12 – Tiny Lungs
Her mind was made up. She'd let too many things distract her, but today was the day: she was going to find the medicine chest.
After her first full night's rest since she had been on Earth, Marlow went to the deadened campfire to pack her bag with rations and line her stomach for the day ahead. When she took her usual place next to Alfie, he was studying his wrist. It was still raw where the wristband had once choked it, the skin speckled with tiny, scabbed dots.
"Having second thoughts?" she asked, laying her tools on the ground in front of her. "Because I don't think it's going to snap back on all that easily."
He turned to her with his usual wolfish grin and knocked back a handful of the berries that had been passed around for breakfast. Marlow knew without asking that he'd already been up for hours.
"No regrets," he said determinedly.
They sat in companionable silence as they ate their small meal, both enjoying the vantage point of the camp from the tuft of the hill where they sat. They had shared so many meals in that same spot that the grass had parted to the shapes of their bodies – the sudden edges of Alfie's sprawled limbs where he usually reclined, and the soft bend of Marlow's crossed legs as she sat down to work. They moulded into those shapes as though they were blueprints of themselves during each meagre meal of the day.
"I'm really not going to change your mind, am I?" Alfie said, from where he lay with his arms behind his head. "You're not going to take yours off?"
She shook her head as much as she dared without drawing concentration away from her carving knife. She had made a few crude wooden knives for others around the camp, mostly the younger kids who had no other protection, but this knife – this one was for her. "No, and I know oxygen's not exactly scarce down here but still, don't waste your breath."
"I don't get it, Drift. I thought you were as glad to see the back of the Ark as I was."
"Oh, I am. No more bullshit rules or hypocritical leadership. No more daily fight for survival," she said, tossing some wood scraps on to the fire pit. The shavings settled among the ashes, perfect kindling for later. "Well, okay, maybe we're not entirely free of that down here, but hey, at least we get to be oppressed and scared for our lives in a beautiful setting. It's just nice to finally belong somewhere, you know?"
Just beyond the careful cuts and flicks of her blade, she could see Alfie's russet eyes watching her intently.
"So what's keeping that shackle around your wrist?" he said. "It's not like you owe anyone up there anything. It's not like there's anyone watching out for you."
Her steady hand slipped, and her emotions with it.
Alfie must have sensed he'd struck a nerve. "Wait, I didn't mean –"
"No, you're right. I have no family," she agreed, digging the knife in to the wood. "At least not in the traditional sense. But I do have people who are counting on me, whether they realise it or not."
"I have no idea where you're going with all this cryptic introspection, but it's not anyone up there I'm concerned about. It's your freedom I'm considering. You don't belong to them and this is the perfect way to prove it. Let me take it off for you. I've gotten pretty good at it."
"Only because you've been taking them off for other people, right?"
"How did you –?"
"We're a small group living in an even smaller space. Word travels, Alfie." She couldn't meet his eyes. Her knife moved faster, huge chunks of wood flying haphazardly across the ground. "Look, I know why freedom was important to you. I was happy to be able to give you that much. But you've got to stop taking off the others'."
He sat up sharply. "You do realise I'm not forcing anyone to do this, right? These kids are coming to me. They don't want their shitty parents to know they're still alive. They're just like me – the Ark means nothing to them, and I hardly see how their need for independence falls under your jurisdiction."
"Because the Ark is dying, Alfie!" Her tools hit the ground like lightning. She kept her hands curled around them, knuckles white from the pressure.
"What?" He scowled. Marlow could almost see how his mind was turning over her words.
"I should have told you before, before you made the decision to cut yours off." She sighed, and tried to gather her thoughts. "Aggie figured it out. Whoever made the calculations for oxygen on the Ark was wrong. There were supposed to be years of life left in the old tin can yet, but things are desperate. Oxygen supplies are likely to run dry within two months at best. The Ark is no longer sustainable. They need those wristbands to determine whether Earth is a safe alternative."
For half a minute, she could have sworn it looked like Alfie gave a damn. And then, suddenly, "So?"
"So?" she repeated. "So your mother is on that ship. Your father. Thousands of perfectly innocent people who will die if we don't prove to the Ark that they can come here. If they keep seeing the wristband signals blinking out, they'll assume we're all dying because of Earth's conditions."
"It's difficult to care when we're being used as nothing but lab rats," Alfie answered, his voice as sour as acid. "They sent us here knowing that we could die. Why should I care if they meet the same fate?"
"I'm not even asking for you to care," Marlow said, throwing her hands up in the air with disbelief. "God knows we can't expect the Suicide King to rise from his throne for the sake of us lesser mortals. I'm just asking you to leave the other wristbands. This is bigger than your mommy issues."
In one quick motion, she tossed her tools, weapon and food into her bag. They mixed together in a jumble, just like her feelings. Swinging the bag over her shoulder, she made to walk away.
"Where are you going?" Alfie snapped. She knew he hated to be left in the middle of an argument, and that was exactly why she did it.
"Away," she answered, without a second look at him. "I'll be back when you've grown yourself a backbone."
