Minho is rudely awaken by the feeling of a hand over his mouth and a hand shaking his shoulder.
Minho surprises the person by sitting up suddenly and using his weight to throw the person off of him. Minho hears a thud as he gets up to fight or run.
"Minho! It's me, Atom. Bellamy sent me in here to get you." Atom hisses.
Minho looks around the Dropship, and miraculously no one woke up. Minho looks forward to see Atom standing while rubbing his shoulder.
Minho rubs the back of his neck, "Sorry." He whispers.
Atom motions for him to follow, and they carefully navigate their way out of the Dropship, avoiding the sleeping figures of the delinquents.
Once outside Minho notices it's even earlier then it was the day before. He sees Bellamy and some other boys standing at the tree line. Atom walks over to them and Minho quietly follows, curious to see what this is about.
Bellamy turns to face Minho and smirks, "We were wondering if you wanted to join us, were going hunting."
Minho looks around, and notices all of the boys are either 17 or about to turn 18, and they are all big. Minho thinks he could take most of them out if it was one on one, but if they were to gang up on him he wouldn't stand a chance.
"What's the catch?" Minho asks.
"No catch. Yesterday I noticed how fast you are, and you look pretty strong." Bellamy states.
Minho looks at the boys wrists and notices all of them got rid of theirs. "So you aren't going to gang up on me and take my wristband." Minho asks, preparing to run if things go south.
Bellamy looks at Minho's wrist for a second and says, "Not yet."
Minho can respect his honesty, even if it makes him want to tell him he is stupid for thinking this will do any good. "Fine, but how do we kill what we catch?"
Miller hands him a crudely made spear and says, "Don't break it."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Minho retorts.
-Line Break-
"What is that?" Minho asks, wiping the sweat from his brow before pointing to the cloud of fog coming toward them.
"I don't know, but lets not stay here to find out." Miller says.
A few of the boys panic and take off in different directions. Minho ends up with Miller, they are hiding in a cluster of rocks.
Minho lets out a sigh of relief, and then they hear a scream. Minho peaks out and sees Atom, his skin looks as if he was burned, and Atom is trying to find cover. Minho rushes out to help him but he feels the burning sensation and Miller pulls him back in. Miller pours his water bottle over Minho, and relief soon follows.
"Thanks." Minho croaks. He looks down at his skin and see's it's a light pink as if he were sunburnt, a word of the past and it will now it has become part of their vocabulary once agian.
Miller gives Minho a tight smile.
Minho looks at Atom withering in pain on the ground screaming for help.
"There's got to be something we can do to help him." Minho says desperately.
Miller shakes his head sadly, "Not if we want to end up like him."
Minho glances at Atom once more before turning away, giving him what respect he could offer at this moment.
Soon Atom's screams for help turn to screams of death, he is begging for someone to kill him. Minho watches as Miller closes his eyes and clutch his spear, Minho understands the feeling of uselessness he just wants to run and never stop.
Minho peaks out and sees Atom, he can't seem to move nor see, and his voice has gone horse with the screams of pain. He rasps, begging for relief, for death.
Minho grips his spear thinking about it, about giving him the relief he so desperately craves, but a small part of him thinks Atom can be saved by Clarke or the Ark if the can ever get in contact with them.
"It's clear." Minho whispers, afraid to disrupt the atmosphere.
Miller opens his eyes, and they are blood shot from the inner turmoil he is going through, and looks at Minho. They both brace themselves before leaving their shelter.
Atom is lying on his back, his sightless eyes staring at the endless sky, his chest heaving for every breath, his throat rasping every time air enters and exits, and he keeps begging, "Please kill me, please."
Minho looks at Miller, and notices the haunted expression on his face, they were probably close while on the ground. Minho kneels next to Atom and looks for a place to offer a comforting touch, but no such place exists on Atom's body. Minho settles for gently placing his hand on the crown of Atom's head, the hair seemed to offer a minuscule amount of protection.
Atom's unseeing eyes look in the direction of Minho, and he asks, "Bellamy? Octavia? Miller? Please kill me, please."
Tears trail down Atom's scorched face.
"It's Minho. Don't worry we are going to get Clarke and she's going to fix you up." Minho says, his tone soothing.
"Just end it, please." Atom begs.
Minho looks up at Miller and see's Miller stare at Atom, not knowing what to do.
"I'm going to go get Clarke, I'll be right back." Minho says, he pats Atom's hair like how his father use to do when he was little.
