay, cool. That's a nice name. In Russian, it means 'grace'. Yeah, I like languages," she added in front of Anya's frowning gaze. "And names. Mine's Cassie, by the way. Cassiopea. Like the constellation."
Anya groaned again, she obviously couldn't care less.
"Next question," the young woman continued. "Where are we?"
"In Yujleda territory."
"Yujleda," the young woman repeated, testing the word on her tongue.
"The Broadleaf Clan," Anya clarified with a sigh. "Last question."
"Where are we going?"
"To Polis."
"Why?"
"That's a fourth question. Now, shut up and keep walking."