She headed straight into the forest, wincing when she heard Alfie hit something in the distance. She hoped it wasn't another person.
She'd hoped to ask him along on this expedition – Alfie was the camp's self-designated scout, and he knew the woods better than anyone. But he needed some time. She knew he'd rant and rave at her comments for a couple of hours, and vehemently deny to himself that there was even a scrap of truth in what she had said. He'd probably pick a fight with someone, just to take his mind off things. Then, in the cold, numb aftermath of the adrenaline, he'd begin to realise deep down that she was right. Not that he'd ever admit to it. As long as he left the other wristbands alone, that was as much as she could ask for.
She had to admit, she needed some time alone herself. The angry buzz of Alfie's thoughts and the nagging clamour of the camp left her craving the quiet windings of the forest. She tucked her freshly carved knife into her back pocket so she could run her hands across the barks of the trees she passed. She liked to think about the creatures that called them home. Each tree had hundreds, thousands of lifeforms large and small clamouring for life inside them. From the rust-coloured squirrel that nestled in the higher branches, to the tiny line of ants tiptoeing obediently over the wooden knots. Every action they took was a starving grasp at life, a hungry breath in tiny lungs. Each tree was an Ark all of its own, the animals blundering through its insides just the way she had in her old home.
When she started to see more debris, charred and blackened from the dropship's descent, she turned her eyes downwards. She kicked aside the remnants of a thruster casing and it left her shoe filthy with ash. Her only hope was that the medicine chest had fallen first, before the flames and destruction had begun. Of course that would also mean it would be further afield, and by extension, further into Grounder territory.
She didn't feel particularly threatened at the moment though. How could she, with the world so bright and infinite around her? All was silent, all was well. She adjusted the strap of her bag and kept on walking, enjoying the freshness of the new day.
The debris grew more frequent, then thinned out once again. Some of the scraps seemed to be in better condition than the others, but they were still scorched around the edges. Gently pushing aside some underbrush, she saw something that looked like a roll of gauze. She bent to examine it, and it crumbled in her hands.
"Guess the acid fog didn't do you much good, huh?" she grimaced, pushing down her guilt for not beginning her search sooner. Who knew what the rest of the kit would look like by now?
She stood, turning in a full circle to check out her surroundings. It must be close now, she told herself.
The remains of the gauze fell from her hands like snow. She waded into a thicket, choked with tall plants that softly stung her as she passed. There was the edge of something that could have been a grey box, poking out from between the green. She took a step towards it.
Something grabbed at her ankle. All at once the world turned to a blur. Her stomach lurched and her body went with it as she was snatched into the air. She was too winded to call out, too dizzy to make sense of what had happened. Her head throbbed from the pressure as she began to realise she was upside down. She pushed aside her long hair to catch a glimpse of her ankle. A thick cord was wrapped around it, the other end to a tree branch. She could tell from the pain that she had sprained it.
"A goddamn trap," she scolded herself, breathless. "You survive the fall from space to Earth and you get yourself caught in damn hunter's trap. Nice going, Mars."
Wearily, she snaked her hand up across her back and into her back pocket. Fortunately the knife had stayed put, though the rest of her belongings were scattered across the forest floor. Gearing her muscles for the strain, she folded her body upwards, bringing her hands towards her feet. Quickly she started to saw away the rope, all the while trying to ignore the nagging feeling that the trap was more expertly crafted than anything she had seen their camp's hunters use.
Each attempt at the rope was short and painful, with frequent rests where she could do nothing more than hang there and let the blood rush to her head. The knot was clinging on by threads by the time she took her fourth rest. Her body ached from the exertion and her heart beat in her ears. That was when she saw a shadow fall on the ground beneath her.
"Thank goodness someone showed up," she said to the shadow, feeling as though her eyes were swollen to twice their usual size. "I think I'll live down the total humiliation of this, but please, just cut me down, will you?"
The person was silent as they moved behind her, out of sight. Her stomach lurched anew.
"I was actually out looking for the medicine chest," she explained to the stranger, straining to hear the dull rasp of their breath. "I know, I know. A fool's errand. But with all those people wounded back at camp, I at least had to… try!"
The last word came out as half a scream as the stranger let her fall roughly to the ground. Her spine took most of the beating, but at least she'd saved her head. The world whirled for a second time that day, until something large and dark blotted out the sun.
The face that stared down at her was thick with dirt. It wore a stony expression.
The same instant she realised it was a Grounder was the same moment a scream ripped from her throat. In response, the huge figure swept her up, and tossed her over its shoulder, as though she were nothing more than a sack of downy feathers. She punched and kicked but her attacks bounced off the stranger as though they didn't feel them at all.
She called out, knowing she was too far from camp for anyone to hear her. She carried on anyway, desperately trying to claim someone's, anyone's, attention. The Grounder only stood a few moments of the shouting before something fabric and foul-tasting was shoved into her mouth. It tasted like human sweat and she gagged, noticing with an overwhelming sense of despair that they had walked right past the medicine chest. It was open, ransacked, and empty.