"No, please no. Please just end it, please." Atom is sobbing by this point. His tone is desperate.
Miller finally kneels next to Atom, on the side opposite of Minho, "It's going to be fine. Don't worry."
Atom's unfocused eyes move from Minho's direction to Miller, "Miller, please. I can't-please."
Miller says, "Don't worry I'm going to go get Bellamy, he'll know what to do."
Miller and Minho are grasping at straws here, trying in vain to comfort Atom, holding on to the futile hope that he can be saved.
Then Bellamy and a girl appear and Bellamy focuses on Atom, "Atom?" Bellamy whispers, his voice holding no strength.
"Bellamy?" Atom asks.
Bellamy places a hand on Minho's shoulder and Minho gets up, Bellamy falls to his knees as he grasps Atom's shoulder. Atom doesn't seem to feel it.
"It's me." Bellamy answers.
"Please kill me." Atom croaks.
"Someone get Clarke!" Bellamy yells, and Miller hops to his feet.
Miller's about to take off when Clarke suddenly bursts through to their little clearing, Wells and Finn are hot on her heels.
She takes in the scene in front of her and walks over to Bellamy. All the emotions on her face are sealed behind a mask the moment she saw Atom.
"Bell-please. Please end it." Atom begs, his voice barely loud enough to hear.
Bellamy looks at Clarke, the hope in his eyes makes Minho want to go back in time and stop himself from getting arrested.
"Clarke's here, she's going to help." Bellamy says.
"Please, please kill me." Atom begs, thought the gasps of breath.
Clarke takes Bellamy's knife, and then starts humming while gently stroking Atom's hair, she places the knife next to his neck and in a swift motion it enters his neck before being wrenched out. Atom chokes on his blood momentarily before finally finding peace.
Minho's respect for Clarke grows, and he can tell that everyone else feels the same.
-Line Break-
Miller and Bellamy carry Atom's body back to camp, and once there Well's begins digging a grave with the rest. Miller and Bellamy help.
Minho looks around and notices it's a wasteland, nobody's around.
"There probably in the Dropship, waiting the fog out." Finn says, walking up to the Dropship to let the others know it's safe.
Minho really wants to see Newt and Thomas, they are the only thing he has left from home and he needs them to be okay.
Newt is one of the first ones out, and he immediately zeros in on Minho. "What happened?" Newt asks.
Minho looks over his shoulder at Atom's body and Newt prods no more. Then Thomas shows up out of nowhere, looking a little worse for wear but alive. Minho asks, "What happened?" If Thomas notices the wavier in Minho's voice he doesn't say anything.
"Murphy tried to kill Jasper, the delinquents were going stir crazy at the sound of his screams of pain. Newt, Monty, Octavia, and I barricaded ourselves in their to make sure nothing happened to him." Thomas explains.
The three boys try to ignore Octavia's screams of anguish.
-Line Break-
Minho can't sleep, so he lays next to one of the dying fires and stares at the stars, wishing he could kill whoever thought it would be a good idea to arrest kids and then send them down to Earth to die. He's starting to think the Ark never coming down is a good idea.
Newt and Thomas come out and sit next to him.
"I want it off." Minho says.
"What?" Thomas asks.
Newt just gives Minho a knowing look.
"The wristband, I want it off. I want the Ark to suffer whatever it's going through. They sent us down here to die, by radiation, starvation, dehydration, each other, they don't care they just wanted to see if we could survive so they could come down early. We are nothing but involuntary lab rats, sent down here so the Ark could sit up in space safely and slowly pick off those who can't defend themselves. They deserve to die. All of humanity deserves to die for all I care. We caused all this, we should be punished for it." Minho says. By the end of his rant his chest is heaving, and he feels the need to hit something.
Thomas sits quietly, thinking about Minho's words.
But Newt speaks up, "It took me a while to realize this, but humanity is worth saving. Our lives or worth it. Your life is worth it. My life is worth it."
A/N I know this didn't follow the episode very much, but I feel like Atom's death was overlooked. It was when we began to realize how young the delinquents are, and how innocent they can be. Including Bellamy, he had hope that he could save his sister and every one else but then he lost someone he was close to. Clarke lost her innocence the day her dad died, but anything remaining died with Atom. The kids with Atom all had to grow up that day, their hope that they could be saved was crushed.
I'm going to stop now before I write a whole paper about the moral ambiguity of this amazing show.
Please review and let me know what you think!
Until next time (This is definitely the last update of the weekend, I have homework :( and finals are coming up).